INTRODUCING
WAYNE GORBEA'S SALSA PICANTE (World Music Network INTRO108CD)

It's odd that Wayne Gorbea needs an introduction, but this British label has a harder task of bringing the great Latin music of New York to the rhythmically challenged Anglo-Saxuals than labels like Fania (NYC), SAR (Miami), Corason (Mexico), Ryco & P-Vine (Japan) or Tumbao (Spain). Now I am not an Anglo-Saxophobe (I was raised among them) but it's hard not to get in the groove when the Bronx salsa dura of Wayne Gorbea kicks in. Today Gorbea is an old fart (like me and many of my friends). Of Puerto Rican heritage, he was already hitting hard with Salsa Boricua in NYC in his twenties. In the 80s he was with the seminal Conjunto Libre and then on his own for years, promoting true salsa (then known as salsa brava) and successfully ignoring the synth-filled pitfalls of salsa romantica and the drum-machine trickery of reggaeton and hippy hoppy. Now that 'bone legend Jimmy Bosch and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra have made salsa dura a club favourite once again, it's time to take stock of Gorbea and what he has achieved. This "best of" retrospective drops back to the 80s for one or two choice cuts, but hits heavily on the 2006 album PRAKATUN for a slice of the happening sound of Gorbea's piano and assorted sidemen on angled saxophones, tripling trumpets and trumping trombones. Cleanly recorded, the groove is cooked by timbales, bongo, guiro, and conga, while brassy voices drop in to say Ħechale! If you are a fan of Willie Colon and the suddenly popular Hector Lavoe sound (despite an apparently atrocious recent biopic which no one saw), then you will bask in the classics on here, like "Dejame un lado," from 1978. "Sigo pa'lante" from the 1986 album SIGAN BAILANDO also jumps up, rattles its cowbell and shakes its sweaty beads unremittingly. Yet there is a solid continuity with the bluesy sound of this and the recent material. Gorbea doesn't get better: he was already great. A class act. The disc ends with two live tracks from 2004, which are almost gratuitous as the whole thing smokes!

LABA SOSSEH

Laba Sosseh was one of the great African salseros & among the first to have an international career. Though from Banjul, Gambia, he is filed in the Cuban section of my library. (I file Africando under Senegal though that seems questionable!) His great self-titled album on the Miami-based SAR label has no information other than the titles of the 6 songs. From a close listen you can hear Alfredito Valdés name-checked on piano and Charlie Rodriguez on tres. While the whole album is stellar, from "Coco yee" to "Aminata," there was one outstanding song, "Diamoule Mawo," a son montuno sung in Wolof, which was covered by Colombian singer Joe Arroyo in 1987 and became a huge hit. There was even a music video of it and Arroyo sang the African lyrics in his best pidgin (It came out as "Yamulemao"): a neat reversal from the usual case of Africans trying to phrase Spanish they didn't understand.

Laba started singing with Dexter Johnson in 1965. The two met in Gambia and Dexter brought him to be part of the Star Band in Dakar. Three years later they evolved into Super Star de Dakar in a new location. He teamed up with Pape Fall in Orchestre Vedette before going to Abidjan to form the Super International Band de Dakar. In 1978 Monguito invited him to New York and they worked on a series of 4 African salsa albums for Aboudou Lassissi. Their SALSA AFRICANA album on SACODIS turned gold. Ramon Quian (i.e. Monguito) did the arrangements and the musicians included Alfredito Valdes on piano, Eddy Gugua on bass, Bomberito Zalsuela on sax and flute, Mario Rivera on trombone, possibly Chocolate Armenteros on trumpet, and Pupi Lagaretta on violin, among others.

Roberto Torres produced two albums with Laba Sosseh on the SAR label (SAR 1020; 1981 and SAR 1029; 1982). He popped up to sing "Manicero" on El Hadji Faye's 1998 album with Etoile 2000 de Dakar that had flute and kora on it. He then reprised a couple of his hits (including "Aminata") with Africando, on the BALOBA! album. The two crucial albums are Monguito presente Laba Sosseh SALSA AFRICANA which every library should have, and the self-titled SAR album. Despite his recent death there are cheap copies up on amazon right now.

