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 Luis Flores aka - by Marla Friedler - |
Named for how fast he moved his legs, Luis Maquina is a
dance legend from the days of the Palladium. Unfortunately, he is now in a wheelchair due
a shooting incident which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Luis Maquina was
recently honored at Sidestreet in the Bronx. In fact, New York now has an official Luis
Maquina Day in September. I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with him. His
colorful and richly textured character made for a most interesting time.
Marla:
What advice do you have for people who are just starting to learn salsa?
Luis:
My advice is go to the classes ok, but remember there’s a whole lot of people doing
exactly the same thing the same way. What I’m saying is to put in your head that once
you learn the basics you are going to do your own thing. If this one is moving this way,
you move the other way because really, really, I’ll tell you the truth. I love being
different. If four guys in the corner are dressed in yellow I’m gonna dress in black,
ok? Because that’s what it’s all about. You are you and I am me. I respect your
way and you respect mine. I don’t want to dance just like everybody else. I have my
own style.
Listen, around 1965 I wanted to get a white suit, a white linen suit and I searched and I
searched and I couldn’t find a linen suit and I’m saying, damn, where am I gonna
get this suit? Do I have to send away to Cuba to get this thing? There was a store where
all the big hustlers, we used to buy stuff, Leighton's. And I went into Leighton's and I
bought me a double-breasted blazer with gold buttons and I got me white pants and I got me
a pair of white shoes with a streak of blue. Everybody used to take, you know that little
pocket that you have over here, well everybody used to take their little handkerchief and
fold it into little corners and put in the pocket like that. Well, I used to work in
Bloomingdale’s and I stole some silk handkerchiefs. So, since I’m different, I
take one of these handkerchiefs and I put it in there like this and I think it looked
beautiful. I get to the dance and as soon as I got to the dance everybody said, “Hey,
there’s the captain of the ship” because of my streak of blue and the stuff in
my pocket and I said, “I tell you what. I know that I look good in it. You understand
what I’m saying? That’s what’s important to me.” So, about two weeks
later I went to the dance and there were three guys with the same stuff that I had and I
said, “Wait a minute.” And they said, “Well, you know Luis, but it looks
good” and I said, “Oh, now, huh?”
Marla:
They say imitation is the biggest form of flattery but if you always want to be different,
what do you do when people start to copy your stuff. Do you have to make up new things all
the time?
Luis:
Well, I tell you, you can’t keep making up things because sometimes you run into
those dry places but what you do is like Liza Minnelli. When Liza Minnelli sings a song,
she may sing the song 50 million times but each time she gives it a different flavor, a
note here, a note there. So, that’s what you do as a dancer. You take what you got
and do it another way. It’s just that you have to take pride in what you’re
doing. If you don’t take pride in what you’re doing, forget about it. It’s
like sex. If you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, don’t do it.
It’s the same thing with dance. The dance is beautiful, the movements. You know what
I wish I could do? I want to lend you a videotape to see what I’m talking about -
Colimbia and Salsa. Colimbia is drums, just drums. Jambu is all drums. But Jambu goes
something like doom, ba ba ba - doom, ba, ba, ba. It’s slow. Colimbia goes something
like, da-doom, bap - da-doom, bap. It’s real fast. You’re telling a story while
you’re dancing, okay? Now when you dance salsa the two of these go together. The
changes in that rumba look more beautiful when you can make those changes with your body
instead of just dancing mambo. If you don’t, you’ll be going too fast and you
can’t do it. You have to break into either jambu or colimbia. That is something
people these days don’t know anything about but it’s all inter-related because
it all started with the drum, Marla. It started with the drum. It started with the
Africans, okay. The Africans got to Cuba and since they didn’t have any other
instruments they had to play drums. They didn’t know to say Santa Barbara, they
called it changoa. They took the Spanish names and put their own names on it. So what
happened is that all of this music derived from the drum. If you see these people dancing
you will see what I am talking about. I always dance rumba knowing this. Once Tito Puente
started playing and he got into the timbales, everybody sat down, everybody sat down okay,
but no, you don’t sit down. If you keep dancing mambo you’re gonna drop from a
heart attack but when you break it down to rumba you’re gonna start tiptoeing -
badam, bedee, bah. Even today all of the dancers, I never see anybody else doing that.
