Callen Radcliffe Tjader Jr. (July 16, 1925 – May 5, 1982) was an American Latin Jazz musician, often described as the most successful non-Latino Latin musician. He explored other jazz idioms, especially small group modern jazz even as he continued to perform music of Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America.
Although his main instrument was the vibraphone, Tjader was also accomplished on an incredible spectrum of music instruments including the drums, bongos, congas, timbales and piano. He worked with many musicians from several cultures. He is often linked to the development of Latin rock and acid jazz. Although the fusion of Jazz with Latin music is often pigeonholed as “Latin Jazz”, Tjader’s works swung freely between both styles. His Grammy award in 1980 was for his album La Onda Va Bien. It capped off a career that spanned over 40 years.
* * *
I got interested in Tjader when I lived next to Berkeley, California in the 80s and produced a few live sets of jazz at Larry Blakes next to the UC Berkely campus. In the early 80s, a pianist that was blowing everyone away in San Francisco was the Russion Andrew Kitaev. Andrei was a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory of Music. He had listened to jazz from America in Moscow while growing up and one of his great heros was the Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson.
A friend of mine sent me an album that Andrei had recorded at Royce Hall at UCLA. It was stunning. At the time I had written a biography on John Coltrane and was publishing a jazz newsletter for the Bay Area. I worked out a meeting with Andrei. We became best of friends.
Andrei got a six month gig at Larry Blakes in Berkeley. The Andrei Kitaev Trio. They were in the cavern basement of the place where you could hear a lot of great music. The drummer in his group was the legendary Eddie Marshall and the bass player was Rob Fisher. I got to know Rob in the months I heard them at Larry Blakes and heard about his career as bassist for Cal Tjader.
The above from Tjader’s Primo album, recorded in 1973 at the Fantasy Studios in Berkeley.