A Latin Jazz Primer
a guide to the places where bebop and clave make beautiful music
2007-10-04
By Eugene Holley, Jr.
For the first time in this country, Hispanics outnumber African-Americans. And, even though there may be dissension at the borders, Black and Tan Americans can find common ground in the hot and hybrid genre called Latin Jazz.
The music occupies an important parallel dimension in North America. It was forged in this hemisphere where Ibos, Congos, Angolans, Yorubas, Ashantis, and Fulani’s became Americans, Cubans, Dominicans, Brazilians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Colombians, and their part-African/Iberian slavers, thanks to 800 years of Moorish occupation, allowed them to play their drums. The result was a musical mixing (mestiajze) where Iberia, Africa, and the Americas came together, not through the Cross and Sword, but with the hands, hips, and hearts of the Black, Brown and Beige.
Cuba, that much-demonized island since 1959, provided the most powerful percussive blueprint; the clave, the five-beat rhythmic pattern that is the heartbeat of all Afro-Latin music. It sailed into New Orleans and gave that Crescent City the distinctive “Spanish Tinge” that Jelly Roll Morton said was central to the swing of jazz; it docked in Argentina as the habanera, and emerged as the tango – which re-entered the states as W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues.” Other countries heard the Cuban call and responded with their own sonic signatures like the Dominican meringue, samba from Brazil, and the Colombian cumbia.
But music’s modern birthplace was in New York City in the 1940’s, thanks to three visionaries: Dizzy Gillespie; the frog-cheeked, trumpeter with the up-tilted horn and co-creator of bebop; Mario Bauza, the Cuban-born clarinetist/trumpeter who played which Chick Webb and Cab Calloway, and the discoverer of Ella Fitzgerald; and Chano Pozo; the fiery Afro-Cuban percussionist, gangster and Santeria practitioner. Pozo and Gillespie couldn’t speak each other’s language, but the both spoke African and created a new cubop sound that’s been speaking ever since.
This list, not claiming to be exhaustive, is a primer that aurally illuminates the complexity and diversity of this ever-evolving musical continuum. So, with a new era unfolding, let this rice-and-beans flavored rhythm & blues spin its infinite variations on the African drum, and provide us with the syncopated soundtrack for our future Pan-American identities.
THE CLASSICS
Dizzy Gillespie, The Complete RCA/Victor Recordings 1937-1949, RCA
The original big band recordings of the first Latin jazz gems, “Manteca,” “Cubana Be, Cubana Bop,” and “Night in Tunisia” by the genre’s “Holy Trinity,” Gillespie, Bauza, and Pozo.
Machito and his Afro-Cubans, Kenya: Afro-Cuban Jazz, Roulette/Capitol 1957
The Gold Standard for Latin Big Bands, Frank “Machito” Grillo’s ensemble swung the hardest and longest, and this date, with the great Cannonball Adderley, displays his beautiful, bilingual bop.
Tito Puente, Top Percussion, RCA 1957
Ernesto “Tito” Puente was the first to play the timbales standing up, and this LP is the bible for jazz percussionists, featuring Mongo Santamaria, and Willie Bobo.
Bebo Valdes, Descarga Caliente, 1952-1956
Havana Pianist/Bandleader Bebo Valdes was the musical director of the mob-deep Tropicana nightclub in its pre-revolutionary heyday. But this sizzling recording yields the legendary track “Con Poco Coco,” the first recording of the descarga: Cuban-style jam session.
THE NEW RELEASES
Bobby Sanabria, Big Band Folktales, Jazz Heads Records
A veteran percussionist/drummer who played with giants like Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Barretto, Sanabria leads a cutting-edge large ensemble through an eclectic Pan-American percussion discussion, skillfully integrating the cross rhythms of the trap and hand drums.
Marlon Simon and Nagual Spirits, Jazz Heads Records
Venezuelan-Born/Philly based percussionist plays in the Art Blakey/Jazz Messenger Hard bop combo tradition, so it’s fitting that the title track, written by ex-Messenger Bobby Watson, is rendered with a new Afro anthem, along with zesty remake of the Louis Armstrong favorite “Manicero” (“The Peanut Vendor”).
Omar Sosa, Promise, Skip Records
A true world traveler, this Cuban-born, conservatory trained keyboardist/composer reunites the rhythms and dances of Muslim Africa and the Americas, and creates something old and new, foreign, and familiar. On this live recording from Germany featuring the incredible Miles Davis-influenced trumpeter Paolo Fresu, Sosa turns the keyboard into eighty-eight drums.
Eugene Holley, Jr. is an arts and culture writer based in Wilmington, Delaware. His pieces have appeared in Amazon.com, Philadelphia Weekly, Vibe, and the Village Voice. He covers jazz for Ebonyjet.com. Reach him at eholley@hotmail.com
Omar Sosa photo: Fernanda Dávalos/Melodia.com