Palmtree Culture 2: Latin Tripping
Since I have to pay attention in order to avoid constantly reaching into my Brazilian bag of tricks, I tried this time around to pick a series of (mostly) Cuban / Latin jazz songs. You'll see a Brazilian song snuck in anyway. Some of these tracks are old favorites of mine, while others are brand new discoveries culled from Latin jazz collections I've come across on Spotify.
The complete PalmTree Culture 2 playlist on Spotify
A fantastic radio recording of early Tito playing at Birdland (no idea what year...). Great percussion solo (not Tito...). On other tracks of this recording, you can hear Tito speaking with a strong Brooklyn accent...
An early Cuban classic from Beny Moré, the quintessential early Cuban crooner. From the excellent soundtrack Before Night Falls.
Orquestra Kubavana – Potpourrit De Congas
A great big-band sound with wicked conga and bongo solos. As a conguero, of course I'm gonna dig this tune.
Wayne Gorbea All-Stars – Tumba Palo Cucuye
Listen to those maracas! Yes, it's a great tune. But the maracas!
Mongo Santamaria – Mazacote - live
The quality of the recording of the album version is pretty bad on Spotify, so I opted for this one. Mongo had an old-school way of soloing on the congas, a pre-Giovanni Hidalgo style - big, loud thick notes.
Har You Percussion Group – Tico
I picked up this album on a lark in the 90s when I was learning to play congas. It was in the "Acid Jazz" section of the store, but this is the real deal. Raw, unpolished but nonetheless excellent musicianship - a bunch of youngsters who had learned to play music through a youth development program. Wow....
A change of direction from the old-school mambo-style tunes, but I love the fact that this is a Senegalese band doing a salsa version of an Edith Piaf song.
Sergent Garcia – Que Traignan La Salsa
Sergento Garcia rides the line between inspired high-energy Latin numbers and more predictable and less exciting reggae-tinged tunes. I think this leans more towards the former.
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs – Negra - Versión Remasterizada 2008
LFC have played most styles under the sun - and that was just on the one album Fabulosas Calaveras. Their follow-up album attempted to do exactly the same cross-styles mixture, and had they not done such a great job with Calaveras, it would be a pretty awesome album. Unfortunately, it sounds like they re-composed the previous album song for song. In the end, however, it's still good music, and can benefit from the light of day given the over-exposure of their Grammy Winning Calaveras album. It's also a great way to work into the psychedlic Cuban experiences coming next.
Ahhh, Irakere. Either awesome Cuban percussion-horn insanity, cheesy slow jams, or Latin psychedelica. This song, culled from the Luaka Bop series of Cuban Classics, was my first introduction to this great band, and this song remains one of my favorites - especially since the main chorus is "Codfish with bread". My Spanish is not good enough to understand what the hell the lyrics are about, but according to friends any food reference in Carribean music is almost certainly sexual slang.....
(Whoa, check out the Irakere TV session from the 60s... And a special present for you - this version of Bacalao con Pan by P18 )
Whoa, trippy 6/8.... Another random grab from the the Cuban bag.
Milton Nascimento – Tudo Que Você Podia Ser
Follow up the Cuban psychedelica with the Brazilian psychedlica, from the classic album that inspired the name of my college radio show.
I kinda ended up here randomly, mostly because I had been wanting to work in Rupa and the April Fishes - and Rupa and Lhasa's voics sound (to me) very similar.
As a conga player who moved from SF to Paris, I have to appreciate Rupa, a French woman living in SF and singing in Spanish. That's how the world works....
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