TRUMPETER, COMPOSER, ARRANGER
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To lovers of Latin music (and particularly those who collect records of these genres), Marty Sheller's name is certainly a familiar one. As a trumpet player he's best remembered for his work with Mongo Santamaria's 1960's group, where his solos were acclaimed both for their fiery quality and clarity of organization. From 1963 through 1968 he served as Mongo's musical director. The embouchure problems that caused his trumpet career to wind down in the late 60's had no effect on this relationship. As an arranger, producer, conductor and friend, Marty's presence was a given in every project for the rest of Santamaria's life. The Fania boom of the late 60's coincided with the emergence of Marty Sheller as a full time arranger/composer; along with Luis Cruz Junior and Louie Ramirez he can be considered one of the architects of the Fania sound of the 1970's. Major artists who have recorded his arrangements and original compositions include Willie Colon, Ruben Blades, Tito Puente, Larry Harlow, Manny Oquendo's Libre, Woody Shaw, T.S. Monk, George Benson, Shirley Scott, Giovanni Hidalgo, Sabu Martinez, David Byrne, Steve Turre and The Lincoln Center Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra.
Looking at the above career summary, it would be easy to focus on the big names in the Salsa world. Doing so, however, presents a one-dimensional view of Marty Sheller and the musical influences that shaped him. As a young adult, he was passionate about the emerging music of Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Horace Silver and John Coltrane. When Marty decided to record an album of his own, he arranged and produced the entire project , choosing some songs by other composers and composing the rest himself. The horn players approach the songs from a strictly jazz point of view; it's the rhythm section that follows a Latin groove, but even within that they're playing with a jazz approach. In "The Route 40 Flyer," "Love In A Mist," "El Pavo", and Wayne Shorter's "Mahjong," the typical Sheller use of Latin elements is implicit rather than explicit. There are no congas, bongos or cow bells (other than some tasty percussion overdubs by Steve Berrios) to make the Latin-ness obvious. Nor does the music employ the call and response forms and road map features of typical Afro-Cuban music (other than the piano vamp that Oscar Hernandez beautifully integrates into the final drum solo of "Mahjong" ). What makes these numbers "get over" with the listeners is not the externals of form or tone color, but the deeply bilingual musical roots of all the musicians. Playing Marty's music requires excellent reading skills and calls for strength in both mainstream jazz and in Latin rhythms and forms. The players are completely comfortable in this musical environment --- a testament to their "open ears" and a tribute to their musicianship.
Pianist Oscar Hernandez, bassist Ruben Rodriguez, drummer Vince Cherico and percussionist Steve Berrios provide the rhythmic foundation. The frontline consists of trumpeters Chris Rogers and Joe Magnarelli, trombonist Sam Burtis, alto saxophonist Bobby Porcelli and tenor saxophonist Bob Franceschini. On "Why Deny," these world-class musicians bring the sounds Sheller put on paper very much to life. Aficionados who've followed his career will surely be pleased, while those experiencing his music for the first time are unlikely to deny the enormous talent that is Marty Sheller.
"Why Deny" was nominated as a finalist for a 2008 Jazz Journalists Association Award in the category of "Latin Jazz Album of the Year."
