Candido Camero, ‘father of modern conga drumming,’ dies at 99

Candido Camero, a Cuban musician who helped find new expressive directions for conga drumming, providing dynamic rhythmic accents to jazz and other forms of music, died Nov. 7 at his home in New York City. He was 99.

His death was announced by the National Endowment for the Arts, which had named him a Jazz Master in 2008. The cause was not disclosed.

Camero, who often performed and recorded as simply “Candido,” began his career in Cuba at 14 and was still active past the age of 95. He was considered a towering figure on the congas, which are tapered drums played with the fingers and hands.

His greatest innovation was to play more than one conga drum at a time, eventually settling on a setup of three congas, each tuned to a different pitch. He sometimes added bongos and other percussion instruments, creating a whirlwind of complex rhythms and sounds.

Camero’s invention was born of necessity, when he first came to the United States in 1946 to accompany a Cuban dance team, Carmen and Rolando.

Typically, the rhythmic accompaniment for dancers was anchored by two or more conga players, or congueros.

Knowing there was only enough money for one conguero to travel with the dancers, Camero began experimenting with the smaller quinto drum.

“When we were at the airport, I brought with me a quinto and a conga and the promoter began to ask me ‘ Why do you have two drums?’ “Camero told musician Bobby Sanabria in an article published in April by WBGO-FM, a jazz radio station in New Jersey. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry, you will see.’ “

Camero played the steady, underlying rhythm with his left hand on the conga, while unfurling complex, dancelike solo figures with his right hand on the quinto, matching the dancers’ steps. It was similar to the way a pianist plays chords with the left hand, while using the right hand to play the melody and improvised embellishments.

“The crowd went crazy, and Carmen and Rolando began hugging me,” Camero told Sanabria.

He sounded like two or three conga players, not one, and forever changed the way the instruments - close descendants of African drums - were used.

Camero continued to experiment. After seeing a performance by the New York Philharmonic, he decided to tune his congas to certain pitches, following the example of timpani.

“I thought to myself, ‘ I can do the same thing with the congas,’ “he told Sanabria. “I began to tune them to a dominant chord so I could play melodies.”

In the early 1950s, Camero became the first person to play three congas at once. Adding the smaller bongos to his array of instruments, he could play the melody of “Tea for Two” and other songs on his drums.