SPANISH HARLEM ORCHESTRA
UNITED WE SWING (Six Degrees 657036 1134-2)

The Spanish Harlem Orchestra has settled into a comfortable middle age spread with brilliantly recreated big band swinging cha chas that evoke the Tito era: the Palladium days of Puente and Rodriguez. Most of the music is written by pianist/arranger Oscar Hernández (who played with Ray Barretto, Machito, Puente, Celia Cruz, Ruben Blades, etc) & exploits the full colours of his large horn section, tight percussion and warm coro. Jimmy Bosch on trombone is the most famous member, but he is just one of many brass guys. There are three trumpets, two trombones and baritone sax. It's very danceable and covers all the styles from danzon to rumba to plena. If you like Africando then this is for you, as it is the sound they are also trying to replicate. It's not a snoozy nostalgia-fest by any means: "Ahora si!" catches fire, but there's nothing unexpected on here. You could drop "Salsa pa'l bailador" into a set of salsa and it would hold its own against all comers from Fania All Stars to Cubanismo to Maraca. A surprise twist comes at the end with the appearance of Nuevayorquino Paul Simon who delivers his "Late in the evening." I suppose he is now one of the elders of the American music scene. I don't know quite how that happened but he has a solid track record and has survived intact to reap the rewards of longevity. And, as an old pasticheur himself, it would be great to hear him develop some new ideas for the sound of this salsa band.

FANIA RECORDS

The roots of salsa are generally traced back to Arsenio Rodríguez [left], tres player and composer from the sugar cane fields of Eastern Cuba where his grandfather had been brought as a slave from the Congo. Blinded at age 7, Arsenio became an adept musician and moved to Havana looking for work. He started a group and dissolved it to join another, but was kicked out due to personality conflicts. At this point, in 1937, he already had a reputation as a song writer and so it was that Miguelito Valdés recorded a handful of his songs with Orquesta Casino de la Playa. Arsenio was invited to sit in and play a tres solo on "Sa va el caramelo," which soon became a huge hit. His experience with this big band gave him an idea. The bigger bands generally played danzon, a style of music more akin to classical music and intended for ballroom dancing. The smaller sextets and septets played faster, rootsier, guitar-based music called the son and guaguancó. Arsenio beefed up the sextet, doubling the trumpet, adding a piano and also a conga, which had been used for religious music, while the smaller bongo was used for percussion in the sextet and septet. In the middle of the son they would kick out the jambs and have a round of throwing down. This part became known as the montuno, and livened up the sound the way that the seben would affected Congolese music in the 70s. Arsenio formed his first conjunto and had a series of hits, beginning in 1940. He recorded 144 sides for the Victor label, many of which were issued on 78 RPM discs. One of his hits "Dame un besito (give me a kiss)" was in a new style of son montuno he called a diablo. Arsenio credited this to Congolese folklore which he avidly studied as part of his heritage. This song popularised a new dance which became known as the mambo. By the time Arsenio moved to New York, Miguelito Valdés had preceded him and there were several big bands, notably Machito's & Tito Puente's, making a scene playing mambo, while Desi Arnaz popularized Cuban music to the white audience (copping Valdés's hit "Babalu" in the process). Arsenio continued to experiment, adding saxophones to his line-up, but failed to have the impact in America he had had in Cuba. Meanwhile a new style of music, harder and more swinging, which incorporated jazz, funk, and new rhythms such as boogaloo came along and was recorded by band-leader Johnny Pacheco (an immigrant from la Republica Dominicana) and pianist Eddie Palmieri, among others. Arsenio suffered the true fate of the avant-garde, dying in obscurity in 1970 just as salsa was beginning to take hold.

Small labels such as Alegre, Tico, Inca, Vaya, and Fania sprang up in New York to record the new wave of immigrants creating what was now called salsa (a piquant blend of wholesome ingredients). After its recent sale to Emusica Records, the Fania label has reappeared with a new look, that is to say the old look buffed up a bit (elegantly framed reproductions of the battered LP covers!), with expanded liner notes and remastered sound from the original tapes. This seems like a good point to take stock. They have started their reissue series with 30 titles. Though the albums are generally less than 40 minutes long, this can be a good thing: just enough to hold your interest without getting redundant and you can jump back and forth between albums and styles.

MARKOLINO DIMOND
BRUJERIA (Fania 773 130 123-2)

What's it called when you buy an album you already have over again. No, not Alzheimer's. I mean when you buy a new CD that has been remastered when you already have the old CD. Folly? Well I did and have been playing this new version (8% sonically clearer than the old one) endlessly. In fact I scratched the damn thing after about 20 listens (surely wax cylinders lasted longer than that?!!), and so I got out the old one, but it didn't seem as dynamic, so I borrowed IJ's copy and burned it. And yes, he too also had the earlier version! There are several factors at work here. It's the holiday season when you buy gifts for others you indulge yourself in a few things you want that you know no one would buy you. Next, FANIA is reissuing a lot of its classic material so I have been enjoying some of the Hector Lavoe, Johnny Pacheco, etc I missed the first time around. Then there is the fact that this album was last released under a different title by a different artist (the singer) with no liner notes. So now FANIA has reissued it (in a limited edition of 5010 numbered copies), cleaned it up so the bass is a bit bigger and the sound about 8% crisper (sounds like Lay's potato chips) and now with a replica of the original cover so we get to see Markolino looking muy stoned, and the back cover which tells us who is on it. The amazing thing is even the Descarga database didn't know anything about it and said only "classic New York salsa of the 60s and 70s!" I asked a few New York music pals and they came up with a couple of tentative names. But now we know who's on here & that it was recorded in 1971. And when you listen to it you can hear Markolino say "Vaya Andy!" at the start of the bass solo on "Tiene Sabor," so that can only be Andy Gonzalez.