Marla:
Have you ever taken any dance lesson in your life?
Luis:
No, no, no.
Marla:
Have you ever taught?
Luis:
You know something Marla, I would like to teach. I would like to teach young people, young
kids because it is a beautiful dance and I would like to see them doing it the right way,
okay? But what happens with me is I’m sitting down and I cannot express it. It’s
all here in my head but to express it is so hard and it’s so self-defeating, not
really defeating but I get mad. I get frustrated because I know what I want but I
can’t do it. And I love kids.
Marla:
Did you make up your steps and style ahead of time or did it just happen while you were
dancing?
Luis:
It just came. Let me tell you. There are some steps out there that are my invention. Like
when the pachanga started in the United States, Pacheco took one of my steps, which is a
sliding step, and made it into a Pachanga step. Once I was out with my wife and we saw
everybody doing this step and she said, “Luis, they’re doing your step.”
And you know how that step started? In the Palladium, in the hot corner, every Sunday
there was a circle and you came in with your partner and you did what you learned that
week. You could not repeat something from another week. So I remember one instance when I
was dancing with my wife and I slipped and I fell but I did it so fast that when I came
up, I came up doing a little shuffle, right on time. I kept doing it and that is where
Pacheco got that step.
Marla:
Back in the Palladium days, did everybody dance on two?
Luis:
I’m glad you asked this. I hate when people talk about dancing on two. You take
something raw and you systemize it. Don’t talk that shit to me. When this dance came
out, there was no such thing as dancing on two. You danced on clave period. People took
this and bottled it, systemized it. What do you mean dancing on two? I’m dancing on
clave. Now, if you want to dance professionally then you have to dance with the numbers
but I wasn’t about that. I am the little guy’s dancer. I was never into counting
because I was doing other things that were making me ten times more money than dancing. I
went to dance because if I was sick, dancing was my doctor. If I was blue, dancing would
take it away. When I was a little kid, I never got a kiss from my mother, nothing. When I
found out that I could get this kind of attention from people, that I could do it better
than most, I went into it with all my heart. I always knew how do dance because my whole
family danced. My father was my king. I used to sit and watch my father. My father used to
do things that I never could do. I didn't get to know my father very well so when I
danced, I danced partly because it made me feel close to him.
I dance for love, not to show off. You know in the Western movies when there’s a gun
draw to see who’s the fastest gun. That’s what dancing became for me. I’d
be in one corner and somebody would come to challenge me. I have trophies. I have plaques
and all of that but that doesn’t mean anything to me. What’s important to me was
that I was dancing and was doing something that I could do on my own.
Marla:
What do you think of the way people dance today?
Luis:
They dance like they’re riding a motorcycle. They’re all over the place. They
dance flat footed. A million turns. And you don’t dance that way. Everybody looks at
the feet. They do a lot of steps and they forget about the body. Not me. I got in an
argument with Tito because he came with a guy who did a lot with his feet and he said,
“Isn’t he a good dancer?” I’d say, “He’s okay. Look at his
body and look at those steps. They’re not going together. His coordination
stinks.” I have a problem with that.
Marla:
What do you consider good dancing?
Luis:
Less turns. Give me a certain posture. Don’t give me slouched shit and your arms all
over the place and a million steps if they don’t go with your movement. Your body has
to go with each movement. It’s like when you talk, you follow with a gesture. Dancing
is the same. You’ve gotta have that body discipline so that your body does justice to
that step. Give me someone who has control of their body and just give me the basics and
to me that’s beautiful. A lot of times people see someone dancing on a stage and they
want to dance on the floor the same way. You can’t do that. These are two different
things here. A lot of people like dancing, but that doesn’t make them a dancer. They
like dancing, but they’re not a dancer.
Marla:
What’s the difference?
Luis:
When I danced, when I’d take a shower, I’d be in that shower trying to look for
something new to do. When I went to the dance, I went to dance. I didn’t go to
bullshit. You understand what I’m saying? When I walk in, I’m gonna dance. So
many people say they like dancing but they go and stand around and pose for animal
crackers. I’m coming over here to dance. If I want to talk to a girl, I’d do it
some other place but I’m here to dance. And I never got high to dance because my high
was my music. Dancing is dancing. Even if I was 300 years old I could not sit and listen
to Tito Puente and not get up to dance. That is the difference.
