Interesting Facts about Tito Puente; Google Doodle honours American “Nuyorican” musician on U.S. Hispanic Heritage Month

Google animated video Doodle celebrates Tito Puente, American “Nuyorican” musician, and internationally-renowned entertainer, in honor of U.S. Hispanic Heritage Month on October 11, 2022. Here are some interesting and fun facts about Tito Puente.

Here is a look at the life and work of Tito Puente.

Who was Tito Puente?

Personal

• Birth name: Ernest Anthony Puente Jr.
• Birth date: April 20, 1923
• Birthplace: New York City, U.S.
• Died on: June 1, 2000 (aged 77)
• Death place: New York City, U.S.
• Known as: Musician, songwriter, record producer

40 Interesting and Fun Facts about Tito Puente

1. Ernest Anthony Puente Jr., commonly known as Tito Puente, was an American musician, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer of Puerto Rican descent.
2. Tito Puente is most popular for dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz compositions that persevered over a 50-year career. His most popular song is “Oye Como Va”.
3. He was born on April 20, 1923, at Harlem Hospital Center in the New York district of Manhattan, the son of Ernest and Felicia Puente, stateside Puerto Ricans residing in New York City’s Spanish Harlem region.
4. Tito Puente’s family moved frequently, yet he spent most of his childhood in Spanish Harlem.
5. Puente’s father was the foreman at a razorblade factory. Tito’s racial identity was vital to him and kept a heavy accent until his passing despite being born in the US.
6. As a child, Puente was portrayed as hyperactive, and after neighbors complained of hearing seven-year-old Puente beating on pots and window frames, his mother sent him to 25-cent piano lessons.
7. He changed to percussion by the age of 10, drawing impact from jazz drummer Gene Krupa.
8. Tito Puente later made a song-and-dance duo with his sister Anna during the 1930s and expected to become a dancer, yet an ankle tendon injury kept him from pursuing dance as a career.
9. At the point when the drummer in Machito’s band was drafted into the army, Puente in this way had his place.
10. Puente began his career as a drummer in his early teenagers and found his enormous break playing for Federico Pagani’s Happy Boys and Machito’s Orchestra.
11. He served in the Navy during World War II, playing alto saxophone as the boat’s bandleader — alongside north of ten different instruments. He proceeded with his studies at the Juilliard School of Music after the war.
12. Tito Puente served in the Navy for three years during World War II subsequent to being drafted in 1942.
13. He was discharged with a Presidential Unit Citation for serving in nine fights on the escort carrier USS Santee (CVE-29).
14. The GI Bill permitted him to study music at the Juilliard School of Music, where he finished a formal education in conducting, orchestration and theory.
15. Tito Puente began his own band, the Tito Puente Orchestra, in 1948 and immediately procured a reputation for his performances that urged audiences to get on the dance floor.

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16. During the 1950s, Puente was at the height of his popularity and assisted with bringing Afro-Cuban and Caribbean sounds like mambo, son, and cha-cha-chá, to mainstream audiences.
17. In 1995, Puente got the Billboard Latin Music Lifetime Achievement Award.
18. Tito Puente was so successful playing famous Afro-Cuban rhythms that many individuals erroneously distinguish him as Cuban. Dance Mania, perhaps Puente’s most notable album, was released in 1958.
19. Among his most well-known compositions is the cha-cha “Oye como va” (1963), popularized by Latin rock musician Carlos Santana and later interpreted, among others, by Julio Iglesias, Irakere, and Celia Cruz.
20. In 1969, Puente got into the City of New York from former Mayor John Lindsay.
21. He was viewed as a musical pioneer for his creativity and experimentation and is broadly credited for promoting Latin music in the US. In 1969, he was awarded the key to New York City.
22. In 1979, Tito Puente presented a scholarship fund that supported promising, young Latin percussionists for more than 20 years.
23. In 1992, Tito Puente was inducted into the National Congressional Record, and in 1993 he got the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal from the Smithsonian.
24. In mid-2000, Puente showed up in the music documentary Calle 54.
25. Tito Puente’s name is often referenced in a TV production called La Epoca, a film about the Palladium era in New York, Afro-Cuban music and rhythms, mambo and salsa as dances and music and considerably more.
26. The film talks about a large number of Puente’s, as well as Arsenio Rodríguez’s, contributions, and features interviews with some of the musicians Puente recorded with Alfonso “El Panameno” Joseph.
27. During the presidency of Sen. Roberto Rexach Benítez, Tito Puente got the unique honor of having both a special session of the Senate of Puerto Rico devoted to him and being permitted to act in his novel style on the floor of the Senate while it was in session.
28. Tito Puente’s son Richard “Richie” Puente was the percussionist during the 1970s funk band Foxy.
29. Puente’s youngest son, Tito Puente Jr., has proceeded with his father’s legacy by introducing a significant number of similar songs in his performances and recordings, while daughter Audrey Puente is a TV meteorologist for WNYW and WWOR television in New York City.
30. In 1995, Tito Puente was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
31. In 1997, Tito Puente was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
32. In 1999, he was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame.
33. On May 19, 1999, Tito Puente got an honorary Mus.D degree from Columbia University.
34. After a show in Puerto Rico on May 31, 2000, he suffered a massive heart attack and traveled to New York City for surgery to repair a heart valve, yet complexities were created and he died on June 1, 2000.
35. On August 20, 2000, East 110th Street in Spanish Harlem was named ‘Tito Puente Way’.
36. Tito Puente was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.
37. On June 5, 2005, Puente was honored by Union City, New Jersey with a star on the Walk of Fame at Union City’s Celia Cruz Park.
38. On September 10, 2007, a United States Post Office in Spanish Harlem was named after him at a ceremony presided over by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Rep. José Serrano (D-NY).
39. Tito Puente’s prosperity, presence, and musicality are well known and regarded right up until now.
40. Tito Puente recorded an astounding 118+ albums and is credited on dozens more — more than some other timbales bandleaders to date. This journey started with Ran Kan Kan, his first professional track recording and the soundtrack of today’s Google video animated Doodle.