Month: March 2020

I found this 45 on the CTC label (the Workers Central Union!) in La Habana on an unforgettable trip we took in 2015 led by the inimitable Ned Sublette, author of “Cuba and Its Music”, “The World that Made New Orleans” and, with Constance, “The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry.” Other geniuses we were lucky to spend time with as part of the trip included Producer Joe Boyd, Harry “Subway Harry” Sepulveda, and UC Berkeley African American Studies Professor Bryan Wagner, author of “The Life and Legend of Bras-Coupé: The Fugitive Slave Who Fought the Law, Ruled the Swamp, Danced at Congo Square, Invented Jazz, and Died for Love.”

We really didn’t spend much time digging, and I have looked with envy in the years that passed at friends and colleagues who have posted pictures of their digging adventures in Cuba turning up amazing sonic jewels. The story of this 45 involves the “Zafra de los Diez Milliones” – the Cuban sugarcane harvest of 1969-1970, when an effort was made to produce ten million tons of sugar to improve the country’s financial situation.

Millions of Cubans were mobilized in the effort, as, according to an article on havanatimes.org “cane was sowed anywhere and everywhere, even to the point of moving cattle off grazing land to devote more fields to planting, which strongly effected (sic) the agricultural and livestock industries… Though lacking experience in this work, workers from all industries, students and even the members of the armed forces were called on to assist in a campaign that distorted the Cuban economy.”

The first side is by Orquesta Riverside, which still had a couple of (funky) LPs in them in the early ’70s after this 45 I believe. Riverside was fronted by Tito Gómez, an absolute star sonero who joined in the 1940s, still sounding fantastic. So this song, and the B-side, were basically anthems to spur the workers on to cut more cane, as the lyrics say “Vamos a tumbar, vamos a tumbar, de caña los diez milliones…” What an arrangement, what horns!

And then, this one is for those of you who looked at the title of this post and said “Beny Moré in 1970?? He passed in 1963!” Well, true, El Bárbaro – generally regarded as hands down the greatest singer of the AfroCuban Canon – unfortunately drank himself to death seven years previous to this release. But apparently his badass band was very much alive and kicking – listen to this hot number, another really interesting arrangement with powerful horn work. Who knew?

Here are a trio of very heavy tunes you may not be familiar with from the early ’70s on the Isthmus. First is “Baila Muchacha” by Almafuerte/Woodstock in Panama. Check the cover art of the LP! Tille remembered the band as part of a brief hippie/Latin Rock wave in Panama that included the Ortega brothers (Dirk and Cancer) who appear on the much sought after Sally Ruth label Bolita y Su Tentacion Latina LP.

The brothers were both accomplished musicians (Dirk on Piano, Cancer on Guitar/Vocals) who later released the protest LP Sale de Su Cantina America Latina which included the song “Tropicomunista.” Tille told me their mother was a well known Professor, and the boys spent time in Paris in the late ’60s, returning to shock their peers by spraypainting walls in Panama City.

I found the following biographical info on Woodstock on Henry Gorgona’s “Pro Museo de la Musica Panameña” FB page:

WOODSTOCK…Banda de Rock icónica de los años 60´s conformada por Enrique Malek, Bey Mario Robles, Joaquín Vallarino, Junior Contreras, Agustín Leiro, Roberto Bocanegra y el legionario Esteban “Chicho” Arenas a quien se le considera como el padre del Rock Nacional , igualmente conformaron la Banda posteriormente Georgie Thomas y Franz Gutiérrez.

Fue la época del Golden Key o la Llave Dorada, que al igual que las bases militares de Clayton, Howard, Kobee, Albrook, tenían Pub Bars para la diversión de las tropas norteamericanas acantonadas aquí y, nosotros eramos las estrellas del momento.

Es importante recordar y situarse en el momento histórico para visualizar que lo que hoy se conoce como el área revertida eran pedazos de Estados Unidos dentro de Panamá. Para los músicos de esa generación fue todo un privilegio poder tocar en todos esas locaciones que conformaban la antigua Zona del Canal de Panamá y sus bases militares, que eran íconos de la potencia más grande del mundo y en donde el talento nacional rock fue reconocido por primera vez en todo su esplendor.