Hey, there’s nothing I love more than women. I love women more than food. If someone
said, You can have all the women but you’re never gonna taste food, I’d say,
give me the women. But, when it comes to dancing, forget it. Women would have to take
second. It’s something in my system, something that’s there. I’m in love
with this feeling. I look at paintings and singers and I understand when they are good how
they must feel. And I do it for me. It’s for me. It isn’t for anybody. I
don’t dance for anybody. I don’t do it for women. I do it for me. Once I got on
the floor I forgot about everybody, about everything, about every problem. All that I
thought about was trying to dance better. Every move that I made was like an orgasm to me.
That’s the difference. That’s what I don’t see in people today. The fact
that I am paralyzed, I go to a club and see people doing what I used to do. I see them
talking to women. They don’t know how to talk to women. I see a guy with a hundred
dollar suit and I want to tell him. “You want me to tell you something my friend. I
was wearing $300 suits in 1956. I still got clothes that I paid $700 a suit, faggot.
Don’t go wearing that shit over here. So now a lot of people might say I am bitter.
Maybe. Maybe I’m bitter because I am paralyzed and I cannot compete. I have a joke
with my son. I say, “See that fine girl over there” and he says,
“yeah” and I say “I feel so sorry for her.” He asks why I say
“because she never had me.” He laughs.
The only person now that I enjoy watching dance is Ernie. Ernie is a little copy of me.
Ernie goes to Sidestreet. He’s about the only person on this planet that I like to
watch dance.
Marla:
How about your children? How old were they when you started to teach them?
Luis:
My children? There was always music in my house. I used to take them to the Corso, where
we went when they closed the Palladium. And their mother, forget about. Their mother was
fantastic.
Marla:
How many kids to you have?
Luis:
I have two daughters and one son. I had another son but he died in May.
Marla:
What happened to him?
Luis:
He had a hemorrhage. Anthony. Anthony, this kid was white. He didn’t belong to me
originally. His father died and I got him when he was a few months old. When I met my
wife, she had him already. This kid adored music. When he died I fell apart because he was
my friend. He was more my friend than my other children, my Anthony. He was super smart,
super intelligent but, you know, he died on me. It hurts.
Marla:
Do your kids dance the way you are talking about?
Luis:
Didn’t you see them at Sidestreet?
Marla:
Yeah, I thought they were great.
Luis:
They always knew how to dance. Oh, my children can dance. My children and my ex-wife,
forget it. Forget it. She could dance anybody under the table.
Marla:
I like the way your kids dance. They have a lot of feeling. It seems like a lot of people
these days do lots of tricks but don’t have a lot of feeling.
Luis:
The dancing takes place in the body, not in the air, okay? I wish I could take you
someplace where I could show you what I’m talking about. The most beautiful thing in
the world to me is a woman who knows how to dance salsa. To me the woman is more beautiful
than the man. They do some moves that look so beautiful. I am going to show you a
videotape made in Cuba and there is this woman on it dancing rumba and I’ve never
seen more beautiful coordination than this. Forget about it. One day you come to my house
and I will pinpoint to you on the tape what I’m talking about it.
Marla:
How often did you used to go dancing?
Luis:
In one month you’d get dizzy.
Marla:
Where do you think the best places to dance right now are?
Luis:
Latin Quarter, Copacabana. Now I don’t go to those places because I don’t like
the dancing too much.
Marla:
Eddie Palmieri’s playing at SOB’s tonight.
Luis:
That’s my man. When you speak to him, tell him Luis Maquina sends him a kiss. Some
people have classified Eddie Palmieri as a nut. To me he’s a genius. I love Eddie
because he plays for the people. There are a lot of people who do a good arrangement and
they say, “Oh, you should hear this arrangement.” Not Eddie. He’s out there
to make you swing, to make you dance.
Marla:
What do you think of Sidestreet?
Luis:
I like Sidestreet because Sidestreet is a neighborhood thing, okay? And when you are in a
neighborhood thing everybody relaxes.
