By Dalia Hajir and Samantha Linn
Fuse the funky sounds of boogie, the sultry whirl of jazz and the bouncing roll of the blues. Now give it a Spanish twist, throw in a flavorful pinch of Latino spice, and you get the popular music genre of the 1940s, Pachuco, a fantastic celebration in which Latino rhythms swiftly swing across the dance floor under the singing of a saxophone, all hosted by a cleancut man
in a zoot suit, dignified, guapo, and especially proud of his culture, Don Tosti. “When asked what is Latino rhythm and blues,” in an article in The Desert Sun, “Tosti answered: ‘Ah, my dear, it is the taking of Ebonic blues and putting a Spanish twist on it. It is called Pachuco—the language of El Paso, Texas, where I was born.’”
Image caption: Don Tosti (Photo courtesy of the Arhoolie Foundation, Manuel Peña Collection)
The father of Pachuco was a society musician, one who desired to integrate Latino traditions in his compositions and who brought the elegance of his marginalized heritage to the spotlight. He was one of the many Mexican- American youths who refused to wholly assimilate themselves into the Anglo-American society, choosing instead to “embrace American pop culture and make it into their own,” stated the Los Angeles Times. The identity of this subculture, called the Pachuco, spun around jazz, the swing music scene and the famed zoot suits. Describing their fashion, an El Paso Times article stated, “Their long coats, pancake hats, pegged pants, and thick-soled shoes,” all drew lots of attention for their exotic colors and excessive fabric, provoking controversy as they were seen as a waste of wool during the Second World War, a time in which materials were scarce. The hybrid “Spanglish” slang of the zoot suiters also stood out throughout the Southwest. Being a Spanish speaker was not enough to make sense of phrases, such as “¡Ese vato, qué de aquella ranfla traes!” (Hey dude, you have a nice lowrider!), making the style a sort of fiesta that you could only fully grasp if you let yourself be absorbed by it.
Tosti came into the world in El Chuco (The Pachuco name for El Paso) on March 27, 1923, as Edmundo Martínez Tostado. His last name suggests he was hot stuff. He could play hot, too, making music that forced you to gravitate from the corner of the dance floor towards the center of the room, where the beat of Tostado’s musical blend resounded… crowned by that tinge of Latino spice!
As a youngster, the Father of Pachuco studied under well-known individuals, such as Rayo Reyes, a prominent musician and bandleader from El Paso (see article on the Rayo and Reva Reyes duo in this issue of Borderlands); “Verdin” Rodriquez; Pioquinto Gonzalez, orchestra director and composer from Juarez; and Tranquilino Paez, principal violoncello player from the El Paso Symphony Orchestra (see article on the El Paso Symphony Orchestra in the online issue of Borderlands). Tostado’s brilliance as a musician began at the age of seven when he first got ahold of a violin. His success was no accident, however. The Oakland Tribune newspaper related that the Martínezes were a musical family. Though not present at this stage of Tostado’s life, his father, Don Ramon Martínez, became the leader of a ten-piece band; his sister, a singer. But Tostado began as a bit of a troublemaker, which signaled his tendency to defy the rules. Often, he fought other kids in the neighborhood he called a “humble Mexican barrio,” stated The Desert Sun. The solution? His family forced him to practice music for at least two hours a day to keep him busy. By the time he was ten, he could play seven instruments.
Image caption: Don Tosti Playing Bass (Photo courtesy of the Arhoolie Foundation, Manuel Peña Collection)
Warmly regarded today as a notable ex-student, Tostado attended Aoy Elementary and played for the school’s orchestra, where his counterparts and teachers saw before them somebody who would do something great with his life. Tostado was exceptional from the very beginning. At just the age of nine, he reached professional status as a violinist within the El Paso Symphony Orchestra. In the orchestra, he was the youngest, the lead violinist and a sensation with an unmatched talent for the next seven years, by itself a remarkable feat for a musician of any age. Interestingly, he only spoke Spanish at the time, and in return, his teachers called him Don Tosti because they found his name hard to pronounce, a distinction that set the tone for later difficulties in his adulthood.
While nine-year-old Tostado began studying piano in the orchestra, his potential career in this instrument was thwarted years later by an injury to his left hand. The El Paso Times stated that “in a fight over a girl, an assailant tried to stab him with a dagger, which he grabbed in self-defense, slicing the tendons between his thumb and index finger.” The blood scared the other boy away, Tostado related.
“That’s life,” shrugged Tostado during the interview, his scar still visible 70 years later. This injury didn’t hold him back; if his burning desire to make some sound was not attainable on the piano, he would achieve it with another instrument. Blowing beautiful melodies, he picked up the saxophone; then, like the unstoppable wind, he picked up the clarinet, moving forward with these instruments and with what his father later defined as a “terrific” bass, he kept his passion for music alive.
In 1939, when Tostado was 14, he left for Los Angeles because he wanted to see his mother, who had left him in the care of his grandparents and aunts, and they ended up living together. The young teen had a hunger to learn any and every instrument he could get his hands on, literally. He played with the National High School Symphony and was concertmaster for the All-City Symphony Orchestra for three straight years. Then he formed his own swing band, transitioned to the upright bass and began exploring jazz saxophone. The band performed spectacularly. Everyone loved Tostado’s music. Everyone wanted more. Several times he was “almost hired,” but as soon as he gave out his Mexican name, Edmundo Tostado was turned away. In his “Artist Biography” on the Allmusic website, writer Jason Ankeny explains that it was at this time that the Mexican-American music man realized his “Latino ethnicity was costing him playing gigs, including a slot in the Los Angeles Philharmonic.” To get ahead of the game, Tostado transformed the nickname of his youth into his stage name. Edmundo Tostado became Don Tosti at the age of 19. Strong-willed, hardworking and sharp, he didn’t let anyone get in the way of his aspirations. Beyond a doubt, Tosti was musically inclined; however, he also remained physically active. “He won several welterweight bouts in the Pacific Association boxing tournament in 1943,” according to an Oakland Tribune article. Music, however, remained his priority. Simultaneously, Tosti studied accounting at the Los Angeles City College and played in the school jazz band, yet another sign of his dynamism.
