The Manteca Story

Latin Beat Magazine, Oct, 1999 by Max Salazar

The tune Manteca, which Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra recorded for RCA Victor on December 30, 1947, has become Gillespie's signature tune, the one he is identified with. Sharing the composing credits and royalties is a musician named Walter "Gil" Fuller, born in Los Angeles on April 14, 1920. In 1945, Fuller and Gillespie founded the Consolidated Music Publishers and a music service in which they would orchestrate the music given to them by bandleaders. Fuller was given lead sheets which the majority of the time always needed a bridge. By adding a note here and there he would become a co-composer and entitled to royalties. One of the several arrangers Fuller had on staff was Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill who in 1948 needed a job.

"I needed money," said O'Farrill, so Fats Navarro (widely known Bop trumpeter) introduced me to Gil Fuller. I was hired as a ghost writer which meant I would not get credits for my arrangements, just money. Lead sheets were given to five orchestrators to write arrangements for a big band. Fuller then selected the parts he liked, rewrote the arrangement and took credit as the arranger."

Dizzy Gillespie's urge to include a conga drum in his band occurred after he witnessed the birth of Afro-Cuban jazz on May 31, 1943, at the Park Palace Ballroom. On this evening, GilLespie was present when Machito's trumpeter and musical director Mario Baauzá composed Tanga, now considered the tune which kicked off the Afro-Cuban jazz era. Gillespie was overwhelmed by Tanga and wanted a conga drummer who would help him to create a new sound of jazz.

In May, 1946, Bauzá introduced Gillespie to Chano Pozo who became his conga drummer.. Chano Pozo, born January 17, 1915 in the district of Pueblo Nuevo, Havana, Cuba, was a celebrity among Afro-Cubans because of his dancing and song composing skills. He wrote tunes which were heard at the yearly Havana street carnivals and the orchestras he drummed for. He and stepbrother Felix Chappotín directed El Conjunto Azul in 1943. In Cuba, Chano is credited with composing close to one hundred tunes in the rhythms of rumbas, guarachas, afro-laments and guaguancós.

The following 24 tunes are Pozo compositions I found among 55 which were recorded: Amparame, Ana Borocó Tinde, Ariñañará, Bang Que Cheque, Batellita, Benbita, Boco Boco, Blen! Blen! Blen!, Chorombo, Cielito, Coro, El Bejuco, El Pin Pin, Llora, Sacale Brillo al Piso, Seven Seven, Rumba En Swing, Cometelo, Nague, Paran Para Pin, Zarabanda, Contestame, Por Que Tu Sufres and Vista Hace Fe. Chano was not a schooled musician. He composed songs by singing the melodies which included bridges to a copyist who then transposed the melodies to music notes on sheet music paper. Not once in Cuba or in the United States was Chano told that his tunes needed a bridge or anything else for his tunes which were recorded by the orchestras of Machito, Marcelino Guerra or Arsenio Rodríguez.

According to Gillespie and Fuller, Chano only contributed Manteca's opening bass riffs and nothing else. In August, 1976, this writer visited the Teaneck, New Jersey home of Gillespie, a meeting Mario Bauzá made possible.

"All of my Afro-Cuban numbers," said Gillespie, "were composed by Chano and me...they were Chano's ideas and I always added something. Chano would always sing the instrumental parts, then ask if anything was missing. Man, there was always something missing. Chano and I had different versions of Tin Tin Deo. Mine had chords and Chano's was strictly rhythm and melody. He hummed his ideas and all they served for were introductions. I expanded the introduction and the music. When Chano conceived the idea for Manteca, it served for the first part, the sounds of the instruments. He sang the bass part which introduced the tune, sang the saxophone parts and then lashed out with his right hand and he stomped his foot to indicate the dynamic sounds of trumpets. I listened as he repeated the phrases and raised his voice in crescendo but he didn't take it anywhere. I told him it needed a bridge. I sat down at a piano and created a bridge and after we recorded it I didn't think much about it. It was just another good recording. Now everywhere I played people want to hear it. Was it a popular tune?" Thus Gillespie's bridge enabled him to share in Pozo's Manteca royalties.

In an interview recorded for Rutgers University Jazz Institute on December 30, 1977, Gil Fuller was quoted as saying, "Dizzy came to me around December, 1948. He asked me if I would write an arrangement for him because he had a date (recording) with RCA Victor. I told him I would write him just one. He said Chano had an idea for a tune and maybe I could use it. Chano and I went up to my apartment and he kept singing this one thing over and over (Fuller sings Chano's Manteca bass riff). I told Chano that I had an idea of what he wanted and I would put them all together. I told Dizzy that I needed something real melodic for the bridge, otherwise the tune was nothing. Dizzy started playing some chords, they turned out to be the bridge for Manteca. I wrote the introduction and whatever else was needed, I couldn't think of a name at that time at all. Our copyist gave it the title of Serenata...that was before it was changed to Manteca."