Mon Rivera
Encyclopedia
Mon Rivera is the common name given to two distinct Puerto Rican
musicians (both born in Mayagüez
), namely Monserrate Rivera Alers (originally nicknamed Rate, later referred to as "Don Mon", or Mon The Elder, and sometimes erroneously credited as Ramón in songwriting credits) and his oldest son, Efraín Rivera Castillo (referred to early in his career as "Moncito", or Little Mon, and later known by his father's moniker). This article refers mainly to Efraín, a popular band leader known in Latin jazz
circles.
Efraín was specifically known for salsa
and a Puerto Rican style called plena
. He is credited for a fast humorous style and for introducing the sound of an all-trombone
brass section to Afro-Rican orchestra music.
Three of Efraín's brothers were also musicians. Efraín's son is the percussionist, Javier Rivera.
(at the Rio Cañas Arriba "barrio
" in the outskirts of the city, close to the place Eugenio María de Hostos
was born) in 1899, and lived in the working class Barcelona barrio
of the city proper. He was a janitor and handyman at the nearby University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez for more than 40 years, and was well loved by the campus community. Known as "'Rate" by his closest friends, Don Mon gained a strong reputation as a composer of plena
s, a musical genre considered the "musical newspaper of the barrio". He assembled impromptu plena jams in the neighborhood, which were so widely known that they were preserved for posterity in the documentary film "Plena " (1956) by Amilcar Tirado (Don Mon appears at the last segment, improvising lyrics). Curiously enough, at the time don Mon was illiterate and had no formal musical training.
Two of Don Mon's most famous plenas, "Askarakatiskis" (sometimes referred to as "Karacatis Ki") and "El Gallo Espuelérico" (loosely translated as "The Spurless Rooster") were humorous takes on real life events. On the first one Don Mon told the story of Rafael, a gambler who loses all his money rolling dice
and is then assaulted by his wife Luz María with a broomstick, while their daughters laugh the incident off (one of the girls' laughter is the basis for the song's name). "El Gallo Espuelérico" tells the story of Américo, a guy who brags boastfully about a gamecock
he carried with him to a fight. The bird is killed soon after the fight starts (Don Mon claimed once that the winner was his rooster "Espuelérico", although this is disputed), to the amusement of his friends, who tell him the gamecock would be more fierce as part of a chicken rice soup (in reality, they ended up eating the soup).
However, a plena
standard to this day was born when seamstresses of a local handkerchief factory striked
against the factory's owner, Lebanese industrialist William Mamary
, and Mamery hired replacement workers (whom the seamstresses considered to be scabs
). Don Mon wrote "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama" (loosely translated as "Hello, Who' Calling?", sometimes referred to as "Qué Será") as a musical description of the strike. Since the seamstress' strike was organized by local labor leader John Vidal, and patronized by local assemblywoman María Luisa Arcelay
, they are mentioned in the song. The seamstresses are reportedly calling each other as to raise mutual concern about the poor pay they're getting. Near the end, Don Mon breaks into what his son later called "trabalenguas" (tongue twisters), which in fact is a style of scat singing
where some of the syllables of the actual song are slurred nasally and delivered quickly along with the scatting. The skill was passed from father to son; Efraín became so adept at using "trabalenguas" that he eventually was called "El Rey del Trabalengua" ("The Tongue Twister King") once he became famous.
for the Indios de Mayagüez
, the local winter league baseball team, for which he had been the bat boy at an earlier age. He played with them between 1943 and 1945. To this date, he still holds the league record for most triples in a game (three) and most consecutive doubles in a double-header (five).
Efraín was trained as a multi-instrumentalist: he played timbales, congas, bongos, saxophone, trumpet, trombone and bass guitar. In his beginnings as a musician, Efraín and Germán Vélez (later the father of Wilkins Vélez
) formed "El Dúo Huastec
o", and sang Mexican folk songs that were popular in Latin America at the time (they even dressed the part). Santos Colon
joined the duo occasionally and made it a trio. Their talent moved Gilbert Mamery
(who also happened to be William's son; Gilbert legally changed the family name's spelling to prevent mispronunciations) to feature them as part of musical reviews staged at Mayagüez's San José Theater. Later, Mon became a percussionist and singer with various local bands, working with bandleaders Juan Ramón Delgado, better known as "Moncho Leña" and William Manzano, both of whom he persuaded to allow him to arrange some of his father's plenas for a full orchestra. A full orchestral version of "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama?" was a sleeper hit in 1954.