The second song was supposed to make it’s way onto a followup comp of Panamanian songs from this era but licensing headaches have made it nearly impossible to do so at this point. Please enjoy the Latin Monsters Soul Boogaloo “Walk On” on Loyola (1971?):

Again, I have no biographical data on the group but they did release at least one other very interesting 45 on Loyola where they cover “Mrs. Robinson and “I feel free.”

Finally, here is “Cahuita” by Bocaraca on RCA (1974), a group from the gorgeous Limón coast of Costa Rica that shares a common culture with Panama’s Bocas del Toro archipelago just across the border. Biographical information (and song lyrics in patois!) is available on the other youtube post of the song by the band themselves. I chose this video because the sound is better (Qvo Miles?). Turn it up!

The first is the original, by the composer – Silvestre Mendez. Oriente again – “Son de Mayari, Guantanamo Son.” The song appears on his excellent (and not easy to find) debut LP from Mexico on the Musart Label, Silvestre y su Tribu. This LP is a snapshot of a fascinating era, the era of the Zoot Suit clad Rumberos (Silvestre, like his friend Chano Pozo, was a quintessential Rumbero) and Guaracheros like Orlando “Cascarita” Guerra and Kiko Mendive, as well as the Rumberas of the Golden Age of Frijolywood in Mexico City.

Silvestre was a real Rumbero, dancer and barrio composer who had an ear for catchy hooks – his compositions are still classics in the AfroCuban Canon. He had a fruitful career in La Habana in the early ’40s, composing the song “Tambo” for the pathbreaking/regionally influential Miguelito Valdes and Orquesta Casino de la Playa. The Rumbero moved to Mexico City in 1946 and immediately became a key part of the scene, acting in movies with Cuban-born Rumbera and movie star Maria Antonieta Pons and composing the hit “El Telefonito” for the great Cascarita (with Perez Prado).

Silvestre recorded at least 4 LPs in Mexico, and composed hits such as “Cha Cha Guere” (search for Celia’s version), “Yiri Yiri Bom” (which Beny Moré – the greatest singer the Antilles ever produced – absolutely crushed), and Mi Bomba Sono (again Celia, but Silvestre’s version is great too). Arsenio has a heavy cover of “Son de Mayari” as well, that he renamed “Pimienta”.

The next version I’d like to share is Alberto Quintanar and Rene Santos’ cover from the 1972 LP Quintanar y Su Clan Sonero on Ducruet y Ducruet’s Panavox label (Panama). All Panavox recordings were synonymous with the brilliant engineer Eduardo “Balito” Chan. You’ll note the Cuban-born Santos, whose presence was a great boon to Panama musically, on tres, and that’s Quintanar on the heavy Count Chocula organ.

Santos was part of a wave of Cuban musicians that came to Panama in the mid ’40s to play in the popping nightclub scene during and after the World War, names that include Peruchín and Miguelito Cuní! Santos stayed and lived in the popular barrio of Chorillo, later recording a sought-after LP with Socrates Lazo (Gabino Pampini’s brother) on vocals and a number of excellent, hard to find 45s. I’m sad to say he had recently passed when I first visited Panama in the early 2000s and I was not able to interview him =( There is a nice shot of both Quintanar and Rene on the back cover of the LP:

Here is a nice ad for Quintanar live in the very early ’70s:

These are three songs I can hear any time and I’ll just stop whatever I’m doing. The first is “Lanza Tus Penas Al Viento”, a gorgeous big band version of Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind”, from the LP Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus. The artist is Frank “El Pavo” Hernandez, an underappreciated genius and son of Venezuela. El Pavo (‘The Kid”) was already a brilliant percussionist in his teens, when he joined Aldemaro Romero’s Big Band (One of the top 5 big bands in the Antilles, per the older cats I consult)

El Pavo moved to NY in the ’60s and studied with Henry Adler, and was apparently one of the only people Tito Puente would allow to spell him on timbales with Tito’s Orquesta. El Pavo returned to VZ to rejoin Romero on his influential Onda Nueva recordings (marrying Jazz, Bossa Nova and traditional Venezuelan Joropo) of the late ’60s, and also recorded a couple of heavy and rare LPs of his own.

