Rafael Hernández

Puerto Rican-born musician and composer

• Born: October 24, 1892
• Birthplace: Aguadilla, Puerto Rico
• Died: December 11, 1965
• Place of death: San Juan, Puerto Rico

A musician from Puerto Rico, Hernández came to the United States in time to serve with the American Army in World War I. He later became a bandleader and a prolific composer of popular songs while living in New York City, Mexico, Cuba, and his homeland.

Early Life

Rafael Hernández Marín, better known as Rafael Hernández (rah-fah-EHL ehr-NAN-dehz) was born of African-Puerto Rican heritage in the coastal town of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. He was the son of a poor tobacco farmer, José Miguel Rosa; his mother, María Hernández, was a laundress. Hernández grew up under American occupation and economic domination after Puerto Rico became a U.S. possession following the Spanish-American War. As a young boy, Hernández rolled cigars to supplement the family income, and he became steeped in the songs the other cigar makers sang as they worked. At the age of twelve, he traveled to the capital, San Juan, to study music. Under the tutelage of private teachers, he learned to play a variety of instruments, including clarinet and saxophone, tuba and trombone, piano and guitar. Hernández composed his first tune while still in his teens. By the age of fourteen, he was already performing professionally with the Cocolia Orchestra and with the San Juan Municipal Orchestra.

In the mid-1910’s, Hernández left Puerto Rico for the United States and began working as a musician in North Carolina. In 1917, the Jones Act was passed, making all Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens, without voting rights but eligible to be drafted into the American military. Well-known New York bandleader James Reese Europe, commissioned as a lieutenant, began recruiting Puerto Rican musicians. They were enticed to be part of a sixty-five-piece band attached to the segregated 369th Infantry Regiment being recruited to fight in World War I; the regiment would become famous as the “Harlem Hell Fighters” for its ferocity in battle. Hernández and his brother Jesús were two of about twenty Puerto Ricans to become members of the regimental band. In France, Hernández joined such musicians as Noble Sissle (cornet), Buddy Gilmore (drums), Arthur Briggs (trumpet), and dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson to perform. Under the direction of Europe, the band toured the country giving rousing, morale-boosting concerts for citizens and soldiers alike. In the process, the musicians introduced jazz, blues, and ragtime to the continent, setting off a craze for American music that would last for decades.

Life’s Work

After the war, Hernández mustered out of the military at the rank of sergeant. He returned to the United States, briefly settling in New York City, where most Puerto Ricans congregated. In 1920, thanks to connections in the music business, he was hired to create musical shows and direct the Fausto Theater orchestra at the Paseo del Prado in Havana, Cuba. During a five-year stay in Cuba, he performed trombone solos as bandleader. He also composed numerous popular tunes, such as “Amor Ciego” (Blind Love). Hernández experimented in a variety of genres drawn from the rich musical heritage of the Caribbean. He wrote sones, zarzuelas, guarachas, boleros, danzas, and rumbas, and he blended other musical forms to create new sounds and styles. Much of his work employed Cuban or Afro-Cuban rhythms and instrumentation or borrowed from Puerto Rican folk traditions.

In the mid-1920’s, Hernández left Cuba to return to New York City. He founded a group, the Trío Borincano (also known as Trío Borinquen, for the Indian name for Puerto Rico, and Trío Quisqueya, for the native name for the Dominican Republic), which played in local ethnic nightclubs and cabarets. He later organized the Victoria Quartet, named for his sister, who opened a music store and musician’s booking agency in Harlem in 1927. Under various names the trio and quartet toured widely across the United States and throughout Latin America, playing a selection of standards and Hernández compositions. During the late 1920’s, Hernández composed some of his best-known works, including “Preciosa” (“Precious”) and “Lamento Borincano” (“Puerto Rican Lament”).

In 1932, Hernández was hired to direct an orchestra in Puebla, Mexico. He married a Mexican woman, María Pérez, who gave birth to three of the couple’s four children in Mexico. He also studied at the Mexican National Conservatory of Music, earning qualifications to become a teacher of harmony, composition, and counterpoint. Hernández wrote and recorded many of his best-loved songs during stays in Mexico that lasted more than fifteen years, including “Perfume de Gardenia” (“Gardenia Perfume”), “Tabú” (“Taboo”), and “El Ultimo Suspiro” (“The Last Breath”). He also became involved in the Mexican film industry, contributing numerous musical pieces to motion picture soundtracks from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. In the late 1930’s, he returned briefly to Cuba for the opening of the Tropicana Club, where as a producer for RCA Victor he recorded several musical groups. In the late 1940’s, he returned to New York to resurrect the Victoria Quartet (also known as Conjunto Victoria and Rico Quartet), which featured singer Myrta Silva, fondly called “La Gorda del Oro”(the golden fat girl).

In the early 1950’s, following several tours to great acclaim, Hernández returned permanently to Puerto Rico. There, in addition to maintaining a musical presence, he worked as a consultant and musical director for WIPR, the government-operated radio station. Known throughout Latin America for his compositions, he was named honorary president of the Association of Composers and Authors of Puerto Rico, serving in that capacity from 1953 to 1956. Active in civic and charitable causes, Hernández was instrumental in founding Little League baseball in Puerto Rico. He died at age seventy-three after a long bout with cancer and was buried with great ceremony in San Juan.

Significance

For his work with the “Harlem Hell Fighters” regimental band during World War I, Hernández and his bandmates all received the Croix de Guerre and the World War I Victory Medal from the French government. Following his death, Puerto Rico named many landmarks in Hernández’s honor, including buildings, schools, streets, and the airport in his hometown of Aguadilla. Several states in America followed suit, naming schools in New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey for the composer. His son, Alejandro “Chalí” Hernández, serves as director at a museum at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico that celebrates his father’s life and work as one of the island’s greatest composers.

Hernández’s greatest legacy is his music. Decades after their composition, his songs are still tuneful, still relevant. Modern Puerto Rican musical artists like Marc Anthony have recorded several Hernández works, and contemporary films, such as Don Juan DeMarco (1994), Pleasantville (1998), Buena Vista Social Club (1999), American Pie 2 (2001), Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2005), and Hollywoodland (2006), have immortalized Hernández by including selections from his oeuvre on their soundtracks.

Bibliography

Glasser, Ruth. My Music Is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Communities, 1917-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. A detailed study of Puerto Rican music as it evolved in New York during Hernández’s time in the city, complete with definitions of musical styles and a discography.

Harris, Stephen L. Harlem’s Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry in World War I. Dulles, Va.: Potomac Books, 2005. An account of the exploits of the segregated U.S. Army unit and the associated regimental band, with which Hernández played.

Hernández, Rafael. Songs/Canciones. Milwaukee, Wisc.: Hal Leonard, 1999. A compact disc featuring twenty-five Hernández songs with musical notations and lyrics in Spanish and English, including “Lamento Borincano,” “Preciosa,” and other favorites.

Matos-Rodriguez, Felix V., and Pedro Juan Hernandez. Pioneros: Puerto Ricans in New York City 1892-1948. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2001. Profusely illustrated with period photographs, this brief history in both Spanish and English incorporates oral accounts of immigrants like Hernández who established a vibrant Puerto Rican presence that greatly affected New York’s culture.