by Thomas Altmann » Wed Feb 06, 2008 5:13 pm
I just came home from practicing the 6/8 stuff I transcribed from a record that Tata made with Frank Emilio. The title of the tune: Drume Negrita.
There are very few things that I hear today and say: I want to learn to play exactly like this!
I saw there was a poll started in the forum that places rumberos opposite to band congueros. Tata was the epitome of a drummer who made this distinction obsolete. Patato was another example.
Today, people like Tata are categorized as Old School; but when I started to play, Tata was THE School, and he was the best of them all. The more you could play like him, the better you were rated. And the only drummers that were more modern than Tata were perhaps people like Daniel Ponce or Yoel Dreke. Then came Changuito, who started to take the mano secreta a step further; but outside Cuba, nobody really noticed it as something useful. The so called New School was started by Giovanni, I guess, and it has become quite a thing. But basically, Giovanni is just playing his own style, and so is Changuito, and so was Tata. It's up to me as a listener, which style I enjoy the most, and my vote is clear.
Tata could play a simple thing accurately, and he could play it for the thousandth time, and still give it this certain magic that turned the same thing into something of significance; you knew in an instant that this was something you had to deal with. Whatever he played seemed to live like an organic creature.
It is hard to add something, some other aspect, to what has already been said here. Maybe one thing: It felt so good to know he was around. Even if I never had a chance to see or meet him personally, it was a consolating fact, in a way, that he was among us. Tata gave me inspiration, strength, and confidence - just by the records he made, and his presence on the planet was the living witness to what I found worth to aspire as a musician.
Ibae ibayentonu Tata Güines.
TA