During this entire time, El Pavo was losing his sight until he eventually became completely blind. Here is a photo I took of El Pavo with timbales legend Alfredo Padilla (of Los Dementes, Dimension Latina and Oscar de Leon) in 2005:

The next song is “Ballade” by Charles Fox, from the remarkable Just for Fun LP (1963). Fox, a pianist/arranger/composer of Israelite descent (what, you’d rather I called him a “Jewish pianist?”), studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and was later the composer of the theme from Love Boat (!).

His session charanga (I don’t believe they played live) included the legendary Bobby Rodriguez on bass (The older, Tampa-born Cuban, who played with Machito and who is said to have introduced Hector Lavoe to Heroin) , Frankie Malabe on Congas, Louie Ramirez on Vibes and Guiro and Vocals by Rudy Calzado, Eliot Romero and Manny Roman.

The liners say “Ballade: which is a bolero, introduces a new and extraordinary mood, set by the wanderings of the piano. The release is to a cha cha, the piece returns to the bolero and goes on to 6/8 jazz-like figures growing out of the already established rhythm.” (The 6/8 rhythm is a “Mozambique”, interesting that they did not call it that in the liners or refer to the Carnavales in Oriente from which it originated).

Finally, here is “Juanita Bonita” by Don Marino Barreto Jr., which I first heard on a funky little 10 inch record I traded with a wonderful graphic artist/record collector named Gil Vega (QEPD) in a tough barrio of San Jose, Costa Rica.

Marino Barreto (who confusingly had a half brother of the same name who was also an emigre musician in Europe) was a Cuban (Matanzas) singer and bassist who moved to Italy in 1949 and had a number of pop hits there in the ’60s and ’70s. He must have toured and recorded in France with his half brother in the ’50s or ’60s as I have another 10 inch and LP from them on French labels. Anyone who can clarify here would be appreciated. Disfruten!

Can we all agree there are very few albums that are good all the way through? Mostly I’m thrilled if I find one super hot song on an LP, and maybe sometimes later something else that I wasn’t listening for before will emerge. This post represents three songs that appear in a row on the B-side of the Orlando Contreras LP Amigo de Que? Lo Mejor de Contreras on Musicalia.

I have another couple of Musicalia releases, one of Cachao and another of Conjunto Casino, and both say “A Raoul Aguilar Production” – I’m guessing Aguilar was a Cuban exile who brought some masters with him to Miami. Love to learn more if anyone has any datos. The liner notes on this LP notes that it’s Musicalia’s first release.

Contreras was a well-loved singer throughout Latin America know best for his boleros – his nickname was “La Voz Romántica de Cuba”. Born in Santiago (Oriente again – how fertile that region was to Cuban music, the birthplace of the Son and Changui, with its connections to the Franco-Afro-Haitian diaspora of the late 18th century), Conteras sang with Neno Gonzalez’s Orquesta and Conjunto Casino in the mid ’50s in La Habana. He ultimately left Cuba in 1965 with Maype label owner Arturo Machado Diaz.

Two of these songs are especially fascinating in that Contreras is singing over pure traditional Guaguancos. Contreras recorded an LP in 1970 or ’71 in NYC with Patato Valdes and Cortijo (!) of boleros and other genres over Guaguancos, but neither of these songs appear on that LP, and to me the sessions don’t sound the same?

The first, “Tu Olvido” is a duet with Panchito (Riset?) of a beautiful Argentine Vals by Alberto Gomez and Augusto Vila, contemporaries of Gardel’s in ’20s and ’30s Buenos Aires.

The song that follows is a really crisp, swinging Montuno “Tabelen”, that Harry Sepulveda assures me was recorded with Neno Gonzalez, with pizzicato violins and flute by Pancho el Bravo:

I swear every time I hear “Tabelen, it’s as fresh as the first time I heard it. This remarkable flight of songs is bookended by the beautiful traditional Mexican Ranchera “Las Cuatro Milpas”:

Here are three songs I love and play all the time, that I wanted to share – the first is “Vete Pa’lla” by Los Magos del Swing on Discos MAG (Peru). Los Magos were a hot tres (and guitar?)-led combo that never released an LP that I have seen – two or three 45s encompass their total output.

