Mario Bauza

      Born 28 April 1911, Havana, Cuba, d. 11 July 1993. One of the outstanding if unsung section men of the swing era, often cited as the man who invented ‘latin jazz’. Bauza's trumpet playing was only one facet of his broad talent. Until 1932 Bauza had played clarinet, oboe and other reeds and woodwinds with various bands both in Cuba, where he graduated at the Havana Municipal Conservatory of Music, and New York, where he worked for Noble Sissle's society band and Sam Wooding.

It was while he was there that Bauza learned to play trumpet in just two weeks, in order to make a record date with the Cuban singer Cuarteto Machin. Bauza began to concentrate on trumpet and it was on this instrument that he joined the Missourians and later became a mainstay of the Chick Webb band. In 1938, after five years with Webb during which he mostly played lead and also acted as musical director, he moved to the Don Redman band. He also played with Fletcher Henderson and Cab Calloway and is credited with persuading Calloway to hire Dizzy Gillespie (having previously failed to convince Webb to hire him).

In 1941, Bauza joined the strongly jazz-orientated Latin American band led by his brother-in-law, Frank ‘ Machito’ Grillo. Bauza stayed with Machito for 35 years during which time the band enjoyed the company of many guesting jazz stars including Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley, Joe Newman, Doc Cheatham, Howard McGhee and Buddy Rich. Machito credited Bauza as the architect behind his sound. As musical director and principal arranger for the Machito band, Bauza was responsible for overseeing numerous shifts in taste culminating in the '70s with the widespread popularity of salsa. After leaving Machito in 1976 Bauza continued to work, leading his own band for recording dates and appearing regularly in New York.