Markolino was a genius pianist with a deft, Vorticist attack. He leaves lots of space and makes jagged moves as he essays different views, often simultaneously, where he's not sure his hands can keep up with his brain. It's intuitive and percussive but requires control to get out of the death-spirals it sends you into. He appeared on a few sessions with Willie Colon (The Hustler and Guisando, both Fania), Ismael Quintana (Vaya 1974), Frankie Dante Beethoven's V (Cotique 1975), Hector Lavoe's La Voz (Fania 1975), and Andy Harlow's Latin Fever (Vaya 1976) before dropping out of the scene and dying of a heroin overdose in 1988. But this is his testament. In the cover photo by Bob Gruen he looks like Hendrix, and you can tell he was one of those blazing comets that populate the musical stratosphere. The Icarus syndrome is common in all art but junk cuts a wide swath through music as the Gods call home those who are just too heavy for earth's gravity.

Larry Harlow and Johnny Pacheco produced this album, and there you have the key to FANIA's quality. They knew the good stuff and that's what made it onto their labels. As for the band "His Savor," I would have to say they are unknowns: Richie Montanez, first trombone, Fudgy Torres, second trombone, Danny Reyes, trumpet, Louie Rivera, bongo and Antonio Tapia, conga. The two bassists are well-known: Andy Gonzalez and also Eddie "Gua Gua" Rivera. The lead vocals are by Angel Canales, and the coro features two other fine singers, Ismael Quintana and Justo Betancourt. Angel Canales made his debut on this album. When Markolino dropped out it was reissued as TIENE SABOR under Canales' name. Some of the band continued with him and they replaced Markolino with a woman pianist, Lesette Wilson. But his career was also short. He moved to Miami and became a diamond cutter about 1982 when "salsa romantica" took hold.

The album has seven compositions, all by Dimond. They are relatively short but establish a mood where there's room for solos and a sense that no one is pressed. It's a classic salsa conjunto, along the Eddie Palmieri model, with two trombones and expansive arrangements. After an opening statement they drop back to bass and piano with congas and cowbell pushing things forward as the three singers do a call-and-response. The album opens with the title cut ("I believe in witch-craft"). After a brief piano solo the trumpet solos over the coro, then the two bones come back and it builds to a rocking mid-section. The last verse invokes the "Siete Potencias Africanas," Lazaro, and a few other religious icons before tying it up nicely.

Then we go "down town," with the vamp from "(They say the lights are always bright on) Broadway" as opener for "Mi Irmita." Markolino quotes King Cole's "Mona Lisa," and hesitates delicately before going into a rapid burst of G minor 7 to C7 to and fro (I recognize it because it's the main chords of "Tea for two": you can rock the left hand between G and F). Now the trombones get to solo y ahora somos cocinando con gaz! All this in five and a half minutes!

"Aguardiente," a paean to booze, is one of the great mood-setters of the disc. Starting out with thunder on the horns and a bit of echo on the coro. Montanez gets to sound off early and packs a punch in his first eight-bar solo. Dimond launches into some block chords then his solo quotes "Three blind mice" -- very tastefully too! But it's an Afro-Cuban jazz version. If you think about jazz at the time I guess people like McCoy Tyner were in the ascendancy. In Cuban music, or at least salsa, it was the Palmieri brothers all the way. Dimond is on a whole other level as a pianist and band-leader. He gives everyone room. He tries stuff on and if it doesn't work, tosses it aside, and thinks for a few bars before attacking it again. Consequently you hear the same gambits in several of his solos. This is very instructive.

"Tiene sabor," the name of the conjunto and also the title of the album when it was reissued as a Canales project, seems less coherent than the other numbers, as if no one is sure of the melody at first. But Markolino does his "Tea for two" vamp and changes it up. Then the horns come back with confidence and the cowbell helps them build a base for a fierce trombone attack. Midway through it breaks down to Andy Gonzalez with maracas, congas and bongo. There's also timbales (uncredited). These coasting moments are bliss.

