Candido Camero, 'father of modern conga drumming,' dies at 99

[sandensea]

Cándido 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.

Mr. 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.

At: https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/candido-camero-father-of-modern-conga-drumming-dies-at-99/ar-BB1aVCkp

Cándido Camero, 1921-2020.

[Judi Lynn]

1. What a talent at such an advanced age, too! He was truly a master of his craft.

Can't imagine what it must have been like, being the one who invented using three conga drums so long ago. I felt lost trying to understand how he could accomplish all that movement and the complexity of the patterns, simply way beyond me.

Just listened to an interesting brief video done by a musician who met and knew Cándido Camero, as he gives a brief demonstration of
some method the man used playing three of the big guys. I know nothing about drums, but it was really neat, and he showed some images of a much younger Cándido, and very brief video clips of him from decades ago. The drummer has enormous respect for him.

He's Eric Pérez, US American/Saladoran.

After seeing this short video, playing drums looks even MORE complex than I thought earlier! Whoo!