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Willie Bobo was the stage name
Stage name

A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, comedians, musician, and professional wrestling....
 of William Correa (February 28, 1934 – September 15, 1983), an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 jazz
Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
 percussionist.

His son, Eric Bobo (Eric Correa), is a percussionist with crew Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill

Cypress Hill is an American Hip hop music group from South Gate, California. Originally called DVX, the name was changed after Mellow Man Ace left in 1988....
.

William Correa grew up in Spanish Harlem
Spanish Harlem

Spanish Harlem, also known as El Barrio and East Harlem, is a predominantly low income neighborhood in Harlem, a neighborhood of New York City, in the north-eastern part of the borough of Manhattan....
, New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
. He made his name in Latin Jazz
Latin jazz

Latin jazz is the general term given to music that combines rhythms from African and Latin American countries with jazz and classical harmonies from Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States....
, specifically Afro-Cuban jazz
Afro-Cuban jazz

Cuban jazz is a variety of Latin jazz, played at first in Cuba, then in New Orleans, and later still in New York and Puerto Rico.The history of jazz in Cuba was hidden for many years by the unwillingness of record companies to make recordings available....
, in the 1960s and '70s, with the timbales
Timbales

Timbales are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing, invented in Music of Cuba. They are shallower in shape than single-headed tom-tom drum, and usually much higher tuned....
 becoming his favoured instrument. He met Mongo Santamaria
Mongo Santamaría

Ram?n "Mongo" Santamar?a was an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussion instrument. He is most famous for being the composer of the jazz standard "Afro Blue," recorded by John Coltrane among others....
 shortly after his arrival in New York and studied with him while acting as his translator, and later at age 19 joined Tito Puente
Tito Puente

Tito Puente, Sr., , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, Jr., was an influential Latin jazz and Mambo musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey" of the timbales and "The King of Latin Music"....
 for four years.






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Willie Bobo was the stage name
Stage name

A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, comedians, musician, and professional wrestling....
 of William Correa (February 28, 1934 – September 15, 1983), an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 jazz
Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
 percussionist.

His son, Eric Bobo (Eric Correa), is a percussionist with crew Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill

Cypress Hill is an American Hip hop music group from South Gate, California. Originally called DVX, the name was changed after Mellow Man Ace left in 1988....
.

William Correa grew up in Spanish Harlem
Spanish Harlem

Spanish Harlem, also known as El Barrio and East Harlem, is a predominantly low income neighborhood in Harlem, a neighborhood of New York City, in the north-eastern part of the borough of Manhattan....
, New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
. He made his name in Latin Jazz
Latin jazz

Latin jazz is the general term given to music that combines rhythms from African and Latin American countries with jazz and classical harmonies from Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States....
, specifically Afro-Cuban jazz
Afro-Cuban jazz

Cuban jazz is a variety of Latin jazz, played at first in Cuba, then in New Orleans, and later still in New York and Puerto Rico.The history of jazz in Cuba was hidden for many years by the unwillingness of record companies to make recordings available....
, in the 1960s and '70s, with the timbales
Timbales

Timbales are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing, invented in Music of Cuba. They are shallower in shape than single-headed tom-tom drum, and usually much higher tuned....
 becoming his favoured instrument. He met Mongo Santamaria
Mongo Santamaría

Ram?n "Mongo" Santamar?a was an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussion instrument. He is most famous for being the composer of the jazz standard "Afro Blue," recorded by John Coltrane among others....
 shortly after his arrival in New York and studied with him while acting as his translator, and later at age 19 joined Tito Puente
Tito Puente

Tito Puente, Sr., , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, Jr., was an influential Latin jazz and Mambo musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey" of the timbales and "The King of Latin Music"....
 for four years. During the early '50s, the nickname Bobo is said to have been bestowed by the jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams

Mary Lou Williams was an United States jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. Williams had written hundreds of compositions or arrangements, and recorded over a hundred records ....
.