Marla:
Well, when you used to go to the Palladium, part of the enjoyment I thought came from
dressing up. What do you think about Sidestreet, how people go in jeans, shorts, whatever.
Luis:
Well, I’m stuck with that because it is what it is. I can’t criticize anything
but, to tell you the truth, I liked my time best. I remember when I only had one suit, one
suit. You could not go dancing in New York if you did not have a suit and tie. You could
not under any circumstances go with jeans or sneakers, forget it. You were not getting in.
Well, I had this one suit and I could not afford anything else. This suit was so old that
when you lifted the jacket up the pants were so shiny that you could take a shave looking
at it. But, what I used to do was, well, I was in high school and I would not eat lunch so
I could buy a tie to give it another look. Now, we took pride in cleanliness, okay?
You’d hit the street to hustle a dollar but by 6 o’clock you start taking a bath
and putting on the same shit you had on yesterday but today it’s clean because you
washed and ironed it. It was the same old shit but it was clean. In that time, there was
honor. There was respect, okay? Like if you wanted to dance with my old lady and you came
to my table, you know like on a bolero...If somebody came to ask your old lady to dance -
he would get killed. You understand what I’m saying? There was respect.
Marla:
You mean you only danced with your own boyfriend or girlfriend?
Luis:
Or with their friends. Now you get these lowlifes that come up to a woman who is with a
man and say, “Can I dance with her?” “No. You can not dance with her. Do I
know you?” Now if here comes by boy, of course he can dance with her but not a
stranger. There was respect, even among hustlers. I’m still hustling out here.
I’m an old man in years, but it’s not about that. I’m in love with that
kind of thing. I used to be a gang buster but if the other guy’s mother came and said
something, it would be “Yes, ma’am, yes ma’am.” You understand what
I’m saying? Now these guys are animals. They’d say to someone’s mother,
“Hey, fuck you. Who the fuck are you?” I’m in love with respect, you know?
I’m in love with Spanish Harlem because Spanish Harlem is a party 24/7. These people
today go through a little adversity and they fall apart. Want me to tell you how it used
to be? Tomorrow they could throw you in the street because you didn’t have your rent
but you did it with a smile. Your friends would say, “how much you owe? Let’s go
hustle so we can buy a few bottles of wine and some chicken legs. That night there was a
party. Everybody used to come and pay for the stuff and by the end of the night you had
your rent. But we’d do it and everybody smiled. Then when we went to the dance, it
would take you so you much to hustle for the 75 cents so you went to dance to everything.
Even “Home Sweet Home” we’d dance to that shit.
Marla:
How long have you been in a wheelchair?
Luis:
22 years. I’m a hell of a man though. Because the things I’ve done
paralyzed...people that can walk can not do what I have done. I’m proud because
I’m my own man and I refuse to just lay down and die. I’ve got this macho shit
but I’m happy that I have it because, you know, there were people taking bets when I
got paralyzed, taking bets on when I’d blow my head off because the change was so
drastic. All my life I lived as though I’d live to be 300. What happened is this,
Marla. When I say I’m a macho, people think that means I’m against women but
that’s all messed up. A macho to me is someone who can hold his own ground come hell
or high water, okay? A macho is somebody who, if anyone dares disrespect my lady, I’m
gonna kill him. A macho is also a guy who knows when he’s wrong and grows by saying
“I’m sorry.” Out here, that thing that I did, the biggest hustler, you ask
him, “Do you know who Luis Maquina is?” and he’ll have to open the door to
you because he knows who Luis Maquina is. You can’t fuck with me because I’ll
respect you to death but I expect the same from you.
Marla:
Have you accepted being in a wheelchair?
Luis:
I cannot really accept this because I love women and there are too many women who’ve
escaped my shit. But my machismo is that I say “Yo soy macho. I’m a fucking man
and anything you dish out, I can take it.” To tell you the truth, I want to die right
now because I can’t dance but, Marla, there’s another part of me that says,
“If you were to shoot yourself, you were a punk to start with” and that I
don’t want. I don’t want to leave that legacy to my children. Since I said that
I was a macho, I have to go the whole nine yards, even if it means crying. Sometimes when
I turn the light out my tears come out because what my mind wants to do my body won’t
let me.
