Esy Morales was a musician born in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

 in 1916. One of his brothers, Noro, was also a musician. Before the age of ten Morales was performing on tenor sax, clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

 and flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

. In 1930 he moved to New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, and is credited on Xavier Cugat

Xavier Cugat

Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...

's album Cugat On Film, as well as other Cugat records. In the late 1930s he formed a band with his brothers Humberto and Noro

Noro Morales

Norosbaldo Morales was a Puerto Rican pianist and bandleader.-Biography:Morales learned several instruments as a child. He played in Venezuela from 1924 to 1930, then returned to Puerto Rico to play with Rafaél Muñoz. He emigrated to New York City in 1935, and played there with Alberto Socarras...

.

Morales went on to form his own band, The Esy Morales Orchestra and had a cameo appearance in the 1949 motion picture Criss Cross performing the song Jungle Fantasy. His name is also listed in the credits of this movie. The song Jungle Fantasy appears on Herbie Mann

Herbie Mann

Herbert Jay Solomon , better known as Herbie Mann, was a Jewish American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music...

's 65th Birthday Celebration: Live At The Blue Note In New York City (Live), as well as Yusef Lateef

Yusef Lateef

Dr. Yusef Lateef is an American Grammy Award-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950.Although Lateef's main instruments are the tenor saxophone and flute, he is known for...

's 1960 recording The Centaur and the Phoenix.

Morales died in 1950 at the age of 43 from a heart attack.

External links