"Side B" begins with my desert-island disc "Mariquita," the heart of the album and the longest track at 7 minutes. It sounds a bit like the Latin Brothers, my favourite Colombian salsa band. It romps along, but still seems laid back, and then when you think it is ending, the coro stick their teeth into the refrain "Ven Ma-ri-qui-ta!" (five beats, like a clave) there's a blasting trumpet solo and everyone else is inspired to take another shot at the riff. This must have been smoking live, I could listen to hours of it. The ballad "Yo no tenga pena" seems anguished. The singer is confident and the horns pour it on, but everyone stops to hear "El Diamante" for a moment and gets juiced. This is why you buy a remastered disc: You are almost in the studio (Well, if you put you ear up to the speaker or crank it up). During this solo Canales calls out something about the streets of Puerto Rico, maybe he's talking about Dimond. At this point the band comes back in full effect and you realize you've turned it up WAY TOO LOUD!!! OK, screw the neighbours. This is one of those bathtub-electroshock-orgasmo moments. We have to go out in style, after all this is an album for the ages, one of the great musical statements of an era. "El Barrio" is another stomping-hot groove. (Actually I think there's a pop on the record they took this from, or a glitch in the tape). Dimond pours out cadences just to show he can play fast and coherently too. His right hand trills while he chords and bounces about with the left, thinks "Three blind mice," and stops himself ("I just did that") before going into a montuno-styled vamp as the cowbell brings back the whole band for a grand apotheosis. Wow, 40 minutes. Better start it over.

HECTOR LAVOE
LA VOZ (Fania records 773 130 008-2)

Buying music CDs is an expensive habit, but you have to think of it like a utility bill: it's as necessary as light and gas and when it's light and a gas simultaneously, it's worth every penny. Hector Lavoe, known as "la Voz" (the voice) is the real deal, and if you are into salsa you undoubtedly have it already, but the remastered Fania album is worth plonking down your folding green for. This is one of Fania Records' greatest achievements. Now, remastered and with liner notes, we get to bask in its sonic glories all over again. Lavoe had a distinctive rather high and nasal voice, and was famous for ad libbing witty & risqué lyrics. As a teenager he sang with a band in his native Ponce, Puerto Rico but at 17 dropped out of school and moved to New York to "make a lot of money." Fania co-founder Johnny Pacheco heard him and brought him along to sing lead on Willie Colon's debut album for the label, EL MALO. The band was originally formed by Willie Colon, but he decided to disband it in 1974. Lavoe was upset and asked everyone (including Colon) to stay together to be his backing band and this is the result. There's the characteristic twin trombone lead, plus two trumpets, played by Hector Zarzuela and Ray Maldonado. Timbalero Nicky Marrero is on hand and there's the great rhythm section of Milton Cardona on conga, Jose Mangual Jr on bongo and Eddie "Guagua" Rivera on bass. Then there's Marcolino Dimond on piano (a sad waste of talent certainly with his early OD, but here at his peak), tearing up the ivories on the Chappotin classic "Rompe saraguey" and trinkling tastefully on the ballad "Un amor de la calle." It's a relaxed in-the-pocket (en la tronera?) groove like the best salsa, but not without tension: this is clearly a band that gigged together for 7 years and probably played some of this material regularly. Dimond is one of my favourite salsa pianists though I only have two other things by him (Angel Canales' MAS SABOR [1977] and BEETHOVEN's V, also from 1975). His solo on "Rome saraguey" recalls that on Beethoven's Fifth: he pushes it but manages to show restraint, there are flashes of showiness when it seems as though he has an extra pair of hands throwing cadences at the glissando, but then he pauses on the edge and listens to the rock-solid conga, guiro, bass and timbales, before trying something else. It's 2 and a half minutes of vertiginous joy. The album ends with what is still a heavily requested song: Lavoe's cover of Johnny Pacheco's "Mi gente (my people)", a true pan-Latin anthem. This album is only half an hour long, which is a problem with these FANIA reissues: they manage to whet your appetite but in the CD age we want at least an hour of music. Still you can change the mood, or spend more money and get more of it.

CHARLIE PALMIERI
THE HEAVYWEIGHT (Fania 773130 065-2)

The latest batch of remastered Fania reissues includes Roberto Roena, Ray Barretto and two from Charlie Palmieri. Palmieri's THE HEAVYWEIGHT (originally on the Alegre label in 1978) has six long jams aimed at the Latin dancefloor. Perhaps the title also puns on his own corpulence. Charlie Palmieri loved to eat and the opening cut is a paean to fish and rice, though probably he went more for ribs and chops, a fondness that gave him a weak heart and led to his early demise in 1988. Panamanian Meñique and Julito Villot share the lead vocals, but it's when they stop singing we get to hear the piano wizardry of the elder Palmieri, usually preceded by the introductory phrase: "El gigante de las blancas y las negras!" On "Chaleco" there is a great cowbell propulsion and the smoky voice of Meñique balanced by the smooth chorus: "Mucho blah blah blah por aquí, mucho blah blah blah por ayá!" Here we also hear a touch of melodica which was clearly a new toy of Palmieri at the time. Side A (metaphorically speaking) closes with a scorcher, "Tiene sabor," which is credited to Rolando Valdez. I have another version of it by Abelardo Barroso where it is a cha-cha-cha, credited to Ignacio Piñeiro. This version is steamier with bongos, conga and tres taking a bite out of the dancefloor for a seven-minute workout. "Melodica in F" by Anton Rubenstein is a novelty danzon featuring melodica, which doesn't sound that weird in actuality. It starts sleepily with a quote from "We'll meet again," a World War Two chestnut. I don't know if it was multitracked or whether someone else played piano on here but it builds for a couple of minutes (I almost said minuets) till Charlie gets confidence to start throwing dissonant melodica chords at the wall of horns (two trumpets, trombone and sax), then he leaps to the blancas y negras for some grandstanding. For the outro he returns to the car-horn twiddling of the melodica and even finds "El manicero" in there.