This song is an old school despecho (“Sufre, llora, ya no te quiero mas”). For a long time the only copy I could find was pretty shredded, with lots of clicks and pops, so I sent it to my man Fernando in CDMX where they ingeniously polish the record grooves down. With a thick pressing like MAG’s (or old Fuentes) this works great, and the 45 was totally listenable afterwards!

You’ll note the 45 credits “Joe de Cuba” as the author. The actual author was George Rodriguez of Spanish Harlem’s hot vibes-led New Swing Sextet, but the error points to how much the young musicians in Lima and Callao (and Cali and Medellin and Cartagena and Maracaibo and Caracas and Fort de France and…) were listening to and feeling all the hot sounds emanating from NYC in the mid to late ’60s.

The original composition is actually mistitled “Vente Pa Ya” on the 1967 debut album The Explosive New Swing Sextet. If you like this sound, check out Mita Y su Monte Adentro’s “No Coman Cuento” and “No Aguanto Mas” and anything by los Kintos from Peru and proceed directly down that rabbit hole. Saludos a Yamil en Peru!

This lovely song is by Panama’s Tille (Aristides Valderrama) y Su Nueva Dimension. Tille, who grew up in dire poverty near the ruins of the old Panama City (destroyed by English pirate Henry Morgan in 1671) was the first Panamanian to attend the Berklee school of music. He has gone on to a career one of the great professional arrangers and composers in the country’s history, but in the late ’60s he and his brother (on vocals on this track) released a total of four very hard to find 45s. Tille is a sweet and humble genius, and is frustratingly embarrassed by these early recordings. Salseros disagree =) His version of Cortijo’s “Solavaya” (which Colombian melomanos on La Costa have bootlegged – check eBay) is also btw.

Here’s another song Fernando turned me on to. Gracias hermano! As it turns out, there is a ton of interesting early Salsa from the Dominican Republic. My coworker Ingrid at El Diario La Prensa in NY told me she used to go to the Barrio Villa Mella in Santo Domingo and see old-timers in guayaberas and patent leather shoes dancing El Son really, really well. This release is on Radhames Aracena’s Zuni label (Aracena founded Radio Guarachita in Santo Domingo). Something in the female voices in the coro reminds me of Joey Pastrana’s “Rumbon Melón”. Disfruten!

I first heard “Buscandote” when my friend Sierra made me a cassette of the soundtrack of the Tarantino-produced film “Curdled”. Mind blown. Cali’s own Piper Pimienta, a personal favorite since that instant, on vocals. Years later, while meeting with master producer (and sweet human being) Mario Rincon in Medellín, he explained to myself and Will Holland that the Latin Brothers (and Wganda Kenya, and Afrosound) were all Fruko’s band, essentially. As if Fruko’s recorded output were not impressive enough. The Latin Brothers were put together to compete with Venezuela’s Dimension Latina, which was making noise in the late ’70s world’s Salsa capital, NYC.

The Latin Brothers signature sound included crisp, insistent trombones, the gorgeous harmonies of John Jairo, Victor Melendez and Joe Arroyo, and the “Tango Piano” of Luis Fernando Meza Velásquez , known as “Tomate” (I recently learned that Tomate had formed part of Medellin’s epic Sexteto Miramar in the ’60s). For more Latin Brothers monster songs, search “Patrona de los Reclusos”, “San Juan de Puerto Rico”, “A la Patrona de Cuba” etc. etc. – meanwhile here’s one that you don’t hear out often but is beautiful and features Meza’s “Tango piano” – “Te Encontré” (also the name of their first LP):

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here is La Sonora Del Peru’s “El Recluso” (my copy says “Manuel Mantilla”, love to hear if anyone can clarify)

Now I feel dumb for saying “rip off”. This song is badass in it’s own right.