Efraín (by now widely called "Moncito", or "Little Mon", and later called just "Mon") began to popularize his father's plenas. One of them, "La Plena de Rafael Martinez Nadal
" was written in admiration for the Puerto Rican lawyer and legislator, who was extremely successful in local courts. Another one, "Carbón de Palito", described the route followed by street vendors of wood charcoal
(then used as cooking fuel) through most of Mayagüez. Almost all sections of the city at the time are mentioned in the lyrics. Both plenas were local hits, and along with Rafael Cortijo
's rendition of "El Bombón de Elena", they helped to revive the genre during the late 1950s. Efraín started writing his own material just as this happened.
By the mid-1950s, Efraín was an accomplished singer in Puerto Rico, but since the island is rather small, he did as many other local performers and emigrated to New York City, as to guarantee a living playing music, given the sizeable Latino population there. When Moncho Leña's orchestra moved to New York City in November 1953, he moved along with them. He went to the extreme of arranging a plena version of Hava Nagilah for the Italian and Jewish clubgoers who danced to their music at New York's Palladium Ballroom. He also sang with Joe Cotto and Héctor Pellot. He was featured in the second television music special by the Banco Popular de Puerto Rico
in 1960.
, boogaloo
and Dominican
merengue, such as "Qué gente averiguá'" ("What nosey people"), a song where he mocked people who openly criticized that he was a miser
, recycling old clothes until they wore thin, keeping his money hidden in a barrel or wearing an old hat from his Mayagüez days down 8th. Avenue in Manhattan
. Cheo Feliciano
admits being Efraín's roadie once around this time.
He also experimented with latin jazz
; his efforts were capped by an instrumental salsa song that is listed by many to be a standard of the genre: "Lluvia con Nieve" ("Rain with Snow") (which he recorded in 1964). The powerful artist lineup for this record included Charlie Palmieri
and Eddie Palmieri
on piano
, Barry Rogers
, Mark Weinstein and Manolín Pazo on trombones, and Kako Bastar on percussion, among others.
There are conflicting theories that list either Efraín or his record producer, Al Santiago, as being the inventor of the all-trombone brass section (four trombones, in this case). An early example of this is the earliest recording Efraín made of "Askarakatiskis". This led to a more aggressive, bottom-heavy sound that was a novelty at the time. The sound lent itself well to plenas but did not catch on in salsa circles until Eddie Palmieri
experimented with a similar lineup almost simultaneously (Santiago produced both artists). By the end of the decade, the all-trombone brass section was part of the standard salsa vocabulary, popularized particularly by Willie Colón
, who adopted it most successfully than any other bandleader.
Efraín could make a living with his orchestra but migrating to New York disconnected him from his fan base in Puerto Rico. Health problems including bouts with alcoholism
and drug addiction, along with serving some prison time, eventually forced a reduction in his workload causing his popularity to wane, but only temporarily.
encountered Efraín in Puerto Rico, during one of his visits to the island. At the time, Efraín was a patient at an Hogar Crea
, a drug rehabilitation program local to Puerto Rico. He had become a part-time refrigeration technician. Colón, who had admired Efraín's multiple trombone sound strongly enough to model his own band after Rivera's, persuaded Efraín to record an album with him, for which he would perform and produce. The album, named "Se Chavó El Vecindario/There Goes The Neighborhood", was issued by Colón's current label, Fania Records
. For the album sessions, Colón assembled a solid lineup that consisted of Willie's band, as well as Rubén Blades
(and in at least two songs, Héctor Lavoe
) as part of the vocal chorus section. Following the release of "Se Chavó", Efraín performed live with Vicky Soto on congas, Gilberto Colón on piano, Goodwin Benjamin on bass, and José Rodríguez, Marco Katz
), Frankie Rosa, and Frank Figueroa on trombones.
"Se Chavó" became a seminal work in the history of Puerto Rican plena, essentially revived Efraín's career and made him famous in a few Latin American countries, particularly in Venezuela
and the Dominican Republic
. The album had three smash hits, a semi-autobiographical plena named "Ya Llegó" (written for him by fellow Puerto Rican composer and singer Felito Felix) and another called "Julia Lee", the story of a bully who terrorized San Juan's Barrio Obrero neighborhood. A third hit was a medley of "Qué Será" and "Askarakatiskis". In Puerto Rico, two additional plenas written by Tite Curet Alonso
, one called "La Humanidad" ("The Humanity"), in which Tite criticizes people's pettiness that have ruined the friendship between two buddies, and "Tinguilikitín", which describes Mayagüez's old horse-pulled tram and its bell, were minor hits. Soon after his mid-1960s albums were re-released.
