Monchito Muñoz: percussionist - Entrevista

Latin Beat Magazine, Dec, 2000 by Max Salazar

In 1959, when his father Rafael Muñoz's orchestra opened at San Juan's La Concha Club, Monchito and his family moved to Puerto Rico. One evening, while drumming for his father's band, Charles Fisk, the music director at the San Juan Hotel learned of Muñoz's trap drumming skills and that he could read music. Monchito accepted Fisk's offer and went on to play stage shows whose music backed artists like Tony Bennett, Perry Como and Carmen McRae, to name a few. After three years, Fisk's contract terminated. Muñoz formed a quartet that included trumpeter Juancito Torres.

In January, 1980, when Charlie Palmieri and his family moved to Puerto Rico, Palmieri formed his group and the first musician he contacted was Monchito Muñoz. Since then, Muñoz has always had work as a percussionist and recognition of his drumming virtuosity was finally noticed when the widely known drummer Alex Acuña was quoted in the May, 1982 Drummer's monthly magazine: "I found another excellent drummer named Monchito Muñoz who played with Tito Rodríguez in the '50s. He showed me clave like when a tune starts a certain way, you automatically have to know which clave to use. For example, take The Peanut Vendor, I used to start on three, and he said 'start on two, which goes with the melody, the other way is like you and the melody are having a fight.' And I said WOW! I've been playing wrong all my life. So I started to find out. I don't want to say anything bad about them, but there are a lot of drummers here in Los Angeles now who do not play in clave and do not play sambas correctly. I was lucky to meet Monchito."