Finally, here is Senen y Su Negramenta’s “No Me Dejes Morir” , with future Quantic/Ondatrópica collaborator Markitos Mikolta on vocals. Couldn’t believe this wasn’t on Youtube yet, it’s amazing:

No one needs an excuse to listen to Eddie P’s (still going strong at 83!) original “Café” from 1964’s essential “Si Hecho Palante”, with vocals by Ismael Quintana, but here it is:

Haiti’s Les Shleu Shleu were definitely feeling him! Check out their amazing version below, on Angel Job’s Job label (pressed in Venezuela). Known as “El Gordito de Oro”, Job was a Curacao businessman and promoter who brought Arsenio, Estrellas de Chocolate and other classic Cuban conjuntos to play in Curacao and Aruba in the early ’60s.

Finally, someone posted this beautiful original (?) version of Africando’s “Yay Boy” on eBay a few years ago – Hugo Mendez of Sofrito (google his fantastic compilations on Disques Debs and the Tumbele comp on Soundway, I still have them in rotation regularly) let me know this is by Star Number One de Dakar on the album 78 no 1. Gracias Hugo!

This song is always a dancefloor show stopper. The first version is the original by Calixto Ochoa:

The second is a lovely Panamanian Tipica version by the great Ceferino Nieto, who I had the pleasure of meeting a few years ago in Chitré. The song points out the geographic and cultural closeness of Panama and Colombia’s Costas – recall that in the Colonial era, Panama was still “Colombia’s Black Province”. This one came out on Cefe’s “El Estilista” label.

The provinces/interior of Panama share a deep connection to Colombia’s Caribbean Costa, while the Darién province is literally connected to Colombia’s Chocó, and related culturally to the Afro-Mestizo Pacific Coast that stretches down towards Buenaventura and beyond to Ecuador’s Esmeraldas region and Peru’s Northern Coast (Significant Afro presence since Colonial times related to sugarcane and rice cultivation).

Check out Cefe’s beautiful version of “Cumbia Caletera” below, by the Peruvian composer Julio Diaz Castillo, which sounds to my ears like it came directly from the Timbiquí region on Colombia’s Pacific Coast. Every time I hear it I imagine the great Nidia Góngora singing it!

Not all of my blog posts will involve versions, but many will, as I love to hear different artists from different cultures and times interpret songs that move them.

La Ruñidera (Alejandro Rodriguez) is an all-time great in the AfroCuban Canon. The first version I’m going to share below is an archetypal classic version by Cuban piano great Luis Varona, who spent time as Machito’s pianist and who Max Salazar credits with having been a key figure in the creation of “Tanga”, which he considers the first Latin Jazz song.

Varona was born in Santiago (Oriente) to musician parents – his mother was a Puerto Rican concert pianist, his father a Cuban violinist. Varona, who had moved to the US by the ’40s, has a number of excellent and hard-to-find LPs as a bandleader, and also trained many lucky musicians in the barrios of NYC, including Tito Puente, Joe Cuba’s Nick Jimenez and Gil Suarez of the Hi-Latins.

Miguelito Valdes (a personal favorite) has an excellent version of La Ruñidera that dates from the ’40s or ’50s. Just googling around Youtube I heard two versions I had never heard before, a haunting older recording by the great Antonio Machín (of El Manisero fame), and one by Spain’s Lola Flores in a Bulería style (wonder if there is a connection here, as Machín lived for many years in Spain?)

This next version is pure. With sax and almost doowop coros in the intro. I can’t recall where I found this random Gema label 45 (mine’s a white label promo, but doesn’t add any additional info), and have searched fruitlessly for information on Vitin Santiago, other releases by his Sextette. But lordamercy.

Finally, here is a ridiculously heavy version by the Congolese Docteur Nico and his African Fiesta, (mid ’60s?) with apocalypse horns and meandering West African guitars.

African versions of classic AfroCuban songs are a particular treat for many rumberos de corazon, for their passionate, idiosyncratic interpretations, often with little connection to the original lyrics, but with a deeply satisfying direct re-connection to the motherlands from which a huge part of AfroCuban musics originated in the first place.

Here is the short bit from Salazar on the creation of Tanga (which, by the way, was ’40s NY Latin hipster lingo for weed): http://robertoocasiofoundation.org/music-education/education/creation-of-latin-jazz/