RAY BARRETTO
HARD HANDS (Fania 773 130 091-2)

Boogaloo, funk and soul are the main components of this Latin jam session, the sequel to ACID, released in 1968. Barretto had come up as a conguero, working for Tito Puente and others but went solo after he had a hit with "El Watusi." Perhaps because of the strong R&B component in his music, the vocals are in English, which obviously would give it a broader appeal in New York's radio airwaves of the time, particularly among the African-American community. The title cut refers to the thundering power of Ray's conga-playing, and is followed by "Abidjan," a tribute to the Ivorian capital. Bobby Valentin lays down a pattern on the bass and the great Orestes Vilato (still ripping it up today with John Santos' Machete Ensemble) shows why every timbales player in the world studied him. The tune starts as a mozambique, segues into a mambo during Vilato's solo and them ends as a bembé, a West African rhythm. Vilato also gets to showboat during "Son con cuero," where the vocalist exclaims, "Vilato has outdone himself! He's knocked it out to China!" The move is from son montuno to up-tempo guaracha during "Mi ritmo te llama." The vocals are by Adalberto Santiago and corista Jimmy Sabater yells "Salsa!" which, the excellent new liner notes by Bobby Sanabria suggest, is the first time the word was used in this context. Also present, Louis Crúz, a superb pianist who flits between jazz and soul riffs, and contributed arrangements to the session.

TITO PUENTE
PARA LOS RUMBEROS (FANIA 773 130 028-2) 36 minutes

After the Second World War, Tito Puente held sway at the Palladium in New York while Birdland rocked to Machito, and Tito Rodríguez gave both a run for their money. But by the late sixties younger bands were drawing the crowds and Puente had to reinvent himself beyond the "Mambo King" image as former members of his band, Ray Barreto, Johnny Pacheco and Charlie Palmieri were the new dominant sound. It wasn't Puente that initiated the change however, but the young San Franciscan psychedelic guitarist Carlos Santana who scored hits with Peter Green's "Black Magic Woman," and Tito Puente's 1962 "Oye como va," which became an anthem of the Hippie generation. Young rock fans in New York started going to check out Puente and he responded by growing an afro, wearing platform boots and wide-lapels to go with his already established shtick as a showman behind his timbales. This album marks the transition to the second phase of Puente's career and his sudden fame as a pop icon. The music is grounded in his old style (he even redoes some old favourites) but it has a contemporary sheen with lotsa percussion, a big horn line like a sputtering fuse heading for the dynamite, and solid rhythm from Izzy Feliu on an Ampeg electric baby bass and Charlie Palmieri on piano and organ. Lead vocals are by Menique Barcasnegras (of whom I had never heard); Yayo el Indio sings coro. The arrangements are superb and the mambos and cha-chas never sounded so sleek, all of them pivoting around the timbalero Tito, teetering on his platform toes.

WILLIE COLON
EL MALO (FANIA 773 130 029-2) 30 minutes

Willie Colón is a trombonist who had the good fortune to hire Hector Lavoe and Ruben Blades as vocalists. Lavoe is on this album and again Yayo el Indio sings coro. He also has Dwight Brewster on piano, who is a jazz artist with considerable chops. In addition to a pan-Latin blend of bomba and plena (quite unusual at the time), Colón also introduced funk and disco into the mix. This album marks the beginning of the boogaloo craze in Latin music. It didn't seem odd to Colón, being raised in New York, to take his parents' music and add the R&B and do-wop and jazz he had also heard growing up. Lavoe had the perfect nasal delivery associated with traditional Cuban soneros, but coming from Puerto Rico to New York he had an urbane grit also. As if that wasn't enough, the band also included Eddie "Gua Gua" Rivera, solid as a rock on bass, and Nicky Marrero on timbales (later of Fania's All-star band). Though they were just teenagers, Fania signed them and this disc was their debut bomber. While a set of nothing but boogaloo would be hard to take, they mix it up with Latin soul, salsa and other styles. Older fans dismissed their stuttering mambos and weird melanges of rhythms, but the unknown youngsters had confidence and eased from son montunos to boogaloos exuding an infectious sense of fun.

