Tito Alberti

Tito Alberti (January 12, 1923 – March 25, 2009) was a noted Argentine jazz drummer.

Tito Alberti was born Juan Alberto Ficicchia in the port city of Zárate to an Argentine mother and a Sicilian father in 1923. Enjoying a gregarious childhood, he formed a band at age 7 with two brothers, Virgilio and Homero Expósito. The Expósitos, proprietors of a popular local café, encouraged the youthful trio to perform regularly at the establishment: Virgilio was the pianist, Homero played the ukulele, and Tito (as he was known by then) played battery and drums; among the audience one evening in 1930 was legendary Tango crooner Carlos Gardel.

Tito was later a company drummer for the local Boy Scouts and, in his teens, enrolled at the Fracasi Conservatory, where he received formal training from Tony Carvajales, a well-known jazz drummer at the time. This experience was cut short, however, by his father's death in 1940, following which he was forced to find employment at Zárate's important Smithfield Foods abattoir. The relatively well-paid job allowed Tito to purchase his first professional drum kit and, in 1942, he was invited by producer Miguel Caló to record Azabache - a milonga written by his friend, Homero Expósito. The album's success brought him to the attention of Buenos Aires big band leader Raúl Marengo and in 1944, of Mexican songwriter Agustín Lara (internationally known by then for his Pop standard, Granada).

His many appearances in Argentine radio led to a pseudonym, "Tito Alberti" and to a close friendship with a moderately successful matinée star, Eva Duarte. Her subsequent relationship with the populist Labor Minister, Juan Perón, helped lead to Argentina's Peronist movement (the country's central political development since 1945), among whose first adherents was the increasingly well-known drummer. He continued to receive lucrative contracts: he played for popular local swing orchestra, Ahmed Ratip's "Cotton Pickers," and for Mexican folklore standard Jorge Negrete. Alberti formed his first orchestra in 1947, Reveríe, which performed at the Argentine Automobile Club's large auditorium. Reveríe quickly became known for Alberti's whimsical, El elefante trompita ("Trunky the Elephant"), and the 1947 children's ditty became among the best-selling Spanish-language compositions in history.

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