Image caption: Don Tosti with Count Basie presenting a copy of “Pachuco Boogie” (Photo courtesy of Arhoolie Foundation, Manuel Peña Collection)
However, his first big break, as he called it, loomed. One of the finest jazz singers and the top pre-bop trombonist, Jack Teagarden, offered still 19-year- old Tosti a job with his band in the Big Apple – the City That Never Sleeps, The Melting Pot – New York City!
During the following years, Tosti scored jobs with some of the greatest swing classics, including American jazz composer Jimmy Dorsey, clarinetist, saxophonist and one of the top bandleaders of the era; then with Charlie Barnet, another jazz saxophonist and composer; and Les Brown, who, for 60 years, led a first-class jazz band. In 1948, again, Tosti joined Dorsey, who served as his best man at his first wedding.
The “big-band era,” as Ankeny called it in his article, was a hard time for many Mexican-Americans who wanted to play at the peak of the music world. Tosti was only one of a handful to achieve professional status. It is crucial, then, to recognize that the discrimination Tosti and many other Mexican-American artists and performers faced in this era was nothing short of injurious. The resentment of having to hide his given name motivated the music man to melt Latino rhythms into his instruments because, despite the distresses caused by the racial prejudices he encountered in his lifetime, he always kept his goals in sight. He did not shrink at the noise of racism. Instead, he used the voice of his music to let his heritage, his inspiration, shine through it.
Latino music would be changed forever when his father, Don Ramon Martínez, returned to Tosti’s life. The Desert Sun stated that Martínez was “a former naval officer who had become a professional wrestler, boxer and show biz promoter,” and who saw great potential in his son, and advised him to write his own music. Intrigued, Tosti followed through. Soon he began doing very well with his songs. Ankeny wrote, “Eventually he formed his own band with pianist Eddie Cano, saxophonist Bob Hernandez and drummer Raul Diaz, fusing jazz, boogie and blues with Latin rhythms to create a style he called “Pachuco.” From this style, his most celebrated song, “Pachuco Boogie,” was born. “‘Pachuco Boogie’ was an unprecedented success,” Ankeny said. “Its thumping piano and driving jump blues beat seamlessly meld with Tosti’s frenetic Chicano rap, colorfully evoking the hipster chic of the growing zoot suit subculture.” Today, a copy of “Pachuco Boogie” remains part of the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in Washington D.C.
Image caption: Don Tosti and Trio (Photo courtesy of the Arhoolie Foundation, Manuel Peña Collection)
The success of “Pachuco Boogie” was phenomenal. Tosti and his band, the Pachuco Boogie Boys, sold millions of copies of their recording in 1948. An August 2004 Tallahassee Democrat article, along with many others, reported that “Pachuco Boogie” was the “first million-selling Latin song,” and it was thanks to that little boy from “Chuco Town” who kept playing music despite what was thrown at him. The Pachuco Boogie Boys “went on to attain an unheard-of success for a Chicano band,” stated the El Paso Times in 1980. “The Pachuco sound gave rhythm to an emerging Mexican-American youth culture inspired by the Zoot Suit scene,” noted a Boston Globe article in 2004.
Palladium, according to Ankeny, and for a year he hosted his own television show, Momentos Alegres (Happy Moments). In 1961, as if triumphantly walking off a stage, he decided to leave Los Angeles and move to Palm Springs, California, where he married model and actress Ruth Lila Margulies, to whom he endearingly referred to as his “little girl.”
Not surprisingly, Tosti spent his last years giving back. “When I moved to the desert, I became the orchestra leader at the Biltmore Hotel for 10 years,” Tosti recalled in an interview with the Desert Sun. “After the Biltmore, I went to the Canyon Hotel for three years. Then I went to the Plaza Hotel. Now I am mostly retired, but I do appear with my band doing society country club work. I run my own agency — so if a job comes along that I don’t like, I send someone else.”
He was no longer as famous as he once had been, but no one can argue he lived the good life. Unfortunately, Tosti was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in May 2004, according to his sister, Marylin Martínez Wood. In August of that year, at the age of 81, the Zoot Suit Music Man passed away in peaceful bliss. “He was really something special, a very talented man,” his sister reminisced with affection. We can only assume the glorious Pachuco sounds led him gracefully away to his final destination.
Image caption: Don Tosti (Image courtesy of the UC Santa Barbara Library)
Just weeks before his death, Tosti was named the “Godfather of Latino Rhythm and Blues,” a fitting title for a man who embraced his elegant, classy and alluring Mexican heritage and made a name for himself amidst targeted racism toward the Mexican- American culture and lifestyle. He became a symbol of success for aspiring musicians from similar backgrounds. Actors, singers and artists can now proudly use their given names “without the penalties that he had suffered,” something he thankfully acknowledged to the Desert Sun. But even before this new era, Tosti let the world see him for who he was, and the world learned to love him for that.
Listening to the Pachuco Boogie is like joining a big party. Anyone can jump in. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is accepted. So, put your dancing shoes on and get ready to swing, Don Tosti style!
tags: Biography
Pachucos: A Culture of Unity (Only in El Paso)
