bongohead

Rumba Psicodélica Sound System plays at Brick + Mortar Afterparty

2011-10-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

Come dance and celebrate at the Brick + Mortar Afterparty!! Andujar, Bongohead, and Studebaker Hawk will be playing funky dance music on their newly revamped system - all vinyl - FREE - for your enjoyment - at the People's Pint in Greenfield. It's a fitting end to a wonderful cultural event, courtesy of ConjunctionArts, the businesses of Greenfield, and curator Christoph Cox. Come to Greenfield both days! Please donate at
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1990434219/brick-mortar-international-video-art-festival?ref=live

Brick + Mortar International Video Art Festival
Friday October 14, 2011, 5:00-10:00 pm
Saturday October 15, 2011, 1:00-8:00 pm

Locations throughout downtown Greenfield, MA
Free and open to the public

http://greenfieldvideofest.org

email: info@greenfieldvideofest.org
413-773-5463

Curated by Christoph Cox

Participating Artists:
Manon De Boer (NL), Seth Cluett (US), Tony Cokes (US), Luke Fowler (UK), Jesse Jones (IE), Paul Lindale (UK/US), Kara Lynch (US), Mirko Martin (DE), The Otolith Group (UK), Jenny Perlin (US), Mathias Poledna (AT), Raha Raissnia & Charles Curtis (IR/US), Steve Roden (US), Billy Roisz (AT), Julian Rosefeldt (DE), Simpson/Meade (US), Miki Tajima (US), Su-Mei Tse (LU), and Daniel Warner (US).

The 3rd annual Brick + Mortar International Video Festival presents work by a selection of contemporary artists who focus on sound, music, and relationships of dissonance and consonance between the aural and the visual. Since the 1990s, sound has become a central concern in contemporary art, with many leading video artists and filmmakers actively exploring the sonic potential of audio-visual media. The 2011 edition of Brick + Mortar showcases some of the most interesting and engaging of these explorations from the past decade by a group of prominent artists from nine countries.
Early avant-garde filmmakers worried that the advent of sound would reduce cinema to an illusionistic portrayal of the world, with sound a subordinate prop for the visual image. These worries proved to be well justified. Present-day avant-gardists have heeded those early warnings, giving sound an equal place and exploring the productive difference between the auditory and visual registers of video and film. Luke Fowler and Raha Raissnia both collaborate with sound artists to develop allied strategies for capturing light and sound. Refusing image altogether, Mirko Martin's video operates solely through sound and text. Conversely, Steve Roden’s video is silent but functions as a kind of visual and musical score. Mathias Poledna, Manon de Boer, and Mika Tajima use the camera to capture and intervene in musical performance and recording. Other projects uncover the critical potential of music. 2010 Turner Prize nominee The Otolith Group explores the Afro-Futurist mythology of the Detroit electronic duo Drexciya, while Tony Cokes presents a video essay that examines the complex racial politics of House and Techno. Via these and other strategies, the projects presented at this year’s Brick + Mortar festival amplify the “audio” aspect of this “video” festival.
The Brick + Mortar festival takes place in Greenfield, an historic mill town in western Massachusetts. Transforming the city’s downtown into a temporary arts district, the festival presents video projections and installations within a variety of extraordinary architectural sites that are in various stages of renovation. Presented by ConjunctionArts in partnership with local businesses, the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, the Greenfield Business Association, Greenfield Community College, and Five Colleges Inc., the festival is free and open to the public.

101 Things To Do In Bongolia

2011-06-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

A Nice Little Trip: 101 Things To Do In Bongolia (review)

There is something super satisfying for the collector in me when a label like Electric Cowbell, which is known for its awesome 7” 45 RPM releases, puts out a CD collection of all its 45s plus bonus cuts and remixes and whatnot. So when Jimmy Thompson asked me to write a little something about it, I was very happy to do so. In this day and age when CDs seem to by dying out, I still like having them as backup for my vinyl and digital versions. Maybe that’s an anathema to pure vinyl freaks or people who can only deal with digital downloads, so call me old fashioned.

