What’s the first thing you notice about Eddie Palmieri’s music? Is it the rugged flow of his percussionists, who seem to multiply upon themselves, clopping in and out of rumba and son rhythms? Is it the way he can make a piano chord spring out at you, working as both a tangled lump and a knife? Maybe it’s his compositions, potent and concise as any pop song but always ready to roll themselves out into a fiercely danceable solo section.

His storytelling is a lot like his music — jumpy, effusive, thoroughly rehearsed but seemingly spontaneous. For a journalist, interviewing this bantam-like NEA Jazz Master is an act of awe and frustration: He’s programmed himself so well that it’s as if someone pushed a shuffle button on his forehead. He pings from one punchline or lightning-quick anecdote to the next, often without mind to chronology, always with a well-timed geyser of laughter at the end.

You know the guy has told these stories a thousand times, adding and subtracting for full effect, but they’re as catchy as an earworm. And he’s got enough history to fill a textbook: nine Grammy victories, world tours, tax debt that led to bankruptcy, some record label feuds for the ages, and a catalog of status quo-shattering albums. You might argue that the 76-year-old pianist has left his imprimatur on most of Latin music’s major innovations over the past 50 years, from the blend of Charanga and rumba that his La Perfecta band fostered to the boogaloo genre he helped invent to the Latin jazz experimentations he’s pioneered since the 1990s.

 
Palmieri appears at the Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club this weekend, playing sets on Friday and Saturday nights with his expert Latin Jazz Septet. When we connected earlier this week for a roving interview, he reflected on his upbringing in 1950s New York City, the half-century he’s spent as a top-tier bandleader, and the young musicians he feels fortunate to be playing with today.

CapitalBop: We’re excited to be having you in D.C. this weekend. How are you?

Eddie Palmieri: I’m better than ever before in my life…. Chocolate Armenteros, the great Chocolate, he taught me that after 50 you start counting by one. So I’m getting ready to celebrate my 27th birthday, and I’ve never felt better.

CB: You grew up in Spanish Harlem and then the Bronx. Music was everywhere around you – your older brother, the great Charlie Palmieri, and your uncle were both professional musicians.

EP: I was born on E. 112 Street, between Madison and Park Avenues. I just talked to the community leaders … and my brother Charlie will get the dedication of “Charlie Palmieri Way” on 112 Street. We do the presentation next year, and I’ll play a concert.

CB: Congratulations. I know you’ve fought hard for his legacy.

EP: I used to play stickball – a team called the Sparrows, and the Mighty Midgets. That was our imitation of baseball. And I was also a Giants fan. I was already at the piano at 8 years old.

My mother had arrived in New York [from Puerto Rico] when she was 16 years old, in 1925. My father came over later…. She sponsored my father, and then she sponsored her mother and father and five brothers. They all came to New York and we all lived in Harlem – wherever we would live, [her parents] always had an apartment upstairs. When we moved to Kelly Street [in the Bronx], same thing.

When I was 11 years old, my brother recommended me to Margaret Bonds. She’s in the Negro history books. She gave me classical training. Then I ended up with a teacher called Claudio Savaña, a Spaniard. He brought me into thinking about the independence of each finger…. My students at Rutgers have no idea what I’m talking about, the double-scale technique — thirds and sixths. The fingers are so uneven, to play even thirds [in harmony] that sound like bells, you have to touch, press, touch, press until you acquire speed. Once it happens and you’re able to achieve something muscular, particularly on the piano, then the brain takes it and stores it in the spinal column…. It allowed me to do what I was doing on Azucar Pa’ Ti, accompanying myself with both hands. Because of that “Azucar” is in the Library of Congress’ [National Recording Registry], which is something I’m very grateful for.