THE MARTY SHELLER ENSEMBLE - WHY DENY (2007)
Jazz with a Latin undertone. If you liked the way that Art Blakey or Horace Silver played Latin/Jazz, you'll love this version of jazz with an authentic Afro-Cuban rhythmic groove
Trumpet: Chris Rogers and Joe
Magnarelli
Trombone: Sam Burtis
Alto Sax: Bobby Porcelli
Tenor Sax: Bob Franceschini
Piano: Oscar Hernandez
Bass: Ruben Rodriguez
Drums: Vince Cherico
Percussion: Steve Berrios
more tracks can be heard on Vinilemania's Radio Channels
SOME NICE COMMENTS ABOUT "WHY DENY"
"I have known Marty Sheller for more than forty years. His depth of talent and skill did not surface for me until I heard this CD. Our tenure with Mongo Santamaria's band required production of material that would quickly be embraced by a large demographic, thus often filled with superficiality. Now Marty's skill and talent are fully unleashed and demonstrated in this recording. I highly recommend it." Hubert Laws
"This is a great CD --- full of hip New York City shit --- that's the only way to put it! Wonderful playing and of course there's the unique Marty Sheller composing and arranging style which is still as fresh as it was 30 years ago!" Randy Brecker
"This recording reflects the best in Marty --- great music, great band, great arrangements and Bobby Porcelli sounds better than I've ever heard." Sonny Fortune
"Marty Sheller is a musician's musician. Growing up in the Latin field, whenever I found myself playing a particularly hip arrangement, nine out of ten times it was Marty's. But quiet as it's kept, Marty can write anything...big band, conjunto Latin, straight-ahead jazz, you name it! And, like my father, do it all with grace, humor and brilliance. For this project, Marty has assembled the absolute finest Latin-Jazz musicians on the planet. The groove that the rhythm section of Vince Cherico, Ruben Rodriguez, Oscar Hernandez and Steve Berrios produces sounds effortless and inspired. The front line of Bob Franceschini, Bobby Porcelli, Sam Burtis, Chris Rogers and Joe Magnarelli is razor sharp yet filled with the kind of improvisations that combine pure imagination with technical mastery. This is a great CD from a master composer and arranger. May this be the first of many, many, many more." Arturo O'Farrill
ABOUT MARTY SHELLER
Marty Sheller, Jewish-American trumpet player, composer, arranger and record producer was born March 15, 1940 in Newark, New Jersey. His first instrument was snare drum which he took up at age 10, studying with a neighborhood friend of his family, and even though he switched to trumpet a year later, his love of percussion has played a major role in his career. Sheller attended South Side High School and began college at Columbia University in New York City where he met fellow student and pianist Myron Schwartzman who introduced him to another student at the school, alto saxophonist Bobby Porcelli. They have all remained close friends since those days, when Sheller and Porcelli could be heard practicing Charlie Parker--Dizzy Gillespie unison lines in Marty's dorm room.
Sheller made his professional debut in 1958, playing a summer gig with Porcelli, Schwartzman, and drummer Wilbur Bailey at the Woodbine Hotel in the Catskill Mountains. As young adults, they were passionate about the emerging music of Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Horace Silver and John Coltrane, and that summer was spent transcribing and playing songs from their recordings. In the fall, Sheller joined a band led by tenor saxophonist Hugo Dickens that played at dances, fashion shows and cocktail sips sponsored by black social clubs in Harlem on Friday and Saturday nights. The clubs wanted a band that could play rhythm and blues as well as Latin, and there was a group of musicians in New York that had grown up listening to both kinds of music and knew how to play them authentically. There were three bands working that circuit; Hugo Dickens, Pucho, and Joe Panama. Many musicians who played in these bands went on to become very influential in the jazz and Latin--jazz scene, including drummers Pete "La Roca" Sims, Phil Newsum and Steve Berrios, pianists Rodgers Grant and Arthur Jenkins, bassist Bill Salter, trombonist Barry Rogers, alto saxophonists Bobby Porcelli and Bobby Capers, and Hubert Laws who doubled on tenor sax, flute, guitar and vocals. In 1959 Sheller began playing with composer, arranger, timbalero, vibraharpist and pianist Louie Ramirez, and in 1960 they put together a Latin--jazz band that played jazz songs with a Latin rhythm section, but the band found little work. The group included conguero Frankie Malabe, whom Sheller sites as an important early influence. Sheller spent many afternoons at Malabe's house on Simpson Street in The Bronx (across the street and a few doors down from the infamous police station nicknamed "Fort Apache") studying African and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Malabe would arrange two seats facing each other, put on a record, and demonstrate the conga parts by playing them on Sheller's knees, explaining the time-keeping patterns