While its one thing to have a stack of 45s from Electric Cowbell, its really quite another thing to have them all housed in this handy little storage device with some nice artwork to boot. Having attended a label showcase for these guys a few months ago in NYC, I can say I am pretty familiar with the bands in a live context – indeed I consider myself friends with several of the acts, and an acquaintance of some of the others. And yet though I was familiar with these bands and their music, having it all here at my fingertips is a real bonus. It helps me understand what the label is all about – stretching boundaries, taking the listener on a trip to “Bongolia” as it were. What’s great about this little album is if you put it on and hear it in one sitting, there is a flow and a kind of cohesion on the CD that you might not get if you just had a couple of 45s on the turn tables. A compilation is a curatorial collection, so you are hearing someone’s sequencing and selective process at work, and at least for me, that aspect of 101 Things To Do In Bongolia is an added value for sure. While not all of the tracks may not be to my personal taste, what I do find tasty is the variety of sounds and textures, proving what I knew all along: that Electric Cowbell is more like “Eclectic” Cowbell! While you can just go to the Electric Cowbell web site and check out band bios and song samples, I am going to run it down track by track as I see it, just for shits & giggles:

Human Happiness - Superhuman Happiness
Great funk track with some Easter European brass, which leads nicely into…

Adderech Arada - Debo Band
…sinuous Ethiopian funk with some authentic vocals and instrumentation; a great band to watch in the coming year…

Let My People Bugalú (Clay Holley and Jeff Dynamite Remix) - Spanglish Fly
…and my frinds in Spanglish Fly sure know how to rock another sort of funk, from 60s Spanish Harlem this time! A lot of fun, a great party jam (watch the sudden ending though)…

Dina’s Mambo - Bio Ritmo
…now the more 70s salsa/funk fusion kind of like post-Castro Cuban, named for a band member's cat - sly and sexy, purring feline moves…

GMYL - Superhuman Happiness
…some electro-New Wave style weirdness with God references…

I Gettupa - Amazing Ghost
…odd electro funk pop – sort of if Prince took some downers and covered Ween…

Silbando (GRC For NYC Trust) - Los Ribereños
…amazing version of the old Colombian cumbia classic, remixed tastefully; good for outdoor summer BBQ beach parties, ever if it’s only a tar beach you are rockin’…

Hounds - Superhuman Happiness
…interesting funk with some brass and samples – existential party music…

Majadero (That Little Chimps Remix) - Bio Ritmo
…a total departure into electro dub funk for Bio Ritmo & I love it – remixed by a couple of Japanese Surrealists…

Tiny Raindropz - Amazing Ghost
…OK I am trying to like this but I am not really feeling the vocals and ridiculous lyrics – perhaps people who like funky synth-pop will go for it….

Cosmic Attidude - Talibam!
…I laughed when I heard this zonked-out white-boy freak funk…

Adderech Arada (Kiddid Remix) - Debo Band + Kiddid
…sinister remix of track 2 – not feelin’ it too much but some beat hedz might go for it…

La Muralla - Bio Ritmo
…beautiful progressive salsa that sounds real and has meaningful lyrics…

String Theory (GRC Vocal Remix) - Superhuman Happiness Vs. Sahr Ngaujah
…enjoyable mashup of up-tempo tribal funk and house, groovy brass stabs, dub effects, New Wave guitar, and soulful vocals…

A Troll’s Soiree (Brooklyn Chimp Remix) - CSC Funk Band
…I absolutely LOVE this instrumental track – very beautiful, trippy tribal tech – thumb piano loop, afrobeat percussion, deep house bass, jazz brass, and electro dub flourishes (makes me think of the great band Nomo) – I got first dibs on this baby for my movie soundtrack, y’all…

Freddie’s Tea (Diff Juz DUB) - Greg Ginn and The Taylor Texas Corrugators vs ENE
…and then we swerve left into psych/prog rock territory with another (but completely differently flavored) dope instrumental, courtesy of Black Flag genius Gregg Ginn; really out there but thoroughly enjoyable and brings this collection into indie rock territory, which is kind of a fun 4/4 detour after all the Afro and Latin inspired grooves......

Gravity - Superhuman Happiness Vs. Sahr Ngaujah
…and we finish up our trip to Bongolia with a really cool trippy disco dub jam from Superhuman Happiness and Sahr Ngaujah, which goes from future to ancient and back again. I found myself enjoying this one in spite of myself and that’s just what I find so satisfying about the whole Electric Cowbell experience – it’s all in the labels’ name in fact – it’s got the modern machine element (electric) and the ancient human tribal aspect (cowbell). It’s a mind-stretching course in one label’s quest for self-sufficiency and expression.

So, at the end of my little trip, all I can say is bravo to all the bands, artists, crew, etc. involved with Electric Cowbell - definitely a label to watch in the future!

Sahr vs Superhuman Happiness

Debo Band

Bio Ritmo

RUMBA PSICODELICA SATURDAY JUNE 25

2011-06-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sweet Exorcist presents Rumba Psicodélica
with DJs Andujar, Studebaker Hawk & Bongohead
visual stimuals by Bell & Howl

Saturday June 25th, People's Pint
10pm, no cover charge.

Spinning Latin, African, tropical and funk...all on vinyl
cumbia, flamenco funk, gypsy rock, African funk & boogie, amazonian bump, afrobeat, Caribbean, bugalú, reggae, and more.