, New York City, of a heart attack. He was soon buried in Mayagüez's Old Municipal Cemetery
, gathering the second largest funeral crowd assembled in the city, second only to that of the 1993 burial procession for Benjamin Cole, the longest serving mayor in the city's history. An impromptu plena band played his songs during the walk between the religious service and his burial place.
Fania Records
released a posthumous album with unreleased tracks from the "Se Chavó" sessions and newer material, called "Forever". The album, produced by Johnny Pacheco, granted Efraín one last hit, the rather fitting "Se Dice Gracias" (aka "¡Bravo, Mon!"). A remastered version of "Se Chavó" was released in May 2007.
Since Efraín died intestate, legal disputes among family members, as well as between his estate and the publishers of his songs (and his fathers') prevent most of his music to be performed publicly by Latino media. Nonetheless, both Mons have left a legacy of plena standards that are popular to this day.
Efraín was regarded as one of the best güiro
players of his day (Tite Curet Alonso claimed he was only surpassed by Patricio Rijos, "Toribio", the legendary guiro player that accompanied Puerto Rican composer Felipe Rosario Goyco, "Don Felo", and whose statue can be found at the intersection of Tanca and San Francisco streets in Old San Juan). An example of Efraín's güiro playing can be heard at the end of the first percussion solo part of "Ya llegó".
The all-trombone brass lineup, on the other hand, persists in much of Willie Colón's work, as well as in many plena bands, most notably in Puerto Rico's most successful plena band ever, Plena Libre.
In 1976, while Efraín was alive, a tribute song to him, "Cuchú Cuchá" became a sleeper hit in the Dominican Republic
. The same song was later versioned by Jossie Esteban and his former group, Patrulla 15, and became a huge merengue hit in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and New York City. Just after Efraín's death, the Puerto Rican plena collective Los Pleneros del Quinto Olivo recorded a tribute song, ¿Dónde estará Mon? ("Where would Mon be?") that spoke fondly of Efraín (although the song did have some inaccuracies concerning him).
Celia Cruz
recorded Efraín's plena "A Papá Cuando Venga" ("When Dad Comes Back", a song describing a girl's experience with sexual harassment by a neighbor from her perspective, threatening him with a beating once her dad comes back from running errands) in bomba
style with Willie Colón
, and had a huge hit with it in Puerto Rico. In the song "El Telefonito", from his 1981 album with Willie Colón "Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos", Rubén Blades pays a tribute to Efraín in the soneos section, parodying "Aló ¿Quien Ñama?" and its "trabalengua" style. So does Héctor Lavoe
in the studio recording of "Mi Gente", written by Johnny Pacheco
and recorded in 1973.
A street in the "Rio Hondo" section of Mayagüez is named in Efraín's honor.
Puerto Rican people
A Puerto Rican is a person who was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Ricans born and raised in the continental United States are also sometimes referred to as Puerto Ricans, although they were not born in Puerto Rico...
musicians (both born in Mayagüez
Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Mayagüez is the eighth-largest municipality of Puerto Rico. Originally founded as "Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria" it is also known as "La Sultana del Oeste" , "Ciudad de las Aguas Puras" , or "Ciudad del Mangó"...
), namely Monserrate Rivera Alers (originally nicknamed Rate, later referred to as "Don Mon", or Mon The Elder, and sometimes erroneously credited as Ramón in songwriting credits) and his oldest son, Efraín Rivera Castillo (referred to early in his career as "Moncito", or Little Mon, and later known by his father's moniker). This article refers mainly to Efraín, a popular band leader known in Latin jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
circles.
Efraín was specifically known for salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
and a Puerto Rican style called plena
Plena
Plena is a folkloric genre native to Puerto Rico. Its creation was influenced by African and Spanish music.-History:The music is generally folkloric. The music's beat and rhythm are usually played using hand drums called panderetas, but also known as panderos or pleneras. The music is accompanied...
. He is credited for a fast humorous style and for introducing the sound of an all-trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
brass section to Afro-Rican orchestra music.