LOUIE RAMIREZ
ALI BABA (FANIA 773 130 017-2) 32 mins

Despite the appalling patter spattered throughout the record ("I hope you will buy this record. I need the bread to buy a camel: you see I haven't had a hump in a month..."), it's a favourite. The first song riffs off "Love potion number 9" with stupid lyrics but great horns. The third track, "I dig rhythm," takes off from "Land of 1000 dances," and ends with the vocalists mimicking the bass humorously, going "deen deen" until someone says, "Hey, I thought it was 'doon doon'!" Louie is a timbalero, yes, another one -- with a sense of humour as well as rhythm. (The combination of humour and musicianship reminds me, of course, of the Alegre All Stars, a rival outfit at the time.) Vocals are by Bobby Marin and Rudy Calzado; Sonny Bravo handles the piano; John Rodríguez Jr on bongo & bell is noteworthy. Ramirez was already leading the field of mambo bands in 1970 when he tried his hand at boogaloo. But appropriating tunes from pop wasn't Fania's only problem, for Ramirez was under contract to another label, so they suggested the Ali Baba persona for this album. "What can I do?" starts as a weepy ballad, slides into a blues and then ups into a boogaloo tempo, driven by John Rodríguez Jr on cowbell and Victor Allende on conga. "Cooking with Ali" is a son montuno handled as a mambo and stews nicely, avoiding the cheap laughs for a moment. (Ah, but wait till the end: a bit of vinyl humour...) The sexist frivolity of "Open Sesame" on the title cut is only excused because it's clearly a man faking the girl's part! ("I ain't opening my sesame!" -- I got some sesame seeds! "Well, that's different!") Thrown into all the zaniness is some genuinely great playing.

EDDIE PALMIERI
VAMONOS PA'L MONTE (FANIA 773 130 007-2) 62 mins

The more talented of the Palmieri brothers, Eddie had already made a mark with his band La Perfecta (STRAIGHT AHEAD [TICO 1964] is a must-hear) when he decide to switch it up and use other sidemen. His new approach led to a series of albums, the third of which is "Vamonos pa'l monte," and includes the scorching title of that name. He moved closer to jazz in this period (being influenced by Monk and McCoy Tyner, at that time peaking with the Coltrane quartet) and adds a political twist to the lyrics. His new sound included trap drums because he thought the rat-a-tat of the snare drum was more martial, and also he scored harmonic rhythms for the horn section. This song became the defining anthem of the era and is still played and requested by Latin deejays. He even invited his older brother Charlie to play organ on the song which says, "Things are so messed up, let's just go back to the mountains." Charlie is steaming: he has a lot to prove. His organ montuno reminds me of blues. About two minutes into Charlie's solo they hit the big-room reverb & the whole vista opens up into a swirling ballroom on the mountain peak. But the album also has solid links to the past with the presence of Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros on trumpet and the inclusion of "Viejo Socarron" by Lili Martinez Griñan who played with Arsenio in the 40s, and also the bolero "Yo no se," composed by Jacinto Scull, and first recorded by Sonora Matancera in the 50s. While paying tribute to his roots, Palmieri pulls them up and strides boldly in a new direction.

RAY BARRETTO
ACID (FANIA 773 130 022-2) 35 mins

Jazz and funk hit Latin on this set. Barretto drives from the back seat on congas. A Puerto Rican kid from New York he became "black" as a GI in Germany in the late 40s when fellow soldiers turned him on to jazz. He discovered Chano Pozo and took up congas and then formed a traditional Cuban charanga back in the Big Apple. But in 1966 when boogaloo hit, he decided to take a chance and get away from the flute and violins to a more jazz-based sound. He's got Bobby "Big Daddy" Rodríguez on Ampeg baby bass, and the great Orestes Vilato on timbales. He brought Orestes along from his previous group but for the first time features him as a soloist which had a huge impact on all Latin music. Trumpeter Rene Lopez has absorbed Miles and Dizzy; Louis Cruz on teclas is cruisin! They switch effortlessly to English for "Mercy Mercy Baby" and "A Deeper shade of soul," throwing in Memphis-style horns for a change of mood. The title track, "Acid," which was done as a first take, is pure magic: everyone shines brilliantly. The bass is locked into a simple pattern and each musician steps up to take a swing at the groove. "A Deeper shade of Soul" quotes Sam and Dave, "Soul man," and a bunch of other familiar riffs. It's not the "heavy, man" squinting Jerry-Garcia acid they are dropping but the "Sock it to me!," "Freak out, baby" acid from acid-washed jeans on groovy chicks. But then they get rootical on the last cut, "Espiritu libre," with jawbone percussion and way-out trumpet. Barretto & Vilato have a dialogue in the West African bembe rhythm while the rest of the guys go nutty & take you on another kind of trip, back to the beginnings of rhythmic consciousness. The cowbell clanks relentlessly and wordless sounds are uttered, but it all coheres.

