Latin piano riffs

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 to write. The bookconsisted 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 Andrew coming to my studioevery 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 enjoyed putting 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 big impression, especially with thedriving 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 music played on this station greatlyinfluenced 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 music developed. I hope that the numerousexamples in this book go a long way in helping musicians and students master the elements that make up Latin piano/keyboard styles.

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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 and practice. The 50 riffs cover a wide variety oflatin 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 like Machito, Perez Prado, Tito Puente, TitoRodriguez, 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 its creation has been attributed to violinist Enrique...