Three of Efraín's brothers were also musicians. Efraín's son is the percussionist, Javier Rivera.
Rate becomes Don Mon
Don Mon was born in MayagüezMayagüez, Puerto Rico
Mayagüez is the eighth-largest municipality of Puerto Rico. Originally founded as "Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria" it is also known as "La Sultana del Oeste" , "Ciudad de las Aguas Puras" , or "Ciudad del Mangó"...
(at the Rio Cañas Arriba "barrio
Barrio
Barrio is a Spanish word meaning district or neighborhood.-Usage:In its formal usage in English, barrios are generally considered cohesive places, sharing, for example, a church and traditions such as feast days...
" in the outskirts of the city, close to the place Eugenio María de Hostos
Eugenio María de Hostos
Eugenio María de Hostos known as "El Ciudadano de América" , was a Puerto Rican educator, philosopher, intellectual, lawyer, sociologist and independence advocate....
was born) in 1899, and lived in the working class Barcelona barrio
Barrio
Barrio is a Spanish word meaning district or neighborhood.-Usage:In its formal usage in English, barrios are generally considered cohesive places, sharing, for example, a church and traditions such as feast days...
of the city proper. He was a janitor and handyman at the nearby University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez for more than 40 years, and was well loved by the campus community. Known as "'Rate" by his closest friends, Don Mon gained a strong reputation as a composer of plena
Plena
Plena is a folkloric genre native to Puerto Rico. Its creation was influenced by African and Spanish music.-History:The music is generally folkloric. The music's beat and rhythm are usually played using hand drums called panderetas, but also known as panderos or pleneras. The music is accompanied...
s, a musical genre considered the "musical newspaper of the barrio". He assembled impromptu plena jams in the neighborhood, which were so widely known that they were preserved for posterity in the documentary film "Plena " (1956) by Amilcar Tirado (Don Mon appears at the last segment, improvising lyrics). Curiously enough, at the time don Mon was illiterate and had no formal musical training.
Two of Don Mon's most famous plenas, "Askarakatiskis" (sometimes referred to as "Karacatis Ki") and "El Gallo Espuelérico" (loosely translated as "The Spurless Rooster") were humorous takes on real life events. On the first one Don Mon told the story of Rafael, a gambler who loses all his money rolling dice
Dice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
and is then assaulted by his wife Luz María with a broomstick, while their daughters laugh the incident off (one of the girls' laughter is the basis for the song's name). "El Gallo Espuelérico" tells the story of Américo, a guy who brags boastfully about a gamecock
Gamecock
A gamecock or game fowl is a type of rooster with physical and behavioral traits suitable for cockfighting. Game fowl are more closely related to their wild cousins "jungle fowl"; a shy wild chicken from forests in South Central and Southeastern Asia...
he carried with him to a fight. The bird is killed soon after the fight starts (Don Mon claimed once that the winner was his rooster "Espuelérico", although this is disputed), to the amusement of his friends, who tell him the gamecock would be more fierce as part of a chicken rice soup (in reality, they ended up eating the soup).
However, a plena
Plena
Plena is a folkloric genre native to Puerto Rico. Its creation was influenced by African and Spanish music.-History:The music is generally folkloric. The music's beat and rhythm are usually played using hand drums called panderetas, but also known as panderos or pleneras. The music is accompanied...
standard to this day was born when seamstresses of a local handkerchief factory striked
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
against the factory's owner, Lebanese industrialist William Mamary
Gilbert Mamery
Gilbert Mamery Riera was a Puerto Rican disc-jockey, musicologist, radio station owner, radio and television personality, marketing impresario and composer born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico...
, and Mamery hired replacement workers (whom the seamstresses considered to be scabs
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
). Don Mon wrote "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama" (loosely translated as "Hello, Who' Calling?", sometimes referred to as "Qué Será") as a musical description of the strike. Since the seamstress' strike was organized by local labor leader John Vidal, and patronized by local assemblywoman María Luisa Arcelay
María Luisa Arcelay
María Luisa Arcelay , was an educator, businesswoman and politician who on November 1932, became the first woman in Puerto Rico to be elected to a government legislative body.-Early years:...
