Termed the King Of Latin Music, Tito Puente is a towering figure in Latin jazz, Afro-Cuban jazz and mambo, helping to bring the music to a global audience through a prolific career that ran for half a century. 

He passed away in 2000 at the age of 77 and his music continues to exert an influence on new generations of Latin musicians. 

To mark Latin/Hispanic Heritage Month (which ran from 15th September to 15th October), Google celebrated Puente, his music and his cultural impact with a Google Doodle. 

Using his track ‘Ran Kan Kan’ as the soundbed in a one-minute video, it compressed his story from a child of Puerto Rican descent in Third Avenue/ East 110 Street in New York’s Spanish Harlem district (improvising a drum kit using pots and pans), through his time in the US navy during WWII and his rise to fame in the 1950s, concluding with the naming of a stretch of East 100 Street as Tito Puente Way in his honour. 

The video was created by New York-based Puerto Rican artist Carlos Aponte who told Billboard, “Tito was part of my musical experience growing up in Puerto Rico. My aunt introduced me to Tito Puente via La Lupe, a famous singer in Puerto Rico and New York. Tito was like a Svengali for talents like Celia Cruz. He was a household name. So Tito was part of my Puerto Rican soundtrack.”

It came a year after the unveiling of the Tito Puente memorial in East Harlem which had been in slow development since his death two decades earlier. 

The hope is with something like a Google Doodle, that the music of a late artist is put in front of younger audiences (and, indeed, older audiences) who might not be familiar with his work. Google can be a powerful springboard into exploring more about his life and his music, helping these first-time listeners understand his enormous importance.