Yomo Toro | Latin music virtuoso, 78
Yomo Toro, 78, a force in New York's Latin music scene since the 1950s and a virtuosic lefthanded player of the cuatro, a mandolinlike Puerto Rican instrument, died in the Bronx on Saturday.
Yomo Toro, 78, a force in New York's Latin music scene since the 1950s and a virtuosic lefthanded player of the cuatro, a mandolinlike Puerto Rican instrument, died in the Bronx on Saturday.
The cause was kidney failure, said his friend Aurora Flores, a writer, publicist, and musician.
On records with Willie Colon, Hector Lavoe, Larry Harlow, and the supergroup known as the Fania All-Stars, Mr. Toro's sound was instantly recognizable.
Mr. Toro was born Victor Guillermo Toro Vega Ramos Rodriguez Acosta in July 1933 in Ensenada, near the southwestern corner of Puerto Rico. His father drove a truck for cane mills and played cuatro in a band with Mr. Toro's uncles.
Mr. Toro followed his father to house parties and started learning to play at an early age. As a teen he moved to San Juan to work with the band Los Quatro Ases (the Four Aces). The group's work took him to New York in 1953 and he settled there permanently by 1957.
He toured the world with the Fania All-Stars in the 1970s.
His credits include soundtrack music for Woody Allen's Bananas and the children's TV show Dora the Explorer, and albums including David Byrne's Rei Momo and Linda Ronstadt's Frenesi. - N.Y. Times News Service