His first major exposure was when he joined George Shearing
George Shearing

Sir George Shearing Order of the British Empire is a United Kingdom jazz pianist who, during the 1950s, had a popular Jazz group for MGM Records and Capitol Records....
's band on the album The Shearing Spell. After leaving Shearing, Cal Tjader
Cal Tjader

Callen Radcliffe Tjader, Jr. a.k.a. Cal Tjader was a Latin jazz musician, though he also explored various other jazz idioms. Unlike other American jazz musicians who experimented with the music from Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America, he never abandoned it, performing it until his death....
 asked Bobo and Santamaria to become part of the Cal Tjader Modern Mambo Quintet, who released several albums as the mambo craze reached fever pitch in the late '50s. Reuniting with his mentor Santamaria in 1960, the pair released the album Sabroso! for the Fantasy
Fantasy Records

Fantasy Records is a United States based record label, which was founded by Max and Sol Weiss in 1949 in San Francisco, California. They had previously operated a record pressing plant called Circle Record Company before forming the Fantasy label....
 label. He later formed his own group releasing Do That Thing/Guajira with Tico and Bobo's Beat and Let's Go Bobo for Roulette, without achieving huge penetration.

After the runaway success of Tjader's Soul Sauce, in which he was heavily involved, Bobo formed a new band with the backing of Verve Records
Verve Records

Verve Records is an United States Jazz record label now owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels: Norgran Records and Clef Records and material which had been licensed to Mercury Records previously....
, releasing Spanish Grease, of which the title track is probably his most well known tune. Highly successful at this attempt, Bobo released a further seven albums with Verve.

In the early '70s, he moved out to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles is the largest city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles is rated as a beta global city, has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California....
, where he worked as a session musician
Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental performers or vocalists who are available for hire for live performances or recording sessions, as opposed to musicians who are either permanent members of a musical ensemble or who have acquired fame in their own right as bandleaders....
 for Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana

Carlos Augusto Santana Alves is a Grammy Award-winning Mexican-American Rock music musician and guitarist. He became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana , which created a highly successful blend of rock music, salsa music, and jazz fusion....
 among others, as well as being a regular in the band for Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby

William Henry "Bill" Cosby Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a vanguard role in the 1960s action show I Spy....
's variety show, Cos
Cos (TV series)

Cos was an American sketch comedy/variety show television show that debuted on the American Broadcasting Company in September 1976. It was hosted by comedian Bill Cosby and featured an ensemble cast who would perform sketches each week....
. In the late '70s, he recorded albums for Blue Note
Blue note

In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower Pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres....
 and Columbia Records
Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label founded in 1888.Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in pre-recorded sound, being the first record company to produce pre-recorded records as opposed to blank cylinders....
.

After a period of ill health, he died at age 49, succumbing to cancer
Cancer

Cancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cell display uncontrolled growth , invasion , and sometimes metastasis . These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, do not invade or metastasize....
.

Discography

  • Sabroso! (Fantasy, 1961)
  • Do That Thing/Guajira (Tico, 1963)
  • Bobo's Beat (Roulette, 1964)
  • Let's Go Bobo! (Roulette, 1964)
  • Spanish Grease (Verve, 1965)
  • Uno, Dos, Tres 1.2.3 (Verve, 1966)
  • Feelin' So Good (Verve, 1967)
  • Juicy (Verve, 1967)
  • Bobo Motion (Verve, 1967)
  • Spanish Blues Band (Verve, 1967)
  • A New Dimension (Verve, 1968)
  • Evil Ways (Verve, 1968)
  • Do What You Want To Do, Tomorrow Is Here (Sussex, 1971)
  • Tomorrow Is Here (Blue Note, 1977)
  • Hell Of An Act To Follow (Columbia, 1978)
  • Bobo (Columbia, 1979)
  • Lost & Found (Concord Picante, 2006)


External links