RUMBA PSICODELICA SATURDAY JUNE 25

2011-06-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

ARMED WITH TURNTABLE
AND CONSIDERED VERY
DANGEROUS AND BAAAD

DJ ANDUJAR was last seen in Greenfield, MA, he may
be accompanied by one STUDEBAKER HAWK, occupation,
“DJ” and “sound system man”, also a very dangerous
man armed with needle, mixer, and sub-woofer; may
also be assisted in crime by BONGOHEAD, very dangerous
with obscure Latin records of Mass Destruction.

CRIMINAL RECORD

These men are wanted by the dancing public for throwing
insane parties. They are responsible for nights such as
FUNK ROCK & RUMBA PSICODELICA. They are also the
perpetrators of such radio programs as CLANDESTINO,
FEEL FLOWS, & MACHO CITY. These shows have been
known to subvert the youth and cause the old to shake
their nyash.

CAUTION

DJs ANDUJAR, STUDEBAKER HAWK, and BONGOHEAD have
been known to knock people out with little provocation
and on very short notice, using only a sound system and
vinyl records.

ADVISORY: These men are highly dangerous in a crowd and
are capable of inciting riot and mayhem. So do not attend
their gigs at places like THE PEOPLE’S PINT because you are
sure to wear a hole in your last pair of shoes. You will be
made to search incessently for their music (but you won’t find it any where else!).

If anyone knows the whereabouts of the SWEET EXORCIST
GANG, do not notify us. Go directly to where they are playing
and enjoy yourself.

— J. Edgar González
Director F.B.I.
Freaks Bureau of Investigation, Bronx, NY

Sweet Exorcist presents Rumba Psicodélica
with DJs Andujar, Studebaker Hawk & Bongohead
visual stimuals by Bell & Howl

Saturday June 25th, People's Pint
10pm, no cover charge.

Spinning Latin, African, tropical and funk...all on vinyl
cumbia, flamenco funk, gypsy rock, African funk & boogie, amazonian bump, afrobeat, Caribbean, bugalú, reggae, and more.

Funk Rock Vinyl Night, People's Pint, Greenfield MA

2011-05-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

Check it out - a free vinyl Funk Rock DJ event this Friday, May 13, starting at 10, People's Pint, Greenfield! Featuring DJ Andujar, Studabaker, and Bongohead!!

Rumba Psicodélica

2010-09-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

Come one, come all, to our Rumba Psicodélica!

Party In The Jungle - Ranil's music reviewed

2010-09-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

Ranil's Jungle Party

Ranil's music is the missing link between the Latin rock of Santana and the lost civilizations of the Amazon — on this expertly compiled album, you'll discover wild and graceful electric guitars, tropical Afro-rhythms, haunting indigenous melodies, exotic Spanish and Asian flavors, 60s psychedelic surf, and garage salsa, all from the semi-mythical, almost imposible to believe if you haven’t been there jungle city of Iquitos, Perú! Mike Piggot has dug up an obscure but very deserving artist here, and I am sure once you hear this for yourself, you’ll be saying – damn, how could this guy go unrecognized for so long?

From the first track, the great instrumental “Andalucía”, with its beguiling flamenco-enriched guitar that conjures up exotic lands, to the last cut “El Rondador” that sports a funky beat, Cuban melodies, and an envigoratingly raw sound, this record is a real gem all the way through. For me though, the best cut is one Ranil penned himself, “Denuncia A Tu Patrón”– a “message” song if you will (Talk Back To Your Boss) – that just happens to also have a massive, irresistible funk hook buried in it and some nice jazzy guitar (remix anybody?) – definitely the right track to get your jungle party started – people will be galloping to this one.

Ranil was a D.I.Y. guy – he saw the inequities happening in the established music business and decided he wasn’t going to let anyone exploit him – so he became not only a vocalist/musician, but also label owner, promoter, manager, and distributor, deciding to go “indie” himself right from the start – and his independent spirit shines through with grace and dignity. He’s won the hearts of his fellow citizens in Iquitos, and now with this record, he’s reaching a wider audience, so hopefully they’ll give him the love he deserves! I hear he’s breaking out of Peru and performing live again in Berlin – hopefully he’ll also travel some more and play in a city near you.

