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Dear Latino USA listener, we are going to start our show today by thinking about someone who recently left us.

And that is legendary Puerto Rican, Latin musician, and piano genius Eddie Palmieri.

And I want to share some of my best memories of who Eddie was and what he meant to me and to so many Latinos, Latinos, Latinos, people all

across the country, and frankly, anyone who loves music.

It was New York City in the 1980s. Puerto Ricans ran the city. Salza was the music that was

dominating. And then there were some musicians who were pushing salsa to the next level.

One of the big pioneers was Eddie Pomeri.

The thing about Eddie Pompieri is that everybody knew that he could play salsa,

Latin music, as it was called.

But everybody then realized he was a jazz aficionado.

He was somebody who was prepared to break through

to make a kind of music that really hadn't been heard before.

It wasn't just that Eddie Palmieri was a piano genius. If you ever saw Eddie Palmieri play,

you know what I'm talking about. It was a loco, a monster in the piano. He was a crazy man.

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