JOSE "CHEO" FELICIANO
CHEO (FANIA 773 130 006-2) 36 mins

No this is a different Jose Feliciano! Puerto Rican native "Cheo" has a really mellow, rich voice and in 1974 was recovering from drug addiction when he teamed up with songwriter Tite Curet Alonso to create this album. The band is an all-star line-up: Johnny Pacheco on conga, Larry Harlow on piano, Bobby Valentin on bass, Louie Ramirez on the vibes, Orestes Vilato on timbales, Johnny Rodríguez on bongos, Ismael Quintana on clave & coro, Charlie Rodríguez on tres, and the only one I had never heard of, Vinnie Bell on electric guitar. I love the sound of the tres and it is hot in the mix, though Spanish guitar dominates the ballad "Mi triste problema." I have a hard time with vibes but managed to play this all the way through without getting itchy to hit the "next" button, because it is smooth and there are some fine moments (even on the vibes). The opening cut "Anacaona," which was a hit at the time, has abrupt tempo changes as breaks, and a swinging groove. My favourite track is not one of the ballads but the traditional rumba "Mano caliente," where the youngsters show they can play it straight. Put this disc on the stereo, mix a martini, sit back and realize -- you have become your parents!!

MONGUITO
LASSISSI PRESENTE: MONGUITO EL UNICO IN CURAÇAO (GB Records New York LS 31 Sacodis)

Yes you read that title right. I jumped on this newly reissued album figuring it wouldn't be round for long. Monguito is known as El Padre de Son Montuno. He is also called El Unico because his powerful voice is very distinctive. Real name Ramon Quian, Monguito is a classic salsero with a gravelly somewhat nasal voice and this is the real deal: the best Latin musicians New York producers could find subway fare for, along with some great vocals. Monguito (born in Matanzas) moved to Havana to pursue his passion for the music, fronting Conjunto Modelo. Then Mexico was his home, where he appeared in three movies, before he came to the US. In 1962 he sang lead on Arsenio Rodriguez' classic PRIMITIVO (originally on Roost Records, reissued in Japan as P-Vine CD 4729) before joining up with Johnny Pacheco and settling down for a spell with the Fania label (The best of their sessions can be found on Pacheco Y Monguito LA CREMA [Fania JM567]). The Lassissi story is curious. An essay I wrote about him appears on Papa Lars' website bolingo, though much of what I wrote is speculation. Lassissi did put out some stellar music in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in the late 70s and I am fortunate to have a stack of it (perks of working in a record store with a pipeline to Stern's London basement & knowing what I was looking for). About 1980 Lassissi moved to the USA and brought African singers like Doh Albert and Laba Sosseh to New York to record. (I could be wrong: he continued to market music in Ivory Coast and perhaps just visited New York to make salsa recordings for release back in Abidjan.) He hit on the formula of getting top session guys to jam on well-known Cuban standards, setting the stage for Estrellas de Areito and many other successful endeavours. Alfredito Valdez recalls he made about 50 dates for Lassissi. Now a dozen of the Lassissi salsa productions have been reissued on CD including this one recorded in 1980. The sound is a bit rough (especially Side 2 which is taken from a worn record) but the music is essential. It's mainly son, guajira and charanga. This album (I doubt it was recorded in Curaçao) has Alfredito Valdez (i.e. Alfredo Valdez, Jr) on piano, three trumpets including Tony Marrero, and tresero Charlie Rodriguez, one of the greats. Adalberto Santiago sings coro. It's only 32 minutes long, typical for African LPs, but it packs in a lot. There are better (recorded) Monguito albums but once you hear him you will want it all.

I am so glad these are being reissued again. Partly so I can rave about some of my favourite music, but mainly so I can steer you towards a musical moment 25 years ago when all was right with the world.

CELIA CRUZ
100% AZUCAR: The Best of Celia Cruz and La Sonora Matancera (Rhino Records #72816)
ROUGH GUIDE TO CELIA CRUZ (RGNET 1150CD)

I've listened to a lot of uninspired compilations lately, from Indestructible African Beats to Africa Remix, from Latin Cafe to Italian Cafe to Cafe Latino to some other damn cafe. Most of them make you wonder why the labels bother. There's generally one or two good songs (which are the ones you already have) and at this point people are just going to download the tracks they want and skip the filler. Now a Celia Cruz compilation is a different matter, she produced so many great recordings over her long career, any slice is going to turn up gold. If you don't have a lot of her music already here's a good place to start.

