Latin Percussion - a firm History

Latin Percussion, or LP as they are generally identified, ended up considered one of the very first firms Musica en linea Colombia established up to mass manufacture percussion devices from all over the world, driven via the musical enthusiasm of Martin Cohen, a younger engineer and keen photographer. From the mid nineteen fifties Mr Cohen started to repeated New Yorks Jazz clubs and stumbled on the well known Birdland club, which can be when he to start with read Latin Jazz. He soon turned a daily customer and was encouraged by percussionists these as Jose Mangual, and through the early 1960s he became hooked on discovering the Bongos. Resulting from the US trade embargo with Cuba, great high-quality bongos ended up hard to find in the united states, hence the resourceful Cohen resolved for making his very own, inspite of owning minimal expertise in wood-working. Following a couple of attempts he bought the result he was seeking for. Other musicians commenced to consider observe of his drums and he started out making bongos and cowbells for other percussionists, welcoming their feed-back as a way to fine-tune his solutions.

Term of his instruments unfold among the many Latin tunes local community, and need grew. He began to make cowbells for that Rogers Drum Enterprise, and likewise started out to pay attention to advice from working drummers outside the house from the Latin local community these as Tv set session participant Specs Powell, who asked him to make a set of bongos that would be mounted on a stand as opposed to performed in between the players knees. Cohen came up using a option, a mounting bracket for the drums that didn't entail drilling in to the wooden, and Tonight Exhibit drummer Bob Rosengarden then requested Martin if he could generate a contemporary edition of the regular jawbone with rattling enamel.... quite a challenge but Cohen produced the Vibra-Slap, an result that is still well-liked to at the present time. The Vibra-Slap was also his first patent. Another improvement (once more originally built for Bob Rosengarden) was the Afruche-Cabasa, one more strong present day edition of an historic and frail instrument. Martin Cohens skill appeared to get changing these outdated classic instruments with modern-day versions made of powerful modern-day materials, but with no sacrificing the tone... these new devices experienced to sound as authentic as being the originals. He even now expended quite a few hrs hanging about the Latin music scene, gaining awareness and gathering all of the opinions that he could on his products and solutions, some coming from famous percussionists these types of as Carlos "patato" Valdez and Tito Puente, who each went on to become lengthy standing household pals. It definitely was a circumstance of discovering exactly what the players preferred, then which makes it occur.

In 1964, Cohen started off the Latin Percussion Company, initially undertaking the majority of the get the job done by himself inside of a small unheated garage. In time Cohens spouse and daughter became associated with the business, as well as the corporation started to export items. Expansion was fast and LP soon turned a earth famous model amid percussionists. Cohen arrived up with all the strategy to make congas from fiberglass, giving the drums much more quantity which was very well gained, in particular as Latin instruments were being now getting to be more mainstream and coming into well-known music. Eventually LP would come to be the worlds major producer of percussion instruments, which has a list of endorsers such as top percussionists such as Giovanni Hildago, Jose Madera, and Armando Peraza. Quite a few of those excellent gamers have place their names to a number of LPs merchandise this kind of as being the LP Tito Puente Timbales, and Giovanni Hildagos signature collection, the LP Galaxy Giovanni Bongos and Congas.

By 2002, Latin Percussion was acquired by Kaman Tunes Company, the worlds biggest impartial musical instrument distributor, enabling further more expansion on the LP brand name around the globe, and Martin Cohen acquired a exclusive recognition award with the Global Latin Tunes Hall of Fame, for nearly 40 decades of innovation in music. In fact its not easy to envision how every one of these devices might have ever acquired these kinds of reputation without the input and perseverance of Martin Cohen. The corporate continues to provide a tremendous catalog of congas, bongos and timbales, along with countless numbers of hand percussion instruments from claves to bells, wind chimes to woodblocks, caxixis, shakers and far considerably more.