Luis Quintero (born Luis José Germosen, 1916-1980) was a Dominican percussionist and bandleader who was considered “El Rey de la Tambora” in New York City during the mid-to-late 1950s. He is remembered for playing tambora with Ángel Viloria y su Conjunto Típico Cibaeño and for his classic style on tambora and command of straight-ahead merengues as well as pambiches. Quintero was born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. At fifteen years old, he had already dedicated himself to mastering percussion instruments such as the tambora, bongos, conga, and timbales. He began his career in the mid-1940s in Santiago performing with the orchestra of Professor Manolo García alongside Dominican saxophonist, composer, and arranger Ramón Quesada who recorded with Luis years later in New York City.

Quintero migrated to New York City in 1952 and made his debut with Viloria's Conjunto Típico Cibaeño that same year. He used a tambora made out of wood with metal rings and screws instead of a tambora made with goatskin and tuned with cabuya or white sisal rope, which is what was traditionally used in the Dominican Republic. In 1954, Ralph Pérez's Ansonia Records offered Quintero the opportunity to form his own band called "Luis Quintero y su Conjunto Alma Cibaeña." The first vocalist of the conjunto was veteran Dominican singer Luís Vásquez who arrived from Puerto Rico. He recorded “Mi Negrita,” “Si me vas a querer,” “Ay! Caramba,” and “Como se baila el merengue” with Quintero's newly formed group in September of 1954. Vásquez debuted at the Manhattan Center with Quintero's Conjunto Alma Cibaeña on September 18th, 1954.

Luis Quintero was also a member of Ramón García y su Conjunto Nuevo Cibao, which was founded in 1954. He was featured as a soloist on a tremendous hit for the group titled “Juancito Trucupey.” In 1955, Quintero had a hit of his own with “Si Tú Nó, La Otra” (If Not You, The Other One) featuring Luis Vásquez on vocals. That same year, he was invited to record tambora with Xavier Cugat and his orchestra for an album of merengues, titled “Merengue! By Cugat!” as part of the propaganda for the Fair of Peace and Fraternity of the Free World in Cuidad Trujillo (Santo Domingo) (1). For a very brief period, after Luis Vásquez left, Puerto Rican-Dominican singer Casíto Morales stepped in as the vocalist for Conjunto Alma Cibaeña, recording four merengues with the band in 1956. Amid the American calypso craze, Quintero experimented with the fusion of merengue and calypso, building off the previous success that Juanito Sanabria and his orchestra had with Dioris on the single “La moña.” He recorded two popular calypso tracks, “Matilda” and “Mary Ann" with Puerto Rican vocalist Mon Rivera in 1957. In addition, Quintero met Dominican vocalist Milito “Tuti Fruti” Pérez, who had just settled in NYC, and performed with him at the Manhattan Center on September 13, 1957. By 1958, the Conjunto Alma Cibaeña had another hit with “La mamá y la hija” (The Mother and The Daughter) sung by Milito Pérez. Milito stayed on as one of the primary vocalists of the Conjunto Alma Cibaeña into the 1960s. Over the course of his career, Quintero recorded over thirty sides for Ansonia Records and was last featured playing tambora on the 1980 Ansonia Records release, "New Horizons" by Orquesta Metropolitana, reinterpreting the iconic merengue “A lo Oscuro.” He passed away soon after in December of 1980.

(1) Perez de Cuello, Catana, and Rafael Solano. El Merengue: Música Y Baile De La República Dominicana. Santo Domingo: Verizon, 2005, 360.

-Jhensen Ortiz