There are two discs here and this is the first time I am going to review a CD I don't own. The Rhino compilation contains Celia -- la Reina-- 's classic songs with La Sonora Matancera and I have them all on vinyl, so I will review the CD hypothetically. Actually I don't have every track, and surprisingly there isn't a lot of overlap with the 3 disc set I have ALBUM DE ORO (Orfeon JM-322), which contains her 30 Greatest Hits, and a more modest LOS 14 GRANDES EXITOS DE CELIA CRUZ (Profono TPL-1404). The Rough Guide set focuses on her middle period: the Fania years. Her most characteristic & classic tracks are "Yerbero Moderno," "Santa Isabel de las Lajas," "Bemba colora," "Melao de cana," -- and only the latter is on the Rhino disc, but no matter, once you get into this collection you can seek out more. "Burundanga" is a song that became a classic thanks to Celia's recording. She gives it an impish delivery. With La Sonora Matancera, Celia brought the guaguanco and guaracha to Mexico in the 1950s and chalked up innumerable hits until a bus accident decimated the ranks of her band (Touring was such a large part of their success they even posed with the bus). She has a remarkably robust voice, a good match for the fat arrangements. I don't know if it's still in print but my favourite of her many Sonora Matancera recordings is HOMENAJE A LOS SANTOS (TH RODVEN CD-136), in which she sings to the Afro-Cuban deities, but with a big band arrangement, including muted trumpet chorus and lots of her trade-mark vocal drama.

In the 1960s Celia Cruz and her husband Pedro Knight moved to New York and started recording with Tito Puente and brought Salsa to the American mainstream via the Fania label. I have fewer of her Fania recordings. Though they generally have better sound, other than some of the live stadium recordings which are rough but nevertheless crucial music. "Cucula" which traveled with her from the early days is here (on the Rough Guide), and even "Elegua" a pure ritual chant with West African percussion, though it seems she largely threw off the Afro-Cuban religious trappings once she moved to the Belly of the Beast. There is some slack playing on "Metida con You," which has an off-key trumpet solo that is only mildly irritating as the cut fades. Celia refers to one of her most famous tracks, "Yerbero moderno," on "La Campeona," without going there. In the 70s she teamed up with Johnny Pacheco and recorded the deliriously great song that became her signature: "Bemba Colora." You need to find that and hear it, preferably in a live version. I played it for an opera singer once and he said it was an epiphany! One of the great surprises here is her version of "Sugar Sugar" which is a joy, since she is famous for her catch phrase AZUCAR!! it is perfectly appropriate she should cover the Archies hit. (I can see I'll have to start a new compilation with the Big Youth version also.) Cruz's career spanned 70 albums, 5 grammies, and regular appearances on Spanish-language TV, from music shots to characters in telenovelas! She was busy and exuded joie de vivre. This is essential music.

EDDIE PALMIERI IN CONCERT AT YOSHI'S
Oakland, 5 December, 2006

photo: Arturo Riera, San Jose Jazz Festival 2005
(Used with permission)

It's true I don't get out much anymore. I used to get free concert tickets and would be out two or three nights a week checking out live music. Now it has to be a special event to get me out driving at night, and of course with the US being the world's pariah who would want to tour here, assuming they could get a visa? Yoshi's is easy to get to (in Oakland's "green zone") though the sound is often muddy and they prefer having tables to push drinks than a dancefloor but I was not going to miss Eddie Palmieri with La Perfecta Dos. I caught the second set on the first night & it was incendiary. Every person on the bandstand was a bandleader in his own right, even John Santos who jumped up to play guiro and sing coro, obviously thrilled to add this to his curriculum vitae. Eddie was mostly there to set the ball rolling and then comped while the singer, percussionists and trombones took over. He only took one solo. I recognised a couple of the tunes, or riffs rather, but didn't take any notes (I was singing along to "mi quierida bomba" at one point, whether or not that was the tune they were playing). I was too rapt in the performance. During the first number Jimmy Bosch, a small glabrous gent in the back corner, started signalling to the sound man to turn up the piano, I thought it sounded fine, but I didn't know what Jimmy had planned. He gestured to his cohort, Joe Fiedler, to cycle the riff on repeat and leaped into a blasting solo that blew the walls back. Even the other band members were taken aback momentarily before rising to the challenge. I am not a big flute fan, though I make an exception for Maraca. Eddy Zervigon is one of the old-timers on the scene, who started out with Orqesta Broadway and played on the Africando sessions. He shambled on as the band was starting and suddenly Eddie threw the solo to him and, unprepared, he tried a few stock trills but then just went off and when he was done Eddie waved him on for another 8 bars. He showed he still had it. Anthony Carrillo, of Descarga Boricua fame, was bongocero and the great Giovanni Hidalgo slapped the congas. Eddie Resto on bass and Jose Claussell on timbales completed the rhythm section. The trombones consistently stole the show, but towards the end the percussionists got to solo and it was memorable. John Santos was no slouch on maracas & got respect from the band for his spontaneous contributions. There was one ballad, in it Herman Olivera (a long-time collaborator of Eddie's who has sung with Manny Oquendo as well), told the sad story of his life on the streets of Puerto Rico. It reminded me of "Bemba colora" by Celia Cruz, an autobiographical portrait that was quite moving. But the all-stars gave it another blast to send us away joyful. And only the $28 ticket stopped me coming back another time.