Cal Tjader

Tjader died on tour. On the road with his band in Manila, he collapsed from a heart attack and died on 5 May 1982, aged 56.

In 1980, Tjader wound up recording with a sextet for Concord Picante (a subsidiary of the Concord label) and won a Grammy Award for 'La Onda Va Bien'.

Tjader cut five albums for Concord Picante, the most successful being La Onda Va Bien (1979) (roughly "The Good Life"), produced by Carl Jefferson and Frank Dorritie, which earned a Grammy award in 1980 for Best Latin Recording. The A section of Tjader's "Sabor" is a 2-3 onbeat/offbeat guajeo, minus some notes.

During the 1970s Tjader returned to Fantasy Records, the label he began with in 1954. Embracing the jazz fusion sound that was becoming its own subgenre at the time, he added electronic instruments to his lineup and began to employ rock beats behind his arrangements. His most notable album during this period is Amazonas (1975) (produced by Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira). He played on the soundtrack to the 1972 animated film Fritz the Cat, most notably on the track entitled "Mamblues". In 1976, Tjader recorded several live shows performed at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. Like the Monterey Jazz Festival show, he played a mix of jazz standards and Latin arrangements. Later he toured Japan with saxophonist Art Pepper, the latter recovering from alcohol and drug dependencies.

Other experiments were not so easily dismissed. Tjader teamed up with New Yorker Eddie Palmieri in 1966 to produce El Sonido Nuevo ("The New Sound"). A companion LP was recorded for Palmieri's contract label, Tico, titled Bamboleate. While Tjader's prior work was often dismissed as "Latin lounge", here the duo created a darker, more sinister sound. Cal Tjader Plays The Contemporary Music Of Mexico And Brazil (1962), released during the bossa nova craze, actually bucked the trend, instead using more traditional arrangements from the two countries' past. In the late 1960s Tjader, along with guitarist Gábor Szabó and Gary McFarland, helped to found the short-lived Skye record label. Tjader's work of this period is characterized by Solar Heat (1968) and Tjader Plugs In (1969), precursors to acid jazz.

His biggest single hit was the track "Soul Sauce" (1964) from his album of the same name, recorded on the East Coast in November 1964. The song was a reworking of the original Dizzy Gillespie composition "Guarachi Guaro". Among later noteworthy hits were "Cubano Chant" and "Tumbao".

Switching to Verve in 1961, Tjader's popularity and reputation spread quickly and eventually attracted performers like Donald Byrd, Lalo Schifrin and Kenny Burrell to his organisation.

The 1960s were Tjader's most prolific period. With the backing of a major record label, Verve, he could afford to stretch out and expand his repertoire. The most obvious deviation from his Latin jazz sound was Several Shades of Jade (1963) and the follow-up Breeze From the East (1963). Both albums attempted to combine jazz and Asian music, much as Tjader and others had done with Afro-Cuban. The result was dismissed by the critics, chided as little more than the dated exotica that had come and gone in the prior decade.

Tjader and his band opened the second Monterey Jazz Festival in 1959 with an acclaimed "preview" concert. The first festival had suffered financially. Tjader is credited with bringing in big ticket sales for the second and saving the landmark festival before it had even really started. The Modern Mambo Quintet disbanded within a couple of years. Tjader formed several more small-combo bands, playing regularly at such San Francisco jazz clubs as the Blackhawk.

During his most prolific period from the late 50's to the mid-70's, Tjader recorded with many renowned artists, including Stan Getz (1958), Eddie Palmieri (the much acclaimed albums El Sonido Nuevo, 1966; and Bamboleate, 1967) and Charlie Byrd (1974).

In 1954, Tjader formed his Modern Mambo Quintet, recruiting Santamaria and Bobo, plus the pianist and composer Vince Guaraldi with whom he had earlier recorded 'Vibratharp', his first album for the Fantasy label.

In 1951, following a brief spell with Alvino Rey and having added vibes to his repertoire, he went on to become a member of the acclaimed George Shearing Quintet. His year with Shearing exposed Tjader to Latin music (especially mambo) and to top-flight musicians in the genre like Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo. He became determined to have his own Cuban-sounding band akin to those of Tito Puente and Machito.

The Mambo craze reached its pitch in the late 1950s, a boon to Tjader's career. Unlike the exotica of Martin Denny and Les Baxter, music billed as "impressions of" Oceania (and other locales), Tjader's bands featured seasoned Cuban players and top-notch jazz talent conversant in both idioms. He cut several notable straight-ahead jazz albums for Fantasy using various group names, most notably the Cal Tjader Quartet (composed of bassist Gene Wright, drummer Al Torre, and pianist Vince Guaraldi). Tjader is sometimes lumped in as part of the West Coast (or "cool") jazz sound, although his rhythms and tempos (both Latin and bebop) had little in common with the work of Los Angeles jazzmen Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, or Art Pepper.

Accomplished percussionist (bongos, congas, timbales, cencerro), vibraphonist and pianist, one of the first commercially successful artists to fuse jazz with Latin music. The son of vaudevillians, Tjader (pronounced 'Chayder') began his career on the West Coast as a four year old solo tap dancer, nicknamed 'Mr. Talent' by his proud parents. Having graduated from San Francisco State College, he arrived on the music scene as a Dixieland drummer until he got his big break by way of joining the Dave Brubeck Trio in 1949.

Tjader entered the United States Navy in 1943 at age 17 and served as a medical corpsman in the Pacific Theater until March 1946. He saw action in five invasions, including the Marianas campaign and the Battle of the Philippines. Upon his return he enrolled at San Jose State College under the G.I. Bill, majoring in education. Later he transferred to San Francisco State College, still intending to teach. It was there he took timpani lessons, his only formal music training.

Callen Radcliffe Tjader, Jr. (/ˈ dʒ eɪ d ər / JAY -dər; July 16, 1925 – May 5, 1982) was an American Latin jazz musician, known as the most successful non-Latino Latin musician. He explored other jazz idioms, even as he continued to perform the music of Cuba, the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America.