Anyway, when I was 13, I went with my uncle to play timbales [in his band]. I wanted to be a timbal player…. Tito Puente was the superstar of the moment. I played two years with my uncle, starting in 1949. I eventually went back on the piano. My mother was a smart lady. She used to see me lugging those drums around, and she’d say, “Edward, do you see how nice your brother looks, playing the piano, not having to carry those heavy drums around?” I used to be lugging those timbales up the stairs, and I’d say, “I’m learning, mom!” [laughs]

My father was into radio and television [repair] until he and my grandfather got involved with a luncheonette called El Mambo. I was the soda jerk, carrying boxes up and down the stairs, and selling cigarettes — at 6 cents a pack, unbelievable. But what I loved is that I was in charge of the jukebox. Kids would come in and have sodas and be dancing around the jukebox.…

 
CB: And it wasn’t long until you were playing around in a few other bands.

EP: I started with a number of different orchestras…. When I was playing with Johnny Seguí, they fired me – the club owners fired me – because they said I was hitting the piano too hard. They used to call me “Pancho Rompeteclas” [Pancho the Key-Breaker].

That was the best thing that happened because then I went with Vicentico Valdés. I started at the Palladium, what they called the graveyard shift – eight weeks, 10 weeks, in the summer.… That’s where I got my library, from listening to all the great players [in that band] – especially René Hernández, the pianist and arranger. For me, he was my musical godfather….

Then I go with Tito Rodríguez from 1958 to ’60, and I record one album with Tito Rodríguez called Live at the Palladium, which is a classic. He just knew how to handle an orchestra — great musicians.

I left Tito and then started my own band [La Perfecta]….. I wanted a conjunto with trumpets – and one Tuesday I went to a social club called the Tritons. [Johnny] Pacheco was extremely hot, and he was throwing jam sessions on Tuesdays, and that’s where I met [the trombonist] Barry Rogers…. In the end of 1961, La Perfecta starts. George Castro, who played wooden flute, would join me too. One day I had enough money to bring in both Rogers and Castro and that was the beginning of La Perfecta.

We changed the lineup [from what was standard]: two trombones up front, instead of in the back behind the saxophones and the trumpets.

CB: Your band was very successful, pretty much immediately. You played sold-out shows at the Palladium, and you sold lots of albums. But from the very beginning, you were being cheated by your record label. This was the beginning of a trend.

EP: There was no choice in the matter. When I signed my contract with Morris Levy, Symphony Sid on my side, there was a woven tapestry behind his desk. At least he was forthright in letting you know what to expect, because it said on the tapestry: “Oh lord, bring me a bastard with talent.” He said, “Do you have a publishing [deal]?” I didn’t know anything about publishing. He said, “Would you allow me to dance at this wedding?” And as soon as I looked around, he’d screwed the bride, screwed the groom, screwed all the bridesmaids, and ate all the wedding cake! [After taking control of Palmieri’s publishing rights, Levy got access to the royalties for his compositions.]

CB: You’re bringing your Latin Jazz Septet to the Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club. Talk about that band, and how it differs from your famous salsa orchestra.

EP: The big band is my baby … but then I do the septet, and it’s all incorporated. When I come to play at the Blues and Jazz Club, I’ll have Luques Curtis, the young [bass] phenom, and Louis Fouché, the most brilliant alto sax player in the world. He went to MIT then came back and got back into music. [On trumpet is] Jonathan Powell, who took Brian Lynch’s place. Then you have Anthony Carrillo, one of the best percussionists in the world.… He played bongo on Palo Pa Rumba. Camilo Molina on timbales and batá as well, and then we have Little Johnny Rivero on conga.

What comes out of there is quality. Because it’s the best musicians that I could find, always, plus I’m no chopped liver, so to speak. [laughs] Our presentation is, in Spanish, potencia concentrada: concentrated power. We burn the bandstand, no matter where. I’m going to get my 10th Grammy in Vegas next month, for lifetime achievement.

CB: And you don’t stop. What’s next?

EP: There’s a new CD that will be out next year, Wisdom, and it’s something extremely exciting and different. It started as a soundtrack for a basketball documentary, Doing It in the Streets, and it came out so good we just kept recording.

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Eddie Palmieri’s Latin Jazz Septet performs at 8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. Tickets cost $40 and can be purchased here. More information is available here.

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