Latín Piano, Carlos Camposiano

Ultimate Latin Piano/Keyboard Riffs
by Carlos Campos & Andrew D. Gordon

Featuring Salsa, Mambo, Merengue, Cha Cha, Songo,
Bomba, Cumbia,Calypso styles

isbn 1-882146-35-2
Front Cover Artwork: Jim Stubbington
Published & Distributed exclusively by A.D.G. Productions
15517 Cordary Ave., Lawndale CA 90260
web site address http://www.adgproductions.com
e mail adgordon@adgproductions.comcopyright © 2003 A.D.G. Productions
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or
mechanical, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.
Printed in Canada

A Message from the Authors

From Carlos Campos
My good friend and publisher, Andrew Gordon, came to my house over a year ago to
show me some sketches from a book he was beginning towrite.
The book consisted of numerous piano riffs in various Latin and Afro-Caribbean
styles. When I first saw his music examples, I started to rewrite all of them. When
Andrew saw this, he asked if I wanted to co-write the book with him, starting from
scratch.
I really liked the concept behind the book, so I accepted right away. It took us
more than a year to finish the book, with Andrewcoming to my studio every Thursday
afternoon for three or four hours. Andrew would write the chart for the song, I
would change a few things, and then play and record the examples. After we were
finished recording, I transcribed all the piano parts and notated the music examples.
It was a lot of work, but we had a lot of fun. I hope that you will enjoy learning
from this book as much as we enjoyedputting it together.

From Andrew Gordon
I grew up in London, England during the 1960’s, when most of the music that I
listened to on the radio was pop music consisting of songs by The Beatles, Rolling
Stones, and Beach Boys, etc., as well as classical music.
My first recollection of Latin music was listening to Santana's first album in
the late 1960's. This album made a very bigimpression, especially with the driving
Latin percussion instruments mixed with Carlos Santana's bluesy guitar solos. The
only way I could hear the album, as well as other progressive rock music, was to listen
to a pirate rock radio station from 12:00 am to 3:00 am on a Friday night, and with a
transistor radio and a tape recorder I would try to tape the whole three hour show
each week. The musicplayed on this station greatly influenced my composing and
piano/keyboard playing for many years, as I played with many progressive rock bands
before I became heavily influenced by funk and jazz.
Moving to Los Angeles, California in 1979, I soon started to play with musicians
from all over the globe, including musicians from Latin America; hence, my appreciation
and understanding of Latin musicdeveloped.
I hope that the numerous examples in this book go a long way in helping musicians
and students master the elements that make up Latin piano/keyboard styles.

1

About Latin Piano Riffs
This book contains 50 riffs of popular latin piano styles. Each riff has been
recorded twice, once with piano, bass and percussion and then once with only bass
and percussion, for study andpractice. The 50 riffs cover a wide variety of latin
styles such as:
Salsa: Salsa, which some historians say developed concurrently in New York, Cuba
and Puerto Rico, uses mostly Son clave, and even though it is primarily known as a
dance genre, it also has served as a musical vehicle for a lot of Latin Jazz
exploration as well.
Mambo: Mambo was popularized by great band leaders in the 50’s likeMachito,
Perez Prado, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, etc. It uses mostly Son clave and is one
of Salsa’s predecessors.
Songo: “Changuito,” drummer of the group “Los Van Van” has been credited with
helping to create this rhythm, but two of Cuba’s foremost fusion groups also
deserve to be mentioned, Grupo Afrocuba and Irakere.
Cha Cha: The “Cha Cha” evolved from the Cuban danzón and mambo and...