Marla:
Tell me about Cuban Pete and some of the other dancers at the Palladium.
Luis:
Cuban Pete was the worst dancer that I’ve ever seen but Cuban Pete married Millie.
Millie, she was a Jewish woman. There was a big crowd of Jewish people because the Jewish
people loved salsa and they were very good at it. Millie was in that crowd. Now Cuban Pete
got accepted in this crowd because he was a fuese cara, what we call fuese cara, you
understand? The translation is stoneface. As far as dancing was concerned, he was not a
dancer. Cuban Pete was not a dancer.
Now, there was a Jewish girl named Lynn. To look at this girl she looked like Olive Oil,
Popeye’s wife, very thin but nobody could touch this girl on the floor. Forget it.
This girl could really, really dance.
At the Palladium you had those who were styling- us, and then you had the tables- you
know, the money. So the professionals used to come out from there to the floor and we, we
were like the contestants. We used to get into the contests from the side. Everything on
their side was systemized. Over here it was crude, okay? We used to have more fun with
those people. In one corner you had blacks, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians in la esquina
caliente, the hot corner. Now, a lot of credit has to be given to the Jewish people
because the Jewish people used to go to the Palladium on Wednesday. Marlon Brandon, Van
Johnson and so and so would be sitting over there too. The Jewish people took this thing
to Grossinger’s. They did a lot for the development of salsa.
Marla:
What do you think of today’s salsa?
Luis:
It’s systemized. Dancing on 1, dancing on 2, all that shit.
Marla:
You don't count at all when you’re dancing?
Luis:
No. I follow the clave. You count when you are dancing on a stage and you have specific
steps to do within a certain amount of bars. But when you are on the floor, what are you
counting? You are listening to the clave.
Marla:
You don’t count the basic step?
Luis:
No. When it’s there it’s there. When I have you like this, you already know what
you’re gonna do. I’m guiding you by every touch. If you are a good dancer you
know what you are doing.
Marla:
Did you have a specific step?
Luis:
Yeah, we had a basic step. It’s like conga. The basic step is the conga. Da doom bop,
da doom bop. That’s the basic step. When you are dancing mambo, it’s forward and
backward. When I’m on the stage I count but not on the floor and I’ll pay
anybody to fool around with my timing. I’ll give you an example. If I’m dancing
and I turn two or three times. If you take one split second to catch the timing then
you’re no dancer. When you spin and you come out and you continue dancing, then
you’re a dancer. Forget about counting. It takes away from your concentration and it
takes away from your inventing because you are so busy counting. Screw the counting. Dance
to enjoy yourself and to invent. Like every trumpet player is looking for that one note,
the dancer is looking for that one step that is yours.
I hate it when people ask me, “Did you dance on two?” Please, I danced on clave.
I give Eddie Torres a lot of credit because he’s there and he continues the dance.
Outside of that, if I start telling you what I feel about where this music is going,
forget it. We’ll be here forever. Look, I am a collector of videotapes. I’ve got
about 200, mostly from Cuba. I have a particular tape from Cuba and when I hear them
talking, I go nuts. I start talking to the TV. I’ve got a short fuse. That’s
probably why I got shot. So, they are praising themselves, like they are putting down
salsa within New York. It seems to be against the Puerto Ricans. They don’t come out
and say it but I’m from the street and I know what they mean. And I say to myself,
“You ingrate. We carried this thing for you." Now, Marla, in 1959 when Castro
was in power and this country closed out Cuba, we took their music on our backs. We took
it and we were carrying it. Do you know what Machito did once? He stopped the dance and he
apologized to everyone and said, “Without the Puerto Ricans I wouldn’t be
here.” That’s what was needed. These people now, the Cubans are coming back to
enjoy all the music that we helped carry. Yes, I was enjoying it but I was carrying it
too.
Marla:
What do you think about the popularity of Salsa all over the world? Salsa in Japan and
Germany.