, they are mentioned in the song. The seamstresses are reportedly calling each other as to raise mutual concern about the poor pay they're getting. Near the end, Don Mon breaks into what his son later called "trabalenguas" (tongue twisters), which in fact is a style of scat singing
Scat singing
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...
where some of the syllables of the actual song are slurred nasally and delivered quickly along with the scatting. The skill was passed from father to son; Efraín became so adept at using "trabalenguas" that he eventually was called "El Rey del Trabalengua" ("The Tongue Twister King") once he became famous.
Efrain's early days
Efraín's mother died when he was a little boy, and Don Mon remarried a few years after, fathering a total of twelve children. Since the family's economic situation was precarious, Efraín had to support and look after his younger brothers by taking various odd jobs. The one that he was most successful at, besides music, was as shortstopShortstop
Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball fielding position between second and third base. Shortstop is often regarded as the most dynamic defensive position in baseball, because there are more right-handed hitters in baseball than left-handed hitters, and most hitters have a tendency to pull the...
for the Indios de Mayagüez
Indios de Mayagüez
The Indios de Mayagüez are a baseball team in the Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League . Normally based in Mayagüez, the Indios have won 16 national championships and two Caribbean World Series...
, the local winter league baseball team, for which he had been the bat boy at an earlier age. He played with them between 1943 and 1945. To this date, he still holds the league record for most triples in a game (three) and most consecutive doubles in a double-header (five).
Efraín was trained as a multi-instrumentalist: he played timbales, congas, bongos, saxophone, trumpet, trombone and bass guitar. In his beginnings as a musician, Efraín and Germán Vélez (later the father of Wilkins Vélez
Wilkins Vélez
German Wilkins Vélez, commonly known as Wilkins , is a Puerto Rican pop music singer and composer.-Early years:Wilkins was born in the city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, but raised in Mexico City, Mexico. His father, Germán Vélez Forestier, was a radio announcer and part-time singer...
) formed "El Dúo Huastec
Huastec
The Huastec or Téenek , are an indigenous people of Mexico, historically based in the states of Hidalgo, Veracruz, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas concentrated along the route of the Pánuco River and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.There are approximately 66,000...
o", and sang Mexican folk songs that were popular in Latin America at the time (they even dressed the part). Santos Colon
Santos Colon
Ángel Santos Colón Vega , aka Santitos Colón, was a Puerto Rican salsa music singer and crooner, born in Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico and raised in Mayagüez. He was also known with a moniker: "The Man with The Golden Voice".- Youth and Early Career :Colón was born in Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico, but...
joined the duo occasionally and made it a trio. Their talent moved Gilbert Mamery
Gilbert Mamery
Gilbert Mamery Riera was a Puerto Rican disc-jockey, musicologist, radio station owner, radio and television personality, marketing impresario and composer born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico...
(who also happened to be William's son; Gilbert legally changed the family name's spelling to prevent mispronunciations) to feature them as part of musical reviews staged at Mayagüez's San José Theater. Later, Mon became a percussionist and singer with various local bands, working with bandleaders Juan Ramón Delgado, better known as "Moncho Leña" and William Manzano, both of whom he persuaded to allow him to arrange some of his father's plenas for a full orchestra. A full orchestral version of "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama?" was a sleeper hit in 1954.
Efraín (by now widely called "Moncito", or "Little Mon", and later called just "Mon") began to popularize his father's plenas. One of them, "La Plena de Rafael Martinez Nadal
Rafael Martínez Nadal
Senator Rafael Martínez Nadal, the third president of the Senate of Puerto Rico, was an orphan from an early age, since his mother, Estebanía Nadal Freyte died hours after his birth, and his father, Rafael Martínez Santana, when he was only five years old...
" was written in admiration for the Puerto Rican lawyer and legislator, who was extremely successful in local courts. Another one, "Carbón de Palito", described the route followed by street vendors of wood charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
(then used as cooking fuel) through most of Mayagüez. Almost all sections of the city at the time are mentioned in the lyrics. Both plenas were local hits, and along with Rafael Cortijo
Rafael Cortijo
Rafael Cortijo , was a Puerto Rican musician, orchestra leader, and composer.As a child, Cortijo became interested in Caribbean music and enjoyed the works of some of the era's most successful Plena music musicians...
's rendition of "El Bombón de Elena", they helped to revive the genre during the late 1950s. Efraín started writing his own material just as this happened.
