It is rare, and ever increasingly so, that a musician would spend a lifetime in a band. But percussionist Johnny “Dandy” Rodríguez Jr. who was a teenager when he was allowed to sit in with the Tito Puente Orchestra and be an apprentice for a few months before earning a place in its rhythm section, was also there at the end, playing alongside Puente until his death, after a concert on May 31st, 2000.

“I went from being a kid, coming into the band as a 16 year old to being the man running the band at the end,” said Rodríguez, 70, in a conversation from his home in Las Vegas.

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You may not know his name, but if you have enjoyed the music of The Tito Puente Orchestra, Machito and His Afro-Cubans or the Tito Rodriguez Orchestra, chances are you heard saxophonist Bobby Porcelli. Porcelli, a charter member of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, is one of the musicians who will be honored by Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra in their Tribute to the Great Sidemen of Latin Jazz, at Symphony Space in New York City, on January 29th and 30th.

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In a career spanning forty years, trombonist, composer and bandleader Ángel “Papo” Vázquez has played a broad range of musical genres under a variety of directors in an array of settings. “My favorite leaders when I’ve worked as a sideman, the ones from whom I learned how to be a leader, were the guys who wrote the music,” says Vázquez, who was a member of orchestras led by figures such as Tito Puente, Chico O’Farrill, Mario Bauzá, Dizzy Gillespie, Slide Hampton, Eddie Palmieri and Arturo O´Farrill. “Those guys who put pencil to paper, they were always a pleasure to work for.”
“When someone like Chico got up to conduct the orchestra it put you at ease,” he says. “Because you knew that he knew what he was doing. All those black dots on the page, he put them there.”

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