All about Tito Puente: Google Doodle celebrates 'King of Latin Music' honouring US Hispanic Heritage month

Hispanic Heritage Month is an annual USA event celebrated from September 15 to October 15. The purpose is to highlight the contributions of American citizens who have roots in Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean Islands and Central and South America.

Google highlights Tito Puente’s legacy, which is about who Puente was and did.

Puente was born in 1923 in New York’s Spanish Harlem and became a famous musician and entertainer. Puente was a Nuyorican musician of Puerto Rican descent.





For over 50 years, Tito Puente composed music and songs and was also a recording artist and band leader. He was a fabulous percussionist who played many instruments. He was known as the King of Latin Music, and a Tito Puente Monument is dedicated to him in East Harlem in New York City. He was born into Puerto Rican, Cuban and Caribbean music and promoted them for most of his life. Tito served in the Navy during WWII and was the bandleader playing the alto saxophone.

Puente created 188 albums through his Tito Puente Orchestra. The Google Doodle today features his first recorded soundtrack Ran Kan Kan.


Tito also contributed to a Latin percussionist scholarship in 1979. He was accorded recognition in the first-ever Latin Grammy Awards in 2020, well after he died in 2000. His famous composition is “Oye Como Va”, which Carlos Santana popularised. Tito received the “Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award” posthumously in 2003.

FAQs:

Where did Tito Puente perform his last show?
Answer: Puerto Rico

Name the street where Tito Puente was born.
Answer: Tito Puente Way, Harlem, New York City.