By the mid-1950s, Efraín was an accomplished singer in Puerto Rico, but since the island is rather small, he did as many other local performers and emigrated to New York City, as to guarantee a living playing music, given the sizeable Latino population there. When Moncho Leña's orchestra moved to New York City in November 1953, he moved along with them. He went to the extreme of arranging a plena version of Hava Nagilah for the Italian and Jewish clubgoers who danced to their music at New York's Palladium Ballroom. He also sang with Joe Cotto and Héctor Pellot. He was featured in the second television music special by the Banco Popular de Puerto Rico
Popular, Inc.
Popular, Inc., is a financial services conglomerate that has been operating in Puerto Rico for almost 115 years and in the United States for over 52 years. In recent years, it has expanded into other areas of the Caribbean and Central America. It is better known as Banco Popular, but it is also...
in 1960.
The Trombanga (trombone conjunto) Sound
Efraín organized his own orchestra by 1962. As most Latino orchestras of the time, Efraín's orchestra didn't play plenas exclusively. Most of Efraín's plena numbers broke into a salsa section in mid-song, and he would sing or play any genre at dances and shows. This explains his experiments mixing plena with pachangaPachanga
- Music :In Cuba in 1955, Los Papines fused the violin-based music of charangas and the trumpet-based music of conjuntos Eduardo Davidson's La Pachanga , recorded by Orquesta Sublime, introduced Cuba to a Colombian dance...
, boogaloo
Boogaloo
Boogaloo or bugalú is a genre of Latin music and dance that was popular in the United States in the 1960s. Boogaloo originated in New York City among teenage Cubans, Puerto Ricans and other groups. The style was a fusion of popular African American R&B and soul with mambo and son montuno...
and Dominican
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
merengue, such as "Qué gente averiguá'" ("What nosey people"), a song where he mocked people who openly criticized that he was a miser
Miser
A miser, cheapskate, snipe-snout, penny pincher, piker, scrooge, skinflint or tightwad is a person who is reluctant to spend money, sometimes to the point of forgoing even basic comforts and some necessities...
, recycling old clothes until they wore thin, keeping his money hidden in a barrel or wearing an old hat from his Mayagüez days down 8th. Avenue in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. Cheo Feliciano
Cheo Feliciano
José Feliciano, better known as Cheo Feliciano , is a composer and singer of salsa and bolero music.-Early years:...
admits being Efraín's roadie once around this time.
He also experimented with latin jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
; his efforts were capped by an instrumental salsa song that is listed by many to be a standard of the genre: "Lluvia con Nieve" ("Rain with Snow") (which he recorded in 1964). The powerful artist lineup for this record included Charlie Palmieri
Charlie Palmieri
Charlie Palmieri was a renowned Bandleader and musical director of salsa music. He was known as "The Giant of the Keyboards".-Early years:...
and Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri , is a Grammy Award winning Puerto Rican pianist, bandleader and musician, best known for combining jazz piano and instrumental solos with Latin rhythms.-Early years:...
on piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, Barry Rogers
Barry Rogers
Barry Rogers was a salsa musician and jazz fusion trombonist.Born Barron W. Rogers in The Bronx, he descended from Polish Jews who came to New York City via London and was raised in Spanish Harlem...
, Mark Weinstein and Manolín Pazo on trombones, and Kako Bastar on percussion, among others.
There are conflicting theories that list either Efraín or his record producer, Al Santiago, as being the inventor of the all-trombone brass section (four trombones, in this case). An early example of this is the earliest recording Efraín made of "Askarakatiskis". This led to a more aggressive, bottom-heavy sound that was a novelty at the time. The sound lent itself well to plenas but did not catch on in salsa circles until Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri , is a Grammy Award winning Puerto Rican pianist, bandleader and musician, best known for combining jazz piano and instrumental solos with Latin rhythms.-Early years:...
experimented with a similar lineup almost simultaneously (Santiago produced both artists). By the end of the decade, the all-trombone brass section was part of the standard salsa vocabulary, popularized particularly by Willie Colón
Willie Colón
William Anthony Colón is a Nuyorican salsa musician. Primarily a trombonist, Colón also sings, writes, produces and acts. He is also involved in municipal politics in New York City.-Early years:...
, who adopted it most successfully than any other bandleader.
Efraín could make a living with his orchestra but migrating to New York disconnected him from his fan base in Puerto Rico. Health problems including bouts with alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
and drug addiction, along with serving some prison time, eventually forced a reduction in his workload causing his popularity to wane, but only temporarily.