and their relationship to the clave. The Sheller/Ramirez band, finding few places that would hire them, discontinued rehearsals until conga player Sabu Martinez hired the entire group, minus Malabe, to play on "Sabu's Jazz Espagnole" (originally issued on Al Santiago's Alegre Label), considered by connoisseurs of Latin-jazz to be one of the genre's quintessential recordings. Sheller was working with another timbalero-vibraharpist, Pete Terrace, when he first met Mongo Santamaria at a club in the Bronx in 1961. The Cuban conga great had recently come from San Francisco to New York with a charanga band. In November of 1962, Sheller got a call from Santamaria, who had dropped the flute-and-violins lineup of the charanga band in favor of a Latin-jazz sound with a frontline of trumpet, alto saxophone and tenor saxophone. Three days before Sheller began rehearsals, Mongo needed a piano player for a weekend gig in a Bronx club. Chick Corea had just left the band and Donald Byrd recommended a young pianist from Chicago. Byrd explained that the pianist had probably never played with a Latin band, but that he was a very good musician and wasn't working -- it was Herbie Hancock. At the end of the gig, Hancock played a song for Santamaria that he had recently recorded and felt would fit with a rhythm he heard Santamaria play that weekend. The song was "Watermelon Man," and Hancock brought the music to Mongo's rehearsal (Sheller's first rehearsal with Santamaria). When the band first played the song in public, at The Blue Coronet in Brooklyn, the people went wild. Pete Long, Santamaria's manager, phoned Orrin Keepnews at Riverside Records with the news and persuaded the producer to come out to the club (on Thanksgiving night 1962) to hear the reaction for himself. The next week, Keepnews recorded the song for release as a single. Issued on Riverside's Battle subsidiary, "Watermelon Man" became a Top 10 hit. It features a trumpet solo by Sheller, not playing in his usual bop-imbued style but rather blowing simpler, funky lines inspired by Melvin Lastie's solo from the Barbara George hit "I Know." Sheller played with Santamaria, as well as composed, arranged, and eventually served as musical director through 1968, when he put down his trumpet due to embouchure problems. He continued, however, working with Santamaria as an arranger, composer, conductor and friend until the conguero's death in 2003. Among Santamaria's four Grammy-nominated Latin-jazz recordings Sheller produced was the album "Dawn," which won a Grammy for Best Latin Recording of 1977. Sheller's awareness of clave counterpoint, combined with a thorough grounding in hard bop, made him one of the most sought after New York arrangers. His jazz informed charts greatly contributed to the success of the salsa music issued by Fania Records from the late 60's through the late 80's. Along with Louie Ramirez and Luis Cruz Junior, he can be considered one of the architects of the Fania sound. Besides scoring the 1989 hit "El Gran Varon" and many other recordings and productions by Willie Colon, Sheller's arrangements can be heard on recordings by George Benson, Ruben Blades, David Byrne, Jon Faddis, The Fania All-Stars, Larry Harlow, Giovanni Hidalgo, Hector Lavoe, Arturo O'Farrill's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, Manny Oquendo's Libre, Sabu Martinez, Ismael Miranda, T.S. Monk, Idris Muhammad, Luis "Perico" Ortiz, Charlie Palmieri, Louie Ramirez, Tito Puente's Latin-Jazz Ensemble, Mongo Santamaria, Shirley Scott, Woody Shaw, The Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Steve Turre and many others. Sheller collaborated with Charlie Gerard on the book "Salsa - The Rhythm of Latin Music" and arranged a Clio Award-nominated Budweiser TV commercial featuring the singing of Jose Feliciano. He composed, arranged and produced the music for the PBS TV mini-series "Oye Willie" and did the same for the NBC TV (New York) Hispanic affairs program "Visiones." He has conducted workshops at Baruch College in New York City at The Milt Hinton Jazz Festival with Tito Puente's Latin-Jazz Ensemble and with Jerry Gonzales' Fort Apache Band. On October 1,2005 Sheller participated as a panelist in a conference at Harvard University coordinated by The Cultural Agents Initiative, The Smithsonian Institution and The Americas Society entitled "The Jewish Latin Mix; Making Salsa." That same evening, The Lincoln Center Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra premiered his composition "Counter Punch" featuring Bobby Porcelli on alto sax. On July 24,2006 Sheller was the subject of an oral history interview collected by The National Museum of American History (a part of The Smithsonian Institute). The interview is a key objective of the Online Project For Latino Jazz Documentation and Education. On February 19,2008 Sheller fulfilled a dream with the release of "Why Deny," the first recording issued under his own name on his own label, PVR Records. He has a second CD completed and continues composing and arranging for future releases of The Marty Sheller Ensemble.
