O'Farrill, Arturo "Chico": 1921—2001: Composer, Arranger, Musician

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Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill: 1921—2001: Composer, arranger, musician

One of the architects of Latin jazz, Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill made his mark by fusing jazz with Afro-Cuban music beginning in the late 1940s. Though he would write and arrange music for five more decades, he would receive the most recognition of his career in the last six years of his life. As the author of 1950's Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite, O'Farrill sealed his place in jazz history. Following a 30-year absence from recording his own material, O'Farrill re-emerged in 1995 with the Grammy nominated Pure Emotion. Two more acclaimed albums followed, as did a weekly gig at Manhattan's Birdland jazz club every Sunday night for three years, until illness prevented him from performing. He died of dysplastic anemia on June 27, 2001 in his adopted hometown of New York City, at the age of 79.

Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill was born in Havana, Cuba on October 28, 1921, the son of an Irish father and a Cuban mother of German descent. A bit of a troublemaker in his youth, O'Farrill's father sent him to a United States military school in Georgia in the hopes of instilling some discipline. The family had hoped that young Arturo would follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by becoming a lawyer upon returning to Cuba. Though that idea had already been abandoned by O'Farrill, it became a certainty when he discovered jazz. "In the States, I started listening to big bands on the radio — Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey," O'Farrill recalled in his Milestones Records biography. "And somewhere I got hold of a trumpet and joined the dance band in the school, and that sealed my fate."

Fused Jazz with Cuban Rhythms

Upon returning to Cuba, O'Farrill made a half-hearted attempt at law school, while simultaneously playing in a number of small jazz groups, such as Orquesta Bellemar, the Lecuona Cuban Boys, and with guitarist Isidro Perez. His father, irritated at his son's insistence on playing music, nevertheless arranged for O'Farrill to study composing and arrangement with the Cuban composer Felix Guerrero. Bored with the music of Cuba, O'Farrill decided the place he needed to be was New York.

In 1948 O'Farrill arrived in New York and immediately became aware of the possibilities of fusing jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Witnessing the work the bandleader Machito was doing with the help of Rene Hernandez and Mario Bauza, of adding jazz concepts to big-band Cuban music, O'Farrill used his knowledge of arrangement to seamlessly blend Latin rhythms and jazz, placing himself at the forefront of Latin jazz. "I grew up in the 30s hearing typical danzon-style music," O'Farrill recalled to Don Heckman of the Los Angeles Times. "There were also a lot of sextets, with two trumpets and a lot more rhythm. But what I really loved was the big American-style bands, with trumpets, saxophones and trombones; I loved that kind of sound. And the one thing that I thought Cuban music needed at the time was the richness of the instrumentation of jazz, and of the harmonies. And since I understood jazz and Cuban music, I felt I could bring the two together."

At a Glance . . .

Born Arturo O'Farrill on October 28, 1921 in Havana, Cuba; died June 27, 2001 in New York, NY; married Lupe; children: Arturo, Jr., Georgina.

Career: Freelance arranger and composer in New York, 1948-; recording artist: Chico O'Farrill Jazz, Clef, 1951; Jazz North of the Border, Verve, 1951; Chico O'Farrill, Norgran, 1951; The Second Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite, Norgran, 1951; Music from South America, Verve, 1951; Afro-Cuban, Clef, 1951; Mambo/Latino Dances, Verve, 1951; Mambo Dance Sessions, Norgran, 1954; Nine Flags, Impulse, 1966; Married Well, Verve, 1968; Pure Emotion, Milestone, 1995; Heart of a Legend, Milestone, 1999; Carambola, Milestone, 2000; film composer, Guaguasi, 1979.

Awards: Grammy nomination, Best Latin Jazz Recording for Pure Emotion, 1995; Latin Grammy nomination, Best Jazz Recording, Heart of a Legend, 1999, and Carambola, 2000.

O'Farrill made a name for himself in jazz circles almost as soon as he arrived in New York. Known as a competent arranger, most of his initial work was ghost-writing arrangements for arrangers such as Gil Fuller, Billy Byers and Quincy Jones, who had too much work on their hands. Still, he found time to pen songs under his own name, such as Undercurrent Blues which became a hit for Benny Goodman's bebop group.

Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite

In 1949 O'Farrill began a five year association with producer Norman Granz when he recorded Gone City with his friends Machito and Mario Bauza. The following year, O'Farrill brought another tune to a Machito recording session produced by Granz, that would become a Latin jazz classic and is considered O'Farrill's first masterpiece. The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite was recorded on December 21, 1950 with guest soloists Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips and Buddy Rich. In his obituary of O'Farrill, Ben Ratliff of the New York Times called the tune, "an ambitious work that took the graduated crescendo of Latin big-band music and applied to it a classical sense of contrasting themes and sophisticated harmony."

O'Farrill then composed another classic, The Manteca Suite, for Dizzy Gillespie, before moving back to Havana to avoid legal and marital difficulties in New York. He spent two years in Havana and in 1957 moved to Mexico City where he would stay until returning to New York in 1965. "It was great, for a while," he told Heckman of the Los Angeles Times, about Mexico. "I had my own band, I had a TV show, I made some records, and we had a good life." Mexico City was also the place where he wrote The Aztez Suite for trumpeter Art Farmer.

Returning to New York in the mid-1960s, O'Farrill found work arranging for Gillespie, Count Basie, the Glenn Miller Orchestra and many others. He was also music director for the TV series, Festival of the Lively Arts, and began a long and lucrative career writing music for commercials. "I found out that they were paying more for a 60-second toothpaste commercial than for a full chart for Count Basie," he's quoted as saying in his DownBeat obituary. But O'Farrill still put great effort into his commercial endeavors. "I think one of the reasons he was so successful, though, is that he could never really be a hack," O'Farrill's son, Arturo, Jr., explained to Mark Holston of Hispanic magazine. "He always wrote from the heart. So even his commercials were good music."

Heart of a Legend

From the 1970s to 1995, O'Farrill's primary output was music for commercials although he would still do freelance arranging on occasion, including a few pieces for David Bowie's 1993 Black Tie, White Noise album. In 1995, however, he returned to the recording studio to record Pure Emotion, his first studio album in 20 years, which the Los Angeles Times, called "a brilliant assemblage of Latin jazz, rich with sly musical subtleties." The recording would go on to be nominated for a Grammy in the Best Latin Jazz category.

He followed Pure Emotion with Heart of a Legend in 1999 and Carambola in 2000. Both of those efforts were nominated for a Latin Grammy for Best Jazz Recording. Additionally, O'Farrill set up shop at the Birdland jazz club in New York, where he led the 18-piece Chico O'Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra every Sunday night for three years. He was also featured in Fernando Trueba's 2000 documentary on Latin jazz, Calle 54. At the time of his death, he was working on the music for a Broadway adaptation of Oscar Hijuelo's novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. A documentary was also being made about his life by filmmaker Jorge Ulla, which is to be called Heart of a Legend.

Sadly, though his career was still arcing higher, Chico O'Farrill died on June 27, 2001 of complications of dysplastic anemia. His music is permanent, however, and as Fernando Gonzalez wrote in DownBeat: "He wrote big and brilliantly.… In the process, he took the music from the ballroom to the concert hall and showed both doubters and believers the extraordinary possibilities of this music."