Virtuoso of Latin Music Yomo Toro Dies at 78

Yomo Toro, a force in the Latin music scene in New York since 1950 and a virtuoso player of the left hand of four, an instrument of Puerto Rico mandolinlike, died Saturday in the Bronx. He was 78 years.

The cause was kidney failure, said his friend Aurora Flores, writer, journalist and musician.

Salsa, a dance orchestra music that took place in ambitious composer, jazz harmony and Cuban roots, moved to his best solo instrumental to the fore in the 60 and 70.

The records with Willie Colón, Hector Lavoe, Larry Harlow and the supergroup known as the Fania All-Stars, the sound became Mr. Toro, instantly recognizable.

He played the guitar and the rules of the guitar requinto smaller, but better known as cuatrista. Associated with popular culture and music of Puerto Rican jibaro or inside mountains, the four have 10 strings in five groups of two octaves, unisons or both.

Mr. Toro could be cut with an orchestra, especially once you have started adding an electric truck and connected to an amplifier.

In the records as Mr. Columbus "Dona Tona" and "La Murga" and the Fania All-Stars "Take off you" - taken from a 1971 performance at the Cheetah Club in New York that was filmed for the documentary "Our Latin Thing" - has appeared as soloist with great thrust and swing.

Influenced by Cuban musician Arsenio Rodriguez, who played three (analogous to Cuba in four), was closed to the rhythm section vampires burst into frantic strumming and brilliant or improvised melodically, landing his notes between beats.

Mr. Toro was born Victor Guillermo Toro Vega Ramos Rodríguez Acosta July 26, 1933, in Ensenada, the municipality of Guánica, near the southwestern Puerto Rico. His father, Alberto, has led to a truck for sugarcane mills in southern Puerto Rico Company and four played in a band with Mr. Toro uncles.

Mr. Toro followed his father to the parts of the house and began learning to play the requinto and four very young. In his teens he moved to Saint John to work with the band Los Quatro aces (four aces), led by singer reported sold. The group's work led him to New York for the first time in 1953, and had settled there permanently in 1957.

Mr. Toro of Puerto Rico and the traditional Mexican music played on guitar and four in New York through the 1950 and '60 - with singers Odilio Gonzalez and Victor Santiago and Los Panchos Rolón, the trio internationally renowned Mexican bolero, among others.

In the 60's hosted his own television Channel 41 in New York, "The Show of Yomo Toro", and has fully achieved with the sauce, which was becoming both a musical and a progressive grassroots movement.

It's been hired to play in a salsa album with Christmas themes by Mr. Dove, "Christmas Assault", which included songs of celebration of Puerto Rico, or the tradition of Christmas carols. It became one of the most successful albums of Fania, the label's largest salsa, and his reputation was solidified the role of four in the sauce.

Album of success has spawned a sequel in 1973, and a third holiday album in 1979 with Mr. Lavoe and singer Daniel Santos. (From the covers of these two albums represent Mr. Toro is dressed as Santa Claus. Short, round, happy and rarely seen without a hat after 1970, fits this role and went on to attend holiday concerts .

Mr. Bull is a personality remains modest compared to some of the other superstars of the sauce. "We sat in the living room and play like he played at Madison Square Garden," said Flores. "He brought the salt-of-the-ground mentality jibaro music. In this way, culture has taught us that we can be proud of the culture."