Palmieri arrived long before Latin wave

Friday, May 18, 2001 | 10:05 a.m.

Pianist and bandleader Eddie Palmieri looks on as the rest of the nation reacts to climbing census figures on Latinos, shakes its bon-bon to Ricky Martin and ogles the bon-bon of Jennifer Lopez.

Palmieri is not impressed.

He has seen it all before, having won the first Grammy ever given to a Latin artist, in 1975, and picking up five since, including one for "Masterpiece," last year's collaboration with now-deceased timbale legend Tito Puente.

"Now people are noticing us more than ever, but it's mostly because of the dollars we represent," said Palmieri in a recent phone interview several days before his Las Vegas concert 8 p.m. Saturday at the Sammy Davis Jr. Festival Plaza.

"The thing is, Ricky Martin and much of what people are listening to out of Miami is not going to last. It will be forgotten before you know it," he said.

"Our music, the roots of Latin music, is much more complex and profound."

Palmieri has recorded 32 albums, toured the world and is one of the few Latin musicians cataloged by the Smithsonian Institution.

Palmieri still lives in New York, where his mother arrived from Puerto Rico before the Depression, and where he was born in Spanish Harlem.

And Palmieri still insists on drawing from music played in Cuba before 1960, with its African roots and filtered through New York's vibrant immigrant community afterward.

"Some people tell me I should change with the times, or the times will change me," he said. "They say I should play the kind of simple dance music that most Latin musicians are recording, with no rhythmic or harmonic structure. But this music, to me, is a disaster."

"The fact that it sells," he added with a laugh, "just goes to show that Abraham Lincoln was wrong you can fool all the people all the time."

But despite his characteristic good humor, at 65 Palmieri takes his role as the elder statesman of Latin music seriously. This led him to record with Puente on last year's album, just before the famous percussionist passed away.

"I had been playing just jazz for 12 years straight," he said. "But I wanted to go back to salsa before the end of the century, and do it right."

It would be his first collaboration with Puente, and his last.

"We had never played together before because we were bandstand warriors all those years, trying to blow each other away," he said. "We were also never on the same label."

Unfortunately, RMM, the label for "Masterpiece" -- which won a Grammy for Best Salsa Album -- went bankrupt several months after the album was released. Although the record is still available, this has hurt its promotion.

"Radio stations aren't playing it, which doesn't help," Palmieri said. "But they have their own interests in mind, and they'll go to Dante's Inferno for that," he added -- referring to payola, a practice that has plagued Latin music circles for decades, where radio stations are paid to play certain songs.

"Latin music is full of backstabbers," said Eddie Palmieri Jr., who has managed his father since 1994.

The younger Palmieri said the album has sold about 100,000 copies. In his father's four-decade career, the '70s were the most successful, with three albums selling upward of 350,000 each.

But critical acclaim has never eluded the musician. Jon Pareles, jazz critic of the New York Times, said Palmieri "can make a piano roar." Palmieri was given the Eubie Blake Award, named after the stellar New Orleans pianist, in 1991. And the prestigious Berklee College of Music awarded him an honorary degree in 1998.

Palmieri has also been generous with younger artists, giving vocalist La India her start in 1992. She would later record with crossover star Marc Anthony, who helped push her into the national spotlight briefly.

Still, the spotlight has never been what has guided Palmieri; he has always followed the music. He insists on directing listeners back to what he calls "40,000 years of African history, with the structures that got added onto them when slaves in the Caribbean were allowed to keep playing their drums."

And with the death of Puente, he says he feels "like the last of the Mohicans. Once I go into the other world, it's all over."

Indeed, father and son both admitted the end of Palmieri's touring days are near. "He doesn't need to tour for financial reasons, since he's got royalties coming in for over 200 songs he wrote," said his son and manager. "He'll do it as long it's fun, which has to do with the quality of musicians he can find to play with."

Lucky for Las Vegas, the seven-piece band Palmieri brings to town this weekend is top of the line, including vocalist Herman Olivera, who sang on El Rumbero del Piano, who was nominated for a Grammy in 1999.

The pianist first played here in 1959, which he remembers "was a gas." This time, he said, "I'm gonna hit you with everything, including the kitchen sink."