Mon The Younger revives his career
By the mid-1970s, however, Willie ColónWillie Colón
William Anthony Colón is a Nuyorican salsa musician. Primarily a trombonist, Colón also sings, writes, produces and acts. He is also involved in municipal politics in New York City.-Early years:...
encountered Efraín in Puerto Rico, during one of his visits to the island. At the time, Efraín was a patient at an Hogar Crea
Hogares Crea
Hogar Crea is an international institution, founded in Puerto Rico, that helps drug addicts break their habits.In 1968, Jose Juan Garcia founded "Hogar Crea". The word "Crea" means for the re-education of the addict and the community. Those who enter the program do not have to pay a fee, but must...
, a drug rehabilitation program local to Puerto Rico. He had become a part-time refrigeration technician. Colón, who had admired Efraín's multiple trombone sound strongly enough to model his own band after Rivera's, persuaded Efraín to record an album with him, for which he would perform and produce. The album, named "Se Chavó El Vecindario/There Goes The Neighborhood", was issued by Colón's current label, Fania Records
Fania Records
Fania Records was a New York based record label founded by Dominican-born composer and bandleader Johnny Pacheco and Italian-American lawyer Jerry Masucci in 1964. The label took its name from an old Cuban song by the singer Reinaldo Bolaño. Fania is known for its promotion of what has become...
. For the album sessions, Colón assembled a solid lineup that consisted of Willie's band, as well as Rubén Blades
Rubén Blades
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...
(and in at least two songs, Héctor Lavoe
Héctor Lavoe
Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez , better known as Héctor Lavoe, was a Puerto Rican salsa singer. Lavoe was born and raised in the Machuelito sector of Ponce, Puerto Rico. Early in his life, he attended a local music school and developed an interest inspired by Jesús Sánchez Erazo. He moved to New York...
) as part of the vocal chorus section. Following the release of "Se Chavó", Efraín performed live with Vicky Soto on congas, Gilberto Colón on piano, Goodwin Benjamin on bass, and José Rodríguez, Marco Katz
Marco Katz
Marco Katz plays trombone and arranges and composes music for Band, Brass quintet, and other musical ensembles. Reviewer Adam Gaines writes, "Katz's compositions are a real highlight of the disc...
), Frankie Rosa, and Frank Figueroa on trombones.
"Se Chavó" became a seminal work in the history of Puerto Rican plena, essentially revived Efraín's career and made him famous in a few Latin American countries, particularly in Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
and the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
. The album had three smash hits, a semi-autobiographical plena named "Ya Llegó" (written for him by fellow Puerto Rican composer and singer Felito Felix) and another called "Julia Lee", the story of a bully who terrorized San Juan's Barrio Obrero neighborhood. A third hit was a medley of "Qué Será" and "Askarakatiskis". In Puerto Rico, two additional plenas written by Tite Curet Alonso
Tite Curet Alonso
Tite Curet Alonso was a renowned composer of over 2,000 salsa songs.- Early years :Born Catalino Curet Alonso in the southern town of Guayama in Puerto Rico. Alonso's mother was a seamtress and his father a Spanish teacher and musician in the band of Simon Madera...
, one called "La Humanidad" ("The Humanity"), in which Tite criticizes people's pettiness that have ruined the friendship between two buddies, and "Tinguilikitín", which describes Mayagüez's old horse-pulled tram and its bell, were minor hits. Soon after his mid-1960s albums were re-released.
Death and legacy
The increasing demand for his services, a relapse in his drug addiction, and his ill health combined to strike Efraín in the peak of his popularity. He died on March 12, 1978 in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York City, of a heart attack. He was soon buried in Mayagüez's Old Municipal Cemetery
Cementerio Municipal de Mayagüez
The Cementerio Municipal de Mayagüez, also known as Cementerio Viejo, was constructed in 1876 in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. It was designed by the municipal architect Félix Vidal de D’Ors following the master plan for the city from 1804. The outskirts of the cemetery are defined by brick walls and...
, gathering the second largest funeral crowd assembled in the city, second only to that of the 1993 burial procession for Benjamin Cole, the longest serving mayor in the city's history. An impromptu plena band played his songs during the walk between the religious service and his burial place.
Fania Records
Fania Records
Fania Records was a New York based record label founded by Dominican-born composer and bandleader Johnny Pacheco and Italian-American lawyer Jerry Masucci in 1964. The label took its name from an old Cuban song by the singer Reinaldo Bolaño. Fania is known for its promotion of what has become...
released a posthumous album with unreleased tracks from the "Se Chavó" sessions and newer material, called "Forever". The album, produced by Johnny Pacheco, granted Efraín one last hit, the rather fitting "Se Dice Gracias" (aka "¡Bravo, Mon!"). A remastered version of "Se Chavó" was released in May 2007.
Since Efraín died intestate, legal disputes among family members, as well as between his estate and the publishers of his songs (and his fathers') prevent most of his music to be performed publicly by Latino media. Nonetheless, both Mons have left a legacy of plena standards that are popular to this day.
Efraín was regarded as one of the best güiro
Güiro
The güiro is a Latin-American percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines along the notches to produce a ratchet-like sound. The güiro is commonly used in Latin-American music, and plays a key role...
players of his day (Tite Curet Alonso claimed he was only surpassed by Patricio Rijos, "Toribio", the legendary guiro player that accompanied Puerto Rican composer Felipe Rosario Goyco, "Don Felo", and whose statue can be found at the intersection of Tanca and San Francisco streets in Old San Juan). An example of Efraín's güiro playing can be heard at the end of the first percussion solo part of "Ya llegó".
The all-trombone brass lineup, on the other hand, persists in much of Willie Colón's work, as well as in many plena bands, most notably in Puerto Rico's most successful plena band ever, Plena Libre.
In 1976, while Efraín was alive, a tribute song to him, "Cuchú Cuchá" became a sleeper hit in the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
. The same song was later versioned by Jossie Esteban and his former group, Patrulla 15, and became a huge merengue hit in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and New York City. Just after Efraín's death, the Puerto Rican plena collective Los Pleneros del Quinto Olivo recorded a tribute song, ¿Dónde estará Mon? ("Where would Mon be?") that spoke fondly of Efraín (although the song did have some inaccuracies concerning him).
Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz was a Cuban-American salsa singer, and was one of the most successful Salsa performers of the 20th century, having earned twenty-three gold albums...
recorded Efraín's plena "A Papá Cuando Venga" ("When Dad Comes Back", a song describing a girl's experience with sexual harassment by a neighbor from her perspective, threatening him with a beating once her dad comes back from running errands) in bomba
Bomba
Bomba is one of the traditional musical styles of Puerto Rico. it is a largely African-derived music. The rhythm and beat are played by a set of floor drums, cuá and a maraca. Dance is an integral part of the music: the dancers move their bodies to every beat of the drum, making bomba a very...
style with Willie Colón
Willie Colón
William Anthony Colón is a Nuyorican salsa musician. Primarily a trombonist, Colón also sings, writes, produces and acts. He is also involved in municipal politics in New York City.-Early years:...
, and had a huge hit with it in Puerto Rico. In the song "El Telefonito", from his 1981 album with Willie Colón "Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos", Rubén Blades pays a tribute to Efraín in the soneos section, parodying "Aló ¿Quien Ñama?" and its "trabalengua" style. So does Héctor Lavoe
Héctor Lavoe
Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez , better known as Héctor Lavoe, was a Puerto Rican salsa singer. Lavoe was born and raised in the Machuelito sector of Ponce, Puerto Rico. Early in his life, he attended a local music school and developed an interest inspired by Jesús Sánchez Erazo. He moved to New York...
in the studio recording of "Mi Gente", written by Johnny Pacheco
Johnny Pacheco
Johnny Pacheco is a Dominican producer, musician, bandleader, and one of the most influential figures in American salsa music.-Early life:...
and recorded in 1973.
A street in the "Rio Hondo" section of Mayagüez is named in Efraín's honor.
Discography
- A Night At The Palladium with Moncho Leña, 1956
- Dance with Moncho Leña, 1958
- Que Gente Averigüá, 1963 (re-released as "Mon y Sus Trombones" in 1976)
- Dolores, 1963 (with Joe Cotto y su Orquesta)
- Karakatis-Ki, Vol.1, 1964
- Kijis Konar, Vol.2, 1965
- Mon Rivera y Su Orquesta, Vol. 3, 1966
- Se Chavó El Vecindario / There Goes the Neighborhood, 1975 (with Willie ColónWillie ColónWilliam Anthony Colón is a Nuyorican salsa musician. Primarily a trombonist, Colón also sings, writes, produces and acts. He is also involved in municipal politics in New York City.-Early years:...
) - Forever (posthumous), 1978