#124 Joey De Leon- Percussionist, Podcaster, Educator and More!
Today’s guest is Joey De Leon. Joey is a classically and street-trained percussionist. He has held the bongo chair for Grammy Award winner Poncho Sanchez for the last five years and is now the band's timbalero and drummer. The band's latest album, a joint project with another Grammy Award winning artist, Terence Blanchard is a heartfelt tribute to two iconic figures: percussionist Chano Pozo and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. Both are largely responsible for creating the "Cubop" genre.
Joey has the distinction of holding a Bachelors Degree in Classical Percussion Performance from the highly prestigious Manhattan School of Music. He comes from a legacy of well-known musicians in the Latin music genre. His father was also a percussionist and an early artist for LP in the 70's and was a founding member of a band that played a pivotal role in New York City Salsa, Bobby Rodriguez Y La Compania. His father's oldest brother Santos Miranda, was the family's first true all-around percussionist who played congas, bongos, timbales) as well as drumset.
Joey is currently working with Grammy Award winner, Arturo Sandoval in both his LA All-Star Big Band, which has a CD soon to be released, and with his West Coast Sextet. He also plays with Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, a slew of Los Angeles' top session musicians, a gig that requires wearing a few different hats to say the least. Joey keeps reinventing himself, racking up an ever so impressive resume, hoping never ever to stop building what has started.
Joey is also a co-host of the “We Are Rhythm” Podcast, by Latin Percussion.
Happy Birthday to Stevie Wonder. He is also the featured Iconic Recording for this week. Here’s a little article about him playing the drums.
The Iconic Recording is “You Got It Bad” by Stevie where he is actually playing drums on the track. You can read more of the album credits HERE.
Gig Alerts for this week……
The 29th Annual Drum Show is this week at Rebeats in Chicago.
Product reviews for this week…..
This includes three portable devices for making and recording music on the road. You can travel with these devices and record your ideas and not have to rely on the voice notes function in your phone. You can grab all of these devices at Sweetwater and if you have questions about them, they have excellent customer service.
Shout-out to (friend of the show) Neil Larrivee & Joe Testa of Vic Firth who invited Damon to NYU to see a concert given by The Percussion Collective lead by (friend of the show) Robert Van Sice. This group is amazing and puts on a fantastic concert if you’re able to see them perform.
Music News for this week…..
Ken Burns has a new docu-series coming out and this one features Country music. Woodstock 50 Investors Explain Why They Pulled Their $18 Million. The Festival is not going to happen in August. Pledgemusic is filing for bankruptcy and they could Face a Criminal Investigation Over Crowdfunding Fraud. Here are some of the artists and dollar amounts that are owed by Pledgemusic. Facebook To Fork Over Royalties, Auddly Signs Up ASCAP and Others, And BMI Collects $1B in PRO Royalties. Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams officially launches social app called Daisie.
The song leading into and out of the interview is called “Matanzas” by Dayren Santamaria off of the Belleza album.
Stay tuned to the We Are Rhythm Podcast (of which Joey is the west coast host) for an upcoming interview with Sheila E.
Joey got his start from his mother and father as well as his father’s uncle. His father (Joey de Leon Sr.) was well known for playing with Bobby Rodríguez Y La Compañía. Joey’s uncle, Santos Miranda played with the legendary Vincentico Valdes.
One of the first albums to turn Joey on was Chick Corea’s Return To Forever with Lenny White on drums.
Joey’s uncle was shot at a gig at the start of 1962. Here’s a clipping of the news article.
Joey was hanging and learning from his cousins in the Bronx, Jose Mangual Jr. and his brother Luis Mangual.
The meatless cookbooks that Damon and Marcos were trading recipes from was the Thug Kitchen Cookbook.
As for fitness, this is the 7 min workout that Damon does in his hotel room on the road. This is the VIDEO ACCOMPANIMENT.
Marcos brings up diabetes and how it effects your body.
This is the performance Giovanni Hidalgo did (that Marcos brings up) from Martin Cohen’s birthday party in NYC. Joey talks about how Tata Guines was an inspiration for many including Giovanni.
Damon and Joey talk about band-aids briefly. The band-aids Damon was using were the flexible fabric. The athletic tape that (friend of the show) Paoli Mejias uses with Santana is M-Tape.
Joey mentions some conga players to be aware of and check out if you’re not already familiar. Candido Camero, Mongo Santamaria, “Sabu” Martinez, & Victor Pantoja. Marcos brings up Jimmie Morales.
The rudimental snare drum solos that Joey brings up are from the Charlie Wilcoxon Book.
Joey went to the Manhattan School of Music and got a degree from the school on percussion.
The album Damon brings up with Zach Danziger, Lincoln Goines, and Wayne Krantz is, “Two Drink Minimum”. And now Zach has moved into triggering video clips from his drumset.
Bach is really good for percussion players (especially melodic percussion instruments) from beginners to advanced.
Damon mistakenly thinks of Jackson Height’s own Randy Watson (and Sexual Chocolate) instead of Randy Weston.
Damon brings up Joey performing with John Tesh, the writer of Roundball Rock (the NBA theme song on NBC).
Joey brings up the difference of playing Latin Jazz vs. playing Jazz as a Latin person. One example of the latter is Miguel Zenon (feat. friend of the show Henry Cole on drums).
Joey mentions straying away from Latin music to listen to things like Joe’s Garage by Frank Zappa (or anything with Terry Bozzio on it). Also, Vinnie Colaiuta, and Chad Wackerman.
Marcos mentions Manny Oquendo and Orestes Vilato and the cojunto style of playing timbales (sometimes with bongos as well).
Joe Porcaro, Emil Richards, Larry Bunker are three session percussionists in L.A. that you should know.
Joey also mentions (friend of the show) Johnny “Dandy” Rodriguez as another inspiration, especially his group Tipica 73.
Joey shouts-out some of the younger players on the scene today and Marcos mentions part of that is from having access on the internet to videos on YouTube. A good chunk of them by Martin Cohen and his site Congahead.
Joey uses Latin Percussion instruments, Drum Workshop, Sabian Cymbals, Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets & Remo Drumheads.
