Rafael Ithier Natal, pianist, musical director, founder and undisputed soul of El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico for more than six decades, died Saturday night in Puerto Rico at the age of 99. The news was confirmed by the family's lawyer, Víctor Rivera, on a local station. The exact cause of death has not been revealed so far.
First modification: 07/12/2025 - 19:51
The legendary founder of El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, Rafael Ithier Natal, died Saturday night on the island at the age of 99.
“Puerto Rico has lost a giant, a man whose life was dedicated to elevating our identity through art and the rhythm that distinguishes us in the world,” said Marlese Sifre, mayor of Ponce, the musician's hometown.
Governor Jenniffer González Colón announced on social media that the island will soon declare an official day of mourning and added: "His legacy transcends borders and endures through generations. Thank you very much, maestro."
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From a hard life to discipline in music
Born on August 29, 1926 in San Juan and raised in the humble community of Río Piedras, Ithier lost his father at the age of eight. At ten he was already playing guitar in a store around the corner from his house in exchange for tips.
At just 14 years old, he dropped out of school due to economic necessity and a year later he joined his first professional group, the Conjunto Hawaiiano, in which he learned instruments such as the Cuban tres and the double bass. He explored the piano and reading sheet music until he mastered them. Being self-taught marked his entire career.
In the 1950s he completed military service in Korea with the United States Army, an experience that he himself recognized as decisive: "There I learned to be a man and obey an order. That discipline is what I apply to my life," he declared in 2016 to the newspaper Primera Hora, when he was 90 years old and still conducting the orchestra with his characteristic black mustache and serene smile.
Returning to Puerto Rico, Ithier joined the legendary group Cortijo y su Combo, in which he shared the stage with Ismael Rivera, “Maelo”, who was imprisoned in the early sixties for a drug possession case. That episode, which caused a crisis in the group, marked Ithier and even led him to consider abandoning music to study a university degree, such as Law.
However, brothers Andy and Jerry González, Cuban musicians living in Puerto Rico, convinced him to form a new band.
Birth of a great salsa combo
On May 26, 1962, at the Rock'n Roll Club in Bayamón, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico was born. That night Ithier sat at the piano and, as the National Foundation for Popular Culture recalls, “the rest is history.”
Under his strict but paternal direction, El Gran Combo became one of the most emblematic and long-lived salsa orchestras in the world.
They published more than 70 albums (including studio and live productions), traveled across the five continents and turned songs such as “Brujería”, “Jala Jala”, “Y No Hago Más Ná”, “Me Liberé”, “Aguanilé”, “Timbalero” and “Un Verano en Nueva York” into classics, a song that decades later would inspire Bad Bunny in his hit “Nuevayol”.
The orchestra was nicknamed “The University of Salsa” for the number of figures it formed: Charlie Aponte, Jerry Rivas, Papo Rosario, Andy Montañez and many more, who remembered Rafael Ithier as a strict father.
Ithier shyly rejected the tributes. “I feel sorry for so much celebration,” he confessed in 2016, when El Gran Combo turned 54 uninterrupted years. However, he accepted with pride that his music had reached new generations.
Rafael Ithier leaves behind a wife, five children and a legacy that, according to musicians, politicians and followers, will continue to play as long as salsa exists. Puerto Rico and the entire world say goodbye to him today with the same rhythm that he helped immortalize: the unmistakable tumbao of El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico.
With information from AP and local media
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