A successful funk summit was organized to celebrate Willy Crook and the Funky Torinos

A month ago, on June 27, A year had passed since Willy Crook’s untimely death55 years old, having spent more than two weeks in an intensive care unit after suffering a stroke.

Today, in the absence of the captain, it will be his band Funky Torinos to take the helm of that pleasure cruise in a series of concerts where will celebrate Crook’s music at the end of July (28, 29 and 30) and August.

Tickets for the first three dates in Rondemán, Lavalle 3177, have already flown due to the pressure of the deck passengers added two new ones for 18 and 19 August.

The ship will also visit Escobar (7/31, Seminari Theater), Rosario (8/5, CC Güemes) and Córdoba (8/6, Club Paraguay). Other destinations will be confirmed in the coming days, such as Salta and Mar Del Plata.

A luxury selection

It will be a funk summit with international characteristics why Ferdinando Lupano (Willy Crook’s first solo bassist, known for his previous work with Miguel Mateos, La Torre and Charly García), will fly from Spain to be present, and Ryan Andersonguitarist and singer who was part of Crook’s alternative lineup called The Royal We, will embark on the long journey from Texas.

the keyboard player Muttley Vidalthe guitarist Juan Manuel Valentino and the drummer Timothy Cid today they make up what they joyfully call the “founding line” of Funky Torinos, and they will support a diverse galaxy of singers such as Déborah Dixon, Miguel Zavaleta, radio host Dany Jimenez, Aimé Cantilo, Graciela Cosceri and Nina Portelaamong others that it will be distributed in different evenings to pay homage to the great Crook.

There are more prominent names in the wind line: Miguel Tallarita, Santiago Castellani and Juan Manuel Torres.

“Willy was very much loved – he recognizes Valentino -, so the project was little known, not only people wanted to come and see the show, but many other musicians wanted to participate”.

«The initiative was Ezekiel Losada by Omertá Discos – says Patán Vidal- and made us want to celebrate the music of Funky Torinos and that’s why we put together this line-up of the group that is from the 90s ”.

That Ricotero Willy

Willy Crook could be a pirate, a philosopher, a comedian or a serious musician. Usually it was all of those things at the same time, in a constant flurry of personalities.

The older members of the tribe remember him as the young saxophonist of Patricio Rey y Sus Redonditos de Ricota who sometimes dared to make fun of Indio Solari himself… on stage!

Upon Willy’s death, Solari recalled his courage shown around 1984, on the legendary ship María Sí docked at the Vuelta de Rocha, when he had just come out to fight some outlaws who had caused an uproar at a ricotta show. He waved what he could in the confusion and armed with a kick drum pedal he chased away the angry crowd.

After registering OctoberRicota’s second album, Willy was part of a purge in Los Redonditos in which only Indio Solari and Skay remained in the group, and he decided to sail to Spain, where he made crumbs and more with Daniel Melingo, with whom he shared agreements in that great project that was Lions In Love during the first shoot of the 90s.

time to be alone

One fine day he brought in a handful of songs that Melingo took into consideration, which he replied with a phrase that shocked him: “I think these songs are already ripe for your first solo album.”

This confronted Willy with his own motto of being “captain of his own boat and not a sailor on someone else’s ocean liner”, and he sailed anchor bound for Big Bumblebee Mom, his first solo album released in 1995 and produced by its official sponsor, Daniel Melingo.

The album grew with unexpected radio coverage that encouraged him to do two things: consolidate himself as a soloist and singer, leaving the saxophone aside and picking up a guitar, and deciding to polish his mix of black rhythms that included reggae, funk, dub and soul.

The Funky Turinhis group of musical and sometimes therapeutic companions, put in first place in 1997 with the edition of a second disc, appropriately named Willy Crook & Funky Torinosand they came to their modest stages and even to foreign liners, as when they opened for David Bowie and James Brown himself.

“The name Funky Torinos – drummer Timoty Cid reveals today – was given by Roberto Pettinato because of some dark glasses that Willy used”.

The root of local funk

In the 1980s there were Argentine groups who wanted to approach funk as a touch of color to cultivate their style, and also as a main style. But the vast majority have stumbled upon the same stone: the lack of swing needed for this kind of black, slightly syncopated music.

Willy Crook was one of the first to discover the mistake: it shouldn’t be done with rock musicians but with jazz musicians (Illya Kuryaki & The Valderramas would have come to the same conclusion almost simultaneously).

On his tireless pilgrimage through Buenos Aires’ 90s nightlife, Willy discovered Patán Vidal and Valentino playing blues at historic Rasputin Samovar in La Boca. “What are you doing here?”, He blurted out and made them enter Turin, which became funky and spicy.

Over the following summer, a rhythmic backing track was incorporated with Jorge Pasquali on bass and drummer Timoty Cid, who points out that “getting the Funky Torinos sound was a whole process and it happened naturally. Willy was influenced by the musicians he was with; when he played Lupano, for example, the band sounded more like Lupano and when someone else played, the same “.

And he adds: “When we played live we did the arrangements on stage; he played what he thought he had to play, and we were all a little bit like that, more free, then the music was shaped by everyone’s ideas. Willy ha allowed that, he promoted it, and it was what gave the silver wave to the funk or soul we were playing ”.

“I remember him as a traveling brother – Valentino reflects -, when I play I miss that second guitar with wah-wah playing on the back, which was very good. Oddly, we learned to be professional with him. We worked, argued, loved each other and slept in the same place at night. Knowing how to carry it is part of being a professional. All at the same time “.

“And Willy was also a guy who had a fabulous sense of humor and I said, ‘What a genius! Why don’t I think about it?’ but he had stolen them. “

the quarrelsome willy

It wouldn’t do Willy Crook justice if only his musical aspect was discussed. Just as he fought with thugs, he sometimes lost to the police and ended up in Borda hospital for a few days in 1994, more due to the police’s inability to know what to do with him than for psychiatric reasons.

On other occasions, the rivals were their own musicians. Timoty remembers a night when Willy freaked Brat who wanted to skin him alive in a locker room.

“I wanted to stop Patán because without Willy we wouldn’t have been able to do the second part of the show, but he made such a move that I ended up on an easel and instead of Timoty I was called Graciela. Willy took advantage of my screams and ran into the crowd, jumped out of a window, hailed a cab and left. The manager called another taxi that came behind and followed him like in the movies. Nobody came back that night. “

Patán states that the sequence took place in a defunct bar called República De Acá near Plaza Serrano. He adds: “I always felt very identified with him in something: he took the joke very seriously. He was an accomplice of music and humor ”.

Dignity and quality

The final reflection deals with the alma mater of this celebration of music and the figure of Willy Crook, Ezequiel Losada, man of the gastronomic sector and visible face of Omertá Discos, who will release an album with the last show before the end of the year Willy’s complete, recorded at Rondeman.

“There is one thing to keep in mind when talking about Willy as a musician, and it is that he has always set standards of quality, and I think he has taught us all a question of dignity that he has learned from an early age, because we must not forget that when he started with Patricio Rey y Sus Redonditos de Ricota he was only 17 years old. Despite his excesses of him and a bit of madness, Willy has always been very professional and had a very important quality standard, which is why he recruited these musicians for Funky Torinos. It wasn’t a stroke of luck. “

And he concludes: “When he returned from Spain he had worked a lot as a DJ, and acid-jazz was very much in vogue, and I think that when he met Patán, Valentino and Timoty closed the loop for the luggage he brought with him. That’s why the idea of ​​bringing together the Funky Torinos for this tribute was fundamental, because it was with them that he found a way to shoot that artistic issue of his where the floor was very high, and still is “. .

mfb