Mike Pigott, Victor Zela, and Tunchi of LimaFotoLibre have teamed up to make this Masstropicas first full length release (limited to 1000 copies), with beautiful graphics and informative liner notes (in Spanish on the LP, I have decided to translate them for my blog visitors). Plus, in the insert sheet, there’s a fun “album gallery” that just makes my mouth water – makes me hope there’s got to be more Ranil reissues in the future. In the mean time, I have to salute Mike P’s own indie spirit in sticking to his guns on this – only vinyl, and only 1000 pressed. Mike’s also fierce about making sure the money gets to the artists – he only releases stuff that’s fully and legally licensed – so you can rest assured that Ranil’s getting his due in every way with this release. Mike not only wants us to enjoy this music, he wants to help these musicians who often were exploited in the past. Do your part and order the record today – Light In The Attic are distributing it, you can check it out there and several sites have samples to listen to if you are interested.
—Pablo "DJ Bongohead" Yglesias

Translated liner notes from the LP:
Peru is a single country with many faces. Geographically, there is a very marked division between the deserts of the coast, the high mountains of the sierra, and the deep jungle; all of which influenced the country so that a wealth in variety of cultural manifestations were formed, obviously including music. Natural contact with their neighbors in Colombia led Peruvian musicians to experiment with cumbia in the 1960s, mixing it with sounds originating from rock and folk influences in particular from each corner of Peru. From that period hence, Peruvian cumbia would seek its own style and would develop in different zones. In the jungle, it is fitting to emphasize as important the musical areas San Martin and Pucallpa. From the alter come – just to mention a few - Los Blackbirds, Los Trionix, The Dexters, Siglo XX, Sonido 2000; while in Pucallpa there were Juaneco y su combo, Los Royals, Lod Tierra Roja, Los Claveles, etc.

But then, during this early development in the domestic cumbia music scene, would come a turn for the largest city in the Peruvian jungla to shine: Iquitos, which in those years had a great boom in its economy from petroleum drilling exploitation, and was enriched culturally by the influences of nearby Brazilian music. Among the largest groups that took their first steps in Iquitos are Los Rogers and Los Yahuas; a little later a legion of excellent bands would arrive on the scene: Los Zheros, Los Wemblers, Los Silvers, Los Diferentes Kennedys, and Ranil, protagonist of this anthology.
Ranil (born Raúl Llerena Vázquez), a well-known celebrity in his native land, had his first musical experience as the vocalist of Los Paisanos, a group that played “criollo” music. Ever since then he has tried to understand the music business, and his innovative spirit caused him to undertake his own projects as musician, businessman, and promoter.

During the second half of the 70s Ranil decided to form his own tropical group and gathered the best musicians in Iquitos. Among the most emblematic guitarists to pass through the group was Lamber Zumba – who came from the group Los Silvers originally – and Betto Gaviria – who later would pass through the rock group Pax. Ranil formed his own called record label Llerena and recorded his albums in the famed studios of the great MAG record company in Lima. During this period, Ranil managed to record more than a dozen long plays and various 45 RPM singles.
After the disintegration of the group, Ranil followed a path in journalism and politics, trying at present to be elected as the mayor of his district (Belén, Iquitos). Our best wishes for him.
—Victor Zela, La Cumbia De Mis Viejos (translated by Pablo E. Yglesias)

Live Afrobeat with Zozo & Shokazoba

2010-07-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

Hey hey y'all - be sure to come on down to Northampton's Elevens Bar this Saturday July 24th and check out 2 great live afrobeat/afrofunk orchestras!! Zozo Afrobeat are my friends from NYC (check 'em out on Country of Guns, the bonus CD to the compilation Andujar & I put together for Rough Guide). Speaking of which, I'll be selling those very same CDs, plus Andujar will be DJ-ing (with live percussion) and local photographer and video artist Andrew Greto of Bell & Howl will be providing the visuals with his wild projection show!!

More info at http://peaceandrhythm.blogspot.com/ andwww.facebook.com/event.php?eid=116279111746371&index=1

The Rough Guide To Afrobeat Revolution compiled by DJ Andujar (b. rule) and myself

Composer, musician, vocalist Kaleta, leader of Zozo Afrobeat (played with Fela, Femi, and King Sunny Ade)

Zozo Afrobeat

Shokazoba

Grupo Fantasma Live July 13 7 PM

2010-07-11T18:53:00.000-07:00

Grupo Fantasma
& DJ Bongohead of Latin Night
Iron Horse Music Hall
July 13 • 7 pm
Tickets: adv $12.50 door $15

Grupo Fantasma is the funkiest, finest & hardest working Latin band to come out of the US since Ozomatli. Their trademark sound is guided by the deeply rooted traditions of cumbia, salsa, funk, & psychedelia. This masterful 11-piece Austin-based ensemble has forged a fresh new standard of excellence in Latin music. This show will celebrate the release of their new album which features liner notes by Iron Horse Latin Night DJ Bongohead! Bongohead will be spinning old school salsa, merengue, cumbia, and Latin funk to open for the band. stay around after for Latin Night, 10 PM - 2 AM (free) - celebrating our 10th Anniversary!
PLEASE HELP SUPPORT LIVE LATIN MUSIC!

Grupo Fantasma's José Galeano, Man of Many Talents

2010-07-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