Luis:
That’s fantastic. This is good. Of course, it’s good. I give a lot, a lot of
credit to Tito Nieves. Tito Nieves did what all the musicians wanted to do, including Tito
Puente, which was to crossover. Everybody from Machito on down tried everything but they
could not penetrate another market. Here comes Tito Nieves. In every race you’ve got
children and the children look down on the original. We lost so many people from salsa
because they were born into rap. But here comes Tito Nieves and he starts singing in
English with a Spanish beat. And he started getting young people. Then comes Marc Anthony
and India. These young people never heard of Eddie Palmieri but now they’re waving
the Puerto Rican flag. Then Ralphie Mercado with his concerts, putting these good looking
kids on stage and salsa is now taking off because of that. I give Tito Nieves and Marc
Anthony a lot of credit.
Marla:
Where were you born?
Luis:
I was born in Puerto Rico but I grew up here in Spanish Harlem.
When the exodus started from Puerto Rico in the early 50’s, the mambo was coming out
of Cuba. It came via Mexico. Mexico was the Mecca of the Spanish movies so everybody in
Cuba used to jump to Mexico to be in movies. All of us from Puerto Rico were so poor that
all we had were movies. So everything was the movies and we used to go see the Cuban
dancers and musicians. That’s what we had. We were hungry for it, buying everything,
buying records. We put salsa on the map because when the music came to New York there was
a club on every corner. This was Manhattan, the center of everything. All of this music in
the barrio. There was a club on 110th and 5th Ave. The bands had to be good at the
Palladium but when they got over here and performed in that club they really had to be
good because we were the people. You know what I’m saying?
Marla:
Who was your favorite band to dance to?
Luis:
Really, really, really my favorite was always Machito. And I love charanga music. If you
are a club dancer, charanga music is so simple that you can do a million things with your
body, with your steps. As far as pioneers, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez and Machito,
without a doubt. Especially Tito Puente. He’s carried this music on his shoulders
from day one. Nobody can touch him about that. People have given him due respect but I
think it’s still short. People say, “Celia Cruz and Tito Puente.” Should be
“Tito Puente and Celia Cruz.” He’s taking the back seat. I saw a program
with Gloria Estefan on Cachao. Everybody believes that Cachao was the father of the mambo.
Cachao was nowhere to be found. He was the father of mambo, yes. Cachao was a danzón
musician. But as far as popularity, he didn’t have a damn thing to do with
popularity.
Marla:
Are salsa and mambo the same thing?
Luis:
The same thing. You have some goods to sell but sometimes you have to package it
differently. Salsa is a marketing thing.
Marla:
That’s what Tito Puente said when I interviewed him.
Luis:
Tito’s a good friend of mine. All these people - Tito, Charlie, Eddie - They called
me Maquina.
Speaking of Tito Puente, one of the differences in my dancing was this. Let’s say
that Tito Puente is playing a mambo number but then he takes it to a point where it’s
either a timbale solo or it gets too fast to dance mambo. Now, if you consider yourself a
dancer you know that after a certain point you can’t dance mambo anymore. Now you
gotta go into rumba. I had that over all these dancers. I was the only Puerto Rican that
could dance rumba. I’m the only one that got in with Patato and all these Cubans that
are very protective. To them, nobody can play drums like them and nobody can dance like
them. But I did.
I am very serious about dancing. All these people who call themselves dancers don’t
know the difference between a guaguanco, a jambu or anything else but it’s all
inter-related because of the drum.
Marla:
I know that you play congas. Did you started dancing first of playing congas first?
Luis:
Oh no, I was dancing in my mother’s belly. I started playing congas in the late
fifties because Cheo Feliciano, Pete El Conde, Caco, we all lived on the same block and we
always had our drums. We used to go to 110th St. and 5th Ave., the start of Central Park
and we jammed there. At that time, on every block it was like Africa. There was drumming
on every corner. I feel bad because the kids now, there’s none of that.
Marla:
Why did you like dancing so much?
Luis:
Dancing was my old lady, my doctor, my everything. I didn’t dance for my ten minutes
of fame. Now people call me a legend. I feel like a phony. I don’t feel like a
legend. It’s just that I took so much pride in my dancing. I made it a point to be an
original.
Marla:
Do you have any regrets in life?
Luis:
Yeah, I regret that I didn't die the day I got shot because not being able to dance is
worse than death.
It was a real pleasure to spend time with Luis
Maquina, a true man of his word, a man who tells it like it is. Luis Maquina is a man of
honor who deserves the utmost respect.