Bobby Enriquez

Bobby Enriquez (1943–1996) was a Filipino jazz pianist who became prominent in the United States and well-known internationally.

Early life

Bobby Enriquez was born on May 20, 1943 in Bocolod City, in the Philippines as Roberto Delprado Yulo Enriquez. Enriquez was a child prodigy who started playing piano at the age of two and began his professional career aged 12. He ran away from home at 15 and for the next nine years toured Southeast Asia playing jazz piano.

In 1987 while broadcasting her weekly show "The Swing Years and Beyond" on the National Public Radio station KUOW in Seattle, WA, Cynthia Doyon had this to say:

Born on the island of Negeros just north of Mindanao. his first love was the piano but his mother wanted him to concentrate on schoolwork. he started his professional career as a musician at the age of 14, sneaking out his second floor bedroom window at night to play gigs and when his mother found out what he was doing at night she shut down the piano and told him to concentrate on homework. So he ran away from home and went to Manila. Once in Manila, he joined various jazz groups and from there he played in Taipei and Hong Kong where he met such jazz lumineries as Mel Torme', Lionel Hampton, Tito Puente, and Chico Hamilton. And eventually he landed a major gig at the famed Golden Dragon Lounge in Honolulu, and while in Hawaii he became Don Ho's orchestra leader and musical director.Fact|date=June 2008

Career

In 1967, he arrived in Los Angeles and played briefly for the The Sunspots, before moving to Hawaii where he became Don Ho's musical director. He also performed with Amapola Cabase. Alto saxophonist Richie Cole discovered him there and asked him to join his band. Enriquez participated in several Richie Cole albums in the 1980s, most notably "Alive! at the Village Vanguard" and the groundbreaking "The Madman Meets The Wild Man".

He recorded a number of astonishing jazz albums for Crescendo Records in the 1980s and was known as "the Wildman" for his unpredictable yet engrossing piano style.

He is not the Bobby Enriquez whose name appears in the Internet Movie Database as playing a bartender in the 1988 movie "Kansas (film)" – this is a different artist.

Reception

New York Times critic John S. Wilson wrote:

Mr. Enriquez has such a lively and attractive mixture of melodic appeal, rhythmic excitement and imaginative ability that he could be for the 1980s what Erroll Garner was to the 1950's.

Personal life

Enriquez' children with Jeanann Cortez are in order from the eldest - Melody, Melissa, Larissa, Robert Jean and Annalissa. He later remarried to Barbara Enriquez and had children named Alexander, Tatiana and John Robert who wasn't born when his father died in 1996. All his children inherited their father's musical gifts.

Enriquez became a born-again Christian in 1993 and openly spoke of how God "changed his life". He also played wonderful "jazz-style" hymns during church events in his local church in Bayonne, New Jersey. He died on August 6, 1996.

Albums

* "Wild Piano"
* "Live! in Tokyo"
* "The Wildman Returns"
* "The Prodigious Piano of Bobby Enriquez"
* "Andalucia/Incredible Jazz"

ources

* Scott Yanow, "Jazz on Record: The First Sixty Years", Backbeat Books, October 2003.
* Dorothy Cordova, Stephen S. Fugita, Franklin Ng, Jane Singh, Hyung-Chan, "Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary", Greenwood Press, December 30, 1999.

External links

* [http://www.answers.com/topic/bobby-enriquez Bobby Enriquez]
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