by JohnnyConga » Mon Aug 02, 2010 6:57 pm
For me on a personal note Bill Fitch was one of the most influential conga players of his time. The Cal Tjader album Sona Libre will attest to his composing ability as well as his playing and the most listened to conga solo ever on his tune "INSIGHT"...even Giovanni will tell you about this great player.
Bill Fitch passed away last week wednesday. He influenced not only me but also Jerry Gonzales, Chick Corea, Ed Fast, Giovanni, and many many other drummers..for those who want to hear possibly the best constructed conga solo on record, chek out his tune he wrote at the age of 21- Insight...we conga players from the 60's and 70's revered Bill and his talents...I only wish he had done more recording in his life. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Ed Fast who was a close friend to Bill in Connecticut where they live.
How did you make the leap into Latin rhythms, checking out Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms - was Lepak into that as well?
EF: That wasn’t a specialty of his, but he was knowledgeable in that area. Actually what happened was, when I was still in college, I got hired by some guys to play marimba doing Mexican folk music. From there, it was a small leap to checking out the vibraphone and in particular, Cal Tjader. The thing about Cal Tjader was he had the real guys on there, Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, and of course later on, Poncho Sanchez. But everything was clean and not overdone - you could hear how all the parts were supposed to fit together. Once I heard Cal Tjader, that kind of captured my imagination and I kind of ran with it from there. I have to say that Cal Tjader was probably my biggest influence early on when I got into Latin Jazz.
LJC: Was someone in the area who was a mentor and helped you learn about the Latin side of the music?
EF: When I got into Cal Tjader, there was one record in particular that really drew me in, and that was Sona Libre. That album in particular had a tune on there called “Insight,” that was written by the conga player on the album, Bill Fitch. That tune really knocked me out. I took that tune “Insight,” that was written by Bill, and I transcribed all the parts - piano, bass, timbales, congas, vibraphone - I transcribed everything. I learned so much from that tune. It really impressed me that this conga player, Bill Fitch, took an amazing solo over one of the hippest montunos that I’ve ever heard in Latin Jazz. That’s the only album that I ever saw him on. It turns out that after trying to track him down for literally years and years and years, he lived in New Haven, Connecticut. That was right down the street from me . . . well, forty minutes away. So I got to hook up with him quite a bit. This guy was an amazing guy. He kind of dropped out of the music scene. He came up with Chick Corea in Boston and went to Berklee. A buddy of mine just worked for Chick out in Colorado, and Chick said that Bill Fitch hipped him to the real deal when it came to Latin Jazz piano playing. He came up with Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Don Alias, Tony Williams, and more. I used to go down every week to play with him. I took his advice on who to listen to and what was important playing wise. This guy was an amazing guy.
LJC: I’d love to hear more about him, he sounds like a pretty important player.
EF: This guy is amazing. Have you heard about that movie, The Soloist, about the violinist who was in L.A.? He went to Juilliard; they made a whole movie about him . . . well, Bill Fitch has got a story like that, but times ten. He went to Berklee, and he was one of the first conga players at Berklee. Gary Burton, and all these guys know Bill. I saw Don Alias just like a month before he passed away; he said, “Man, you think you know who the greatest conga player is? It’s not many of the guys out there, it’s Bill Fitch, the greatest conga player ever!”
People don’t know about him because he dropped out of the scene so early. Once he left Berklee, he went to New York. Cal Tjader was in New York and someone came running over to Bill’s apartment. He was living with Chick Corea at the time; they were roommates. Someone said, “Hey, Bill, Cal’s looking for a new conga player, you’ve got to come down and sit in with him.” So Bill sat in with him and got hired on the spot. Cal flew him out to California and he made that record with him, Sona Libre. He did a couple of other things. From what I hear, Bill wrote so many amazing charts, but where those charts are . . . who knows? Apparently all the conga drummers used to come out and watch Bill play because he was really something special.
LJC: That would be interesting to track down some of that music.
EF: Bill told me that they made a videotape out on Hermosa Beach; I think it was for Fantasy Records. I was trying to get in touch with anybody that might have a copy of that. I have no idea what tunes they videotaped, but it would be great to Bill when he was twenty-one years old, doing his thing with Cal.
Bill is on another album with this organ player named Charles Kynard and that album was Bill Fitch, Armando Peraza, and one other percussionist. On the cover it says “The Greatest Latin Percussion Section Ever Assembled.” It was Armando Peraza on bongo and Bill Fitch on congas. All these guys were very close.