Music » Latin Jazz Music

A compilation of Cuban conguero Ramon "Mongo" Santamaria's first two albums for Fantasy Records, Afro Roots features not only an all-star percussion section, including Willie Bobo, Francisco Aguabella, Carlos Vidal, and Armando Perazza, but also musicians such as flutist Paul Horn, vibist Cal Tjader, and saxophonist Jose "Chombo" Silva. This disc also includes the original version of Santamaria's classic "Afro-Blue" (a simmering, sensual reading featuring Horn). The music, closer to traditional Cuban music than to any notion of Latin jazz, sounds as fresh and engaging as when it was recorded, in 1958. The set includes nods to traditional Afro-Cuban religious ritual music ("Afro-Blue," "Bata," "Imaribayo") and classic rumba ("Chano Pozo," "Meta Rumba," "Yambu," "Columbia") but also conga ("Conga Pa Gozar"), merengue-rumba ("Che-Que-Re-Que-Che-Que"), and an elegant but forceful mambo ("Mazacote," featuring Tjader). --Fernando Gonzalez

Release Date: 2002-10-29, Audio CD, Umvd Labels

Marc Ribot and his Prosthetic Cubans are a jazz-rock band playing music written by (and for) the late Cuban composer and bandleader Arsenio Rodriguez. While best known for his guitar work with Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and the Lounge Lizards, Ribot has gained in stature and confidence as a solo artist in recent years. Ribot is accompanied here by the likes of keyboardist John Medeski and Jazz Passengers bassist Brad Jones, and his playing is alternately angular, fluid, and extremely visceral. Within this Latin-jazz context, Ribot occasionally echoes Carlos Santana, while his percussion-fueled ensemble (anchored by E.J. and Robert J. Rodriguez) plays it hot, hot, hot. Very traditional yet ultimately modern, this imaginative session swings much better than most. --Mitch Myers

Release Date: 1996-03-19, Audio CD, Ojc

Release Date: 1993-12-22, Audio CD, Milestone

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The conga drum chair was always the position of honor in Cal Tjader's Latin-jazz band. In 1975, California's Poncho Sanchez took over the chair and held it until Tjader died in 1982. Since then, Sanchez has emerged as one of the top congueros and bandleaders in the genre, because he has synthesized the styles of all his predecessors into a sound that is more fluid than frenetic, more melodic than manic. No one influenced him more than Santamaria, and Sanchez's fifteenth album as a leader reunites the mentor and protégé on half of the 10 tracks. The horn and piano parts are respectable if not special, but the real action is in the percussion section, where student and teacher remind each other of the many ways to chop up a measure of music. --Geoffrey Himes

The United Nations Orchestra was created by jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie to "showcase the varied influences that he considers valuable to the development of jazz." The 15-member ensemble, comprised of famous Latin and black American musicians, is a true all-star orchestra, 10 of its members being bandleaders in their own right. On this 1990 recording, the orchestra was on its last date of a European tour, and it pulls out all the stops on this fiery big-band blowout. All the soloists--saxophonists Paquito D'Rivera and James Moody, trumpeters Arturo Sandoval and Claudio Rodit, trombonists Slide Hampton and Steve Turre-- attempt to keep up with Gillespie and the turbulent percussive undercurrent. This leads to a lot of passionate soloing, along with some requisite grandstanding, but even that seems to fit into the all-star concept of the band. This is extroverted, aggressively confident big-band music meant to dazzle and delight. The driving rhythm section is given center stage on Gillespie's "Tanga," whereby a lengthy section of solos by drummer Ignacio Berroa, master percussionist Airto Moreira, and ace conga man Giovanni Hidalgo brings the house down once again. --Wally Shoup

Although Dizzy Gillespie was one of the great architects of modern jazz and its most famous personality, his trumpet style has rarely been imitated successfully. His high-speed runs, twisting phrases, and upper-register leaps are just too difficult to duplicate. This collection begins by placing Gillespie in the big swing bands in which his career began, his complex arrangements and advanced harmonic imagination gradually heralding the coming of bop. There are superb versions of some of his most famous anthems, like "A Night in Tunisia" and "Salt Peanuts," and meetings with altoist Charlie Parker, co-leader of the modernist revolution. Gillespie successfully translated the bop idiom to a big-band format, and his magnificent but short-lived bands are heard on the surging "Manteca" and "Birk's Works." His creative range is apparent--from the gorgeous "No More Blues," from his early discovery of bossa nova, and from his famous gospel parody, "Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac." While his formats would change, it's the Gillespie trumpet that's central here, an instrument capable of both rocketing invention and muted, insinuating sweetness. --Stuart Broomer

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