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This message showed up in my email inbox earlier in the week: “San Diego's own Ernie Becquer -- #4 on the iTunes Soul and R&B Top Album Charts for his work on Jeremy Passion’s debut album For More Than a Feeling.”
It was sent by Becquer himself.
“I'm trying,” he wrote, “to catch lightning again.”
I needed more information: “A couple of months ago I was contacted by a musician named Jeremy Passion Manongdo,” Becquer says, “a Christian artist out of San Francisco. Through mutual contacts, my name came up. He needed some percussion.”
Becquer is by trade a conguero, meaning that he plays the congas which, over the years, have become one and the same with Latin culture, salsa, and Santana. The first versions of the Santana band with Michael Carabello, Marcus Malone, Mingo Lewis and a raft of timbaleros (guys that play those smaller louder drums) woke a generation of pop listeners up to the sounds of Afro-Cuban drumming in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Earlier, congueros like Dezi Arnaz (I Love Lucy) and others did the same for Americans during the 1950s, when salsa was king and everybody was taking lessons.
Becquer himself keeps steady employment going in the salsa circles via such big band outfits as L.A.’s Son y Clave and the hometown based Orchestra La Cura, of which he is co-founder. He also plays in a South Bay trio called Blue Sound and has a standing gig with a talk show host/musician named Sully Sullivan, who performs with a collective of local all-stars that includes local saxist Trip Sprague.
But it’s not all Latin culture all the time. Although he is seldom called to do so, Becquer can actually play any manner of percussion instruments, and that’s what Passion was after. “Cymbal swells,” Becquer says. “The little detail stuff of percussion.” Passion’s record, says Becquer is all Christian music based on “pop and soul. R&B type chops,” he says. “I’m used to doing my salsa thing, and this is a total 360 from anything I’ve done in the past.”
The music was recorded in San Diego in a private home studio. It was mastered in San Francisco then self-released to iTunes. “It took off,” Becquer says. “It’s Top 10 now in several markets – Sweden, Canada.”
Ernie Becquer’s own lineage is Cuban; many congueros, it turns out are. His grandmother exposed him to the music of his heritage, meaning Son, Bolero, Cha Cha, and Mambo. Based in San Diego now for the past 15 years, he has toured the world as a first-call percussionist. He has gigged from Chula Vista, to Nigeria.
Does Becquer have a New Year’s resolution? “Yeah,” he says. “Stay alive.”
This message showed up in my email inbox earlier in the week: “San Diego's own Ernie Becquer -- #4 on the iTunes Soul and R&B Top Album Charts for his work on Jeremy Passion’s debut album For More Than a Feeling.”
It was sent by Becquer himself.
“I'm trying,” he wrote, “to catch lightning again.”
I needed more information: “A couple of months ago I was contacted by a musician named Jeremy Passion Manongdo,” Becquer says, “a Christian artist out of San Francisco. Through mutual contacts, my name came up. He needed some percussion.”
Becquer is by trade a conguero, meaning that he plays the congas which, over the years, have become one and the same with Latin culture, salsa, and Santana. The first versions of the Santana band with Michael Carabello, Marcus Malone, Mingo Lewis and a raft of timbaleros (guys that play those smaller louder drums) woke a generation of pop listeners up to the sounds of Afro-Cuban drumming in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Earlier, congueros like Dezi Arnaz (I Love Lucy) and others did the same for Americans during the 1950s, when salsa was king and everybody was taking lessons.
Becquer himself keeps steady employment going in the salsa circles via such big band outfits as L.A.’s Son y Clave and the hometown based Orchestra La Cura, of which he is co-founder. He also plays in a South Bay trio called Blue Sound and has a standing gig with a talk show host/musician named Sully Sullivan, who performs with a collective of local all-stars that includes local saxist Trip Sprague.
But it’s not all Latin culture all the time. Although he is seldom called to do so, Becquer can actually play any manner of percussion instruments, and that’s what Passion was after. “Cymbal swells,” Becquer says. “The little detail stuff of percussion.” Passion’s record, says Becquer is all Christian music based on “pop and soul. R&B type chops,” he says. “I’m used to doing my salsa thing, and this is a total 360 from anything I’ve done in the past.”
The music was recorded in San Diego in a private home studio. It was mastered in San Francisco then self-released to iTunes. “It took off,” Becquer says. “It’s Top 10 now in several markets – Sweden, Canada.”
Ernie Becquer’s own lineage is Cuban; many congueros, it turns out are. His grandmother exposed him to the music of his heritage, meaning Son, Bolero, Cha Cha, and Mambo. Based in San Diego now for the past 15 years, he has toured the world as a first-call percussionist. He has gigged from Chula Vista, to Nigeria.
Does Becquer have a New Year’s resolution? “Yeah,” he says. “Stay alive.”