(contactmusic) Israel 'Cachao' Lopez, the Cuban musician credited with inventing the mambo, died on Saturday in Florida at the age of 89.
His spokesman Nelson Albareda said the Grammy-winner passed away surrounded by his family at Coral Gables hospital in Miami having been taken ill in the past week.
CACHAO - 'AHORA' SI
Born in Havana in 1918, Cachao left Cuba for the US in the early 1960s and performed well into his late 80s.
Actor Andy Garcia,, of Cuban-American descent, made a documentary about Cachao in 1993 and today paid tribute to the musician as a huge influence on Cuban culture.
"Cachao is our musical father. He is revered by all who have come in contact with him and his music," he said in a statement.
"Maestro... you have been my teacher, and you took me in like a son. So I will continue to rejoice with your music and carry our traditions wherever I go, in your honour."
Cachao created the mambo with his late brother Oresto in 1937, he explained in a 2004 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.
"My brother and I were trying to add something new to our music and came up with a section that we called danzon mambo," he said.
"It made an impact and stirred up people. At that time our music needed that type of enrichment."
He was honoured with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame in 2003 and won a Grammy in 2004 for his album Agora Si.
By Enrique Fernandez, Miami Herald
Cachao, born into a musical family, was one of the most important figures in Cuban music, on or off the island. Conservatory-trained and a child prodigy, he played popular music professionally from the age of 8 and joined a symphony orchestra when he was 13.
Cachao's passing joins other greats of that golden era, including Celia Cruz, who died in 2003; composer René Touzet, who also died in 2003; trombonist Generoso Jiménez, in 2007, and percussionists Carlos ''Patato'' Valdez, 2007, and Federico Arístides Soto, known as Tata Güines, this year.
ORIGINS OF MAMBO
Cachao and his brother Orestes are most widely known for their late-1930s invention of the mambo, a hot coda to the popular but stately danzón that allowed dancers to break loose at the end of a piece.
It debuted in a chic Havana night club -- and flopped.
''Nothing happened,'' Cachao told The Miami Herald in 1992. ``Here was this 180-degree turn. The whole orchestra was out of work for six months after that because people didn't understand that type of music.''
Typically modest, Cachao always credited bandleader Dámaso Pérez Prado for making the beat world-famous in the 1950s.
''People think there could've been some antagonism,'' Cachao said. But ``if it weren't for him, the mambo wouldn't be known around the world.''
A possibly more important musical moment took place in 1957, when Cachao gathered a group of musicians in the early morning hours, pumped up from playing gigs at Havana's popular nightclubs, for an impromptu jam at a recording studio.
The resulting descargas, known to music aficionados worldwide as Cuban jam sessions, revolutionized Afro-Cuban popular music. Under Cachao's direction, these masters improvised freely in the manner of jazz, but their vocabulary was Cuba's popular music. This was the model that would make live performances of Afro-Cuban-based genres, from salsa to Latin jazz, so incredibly hot.
This majestic influence came from a man of sweet demeanor and an unassailable sense of humor. Fronting his band at a fancy dance in Coral Gables when he was already in his late 80s, he seemed so frail that he had to lean his whole body on the contrabass to keep from falling. But his beatific smile and closed eyes proved that he was in heaven already, embracing his instrument like a lover, like a strong friend.
Yet he no longer owned a bass.
''That's outrageous,'' said jazz legend Charlie Haden when he heard this at the time. ``I'll give him one of mine.''
But a contrabass took up too much room in his small Coral Gables apartment. Besides, what need did he have to rehearse? Cachao carried his bass, his music, inside him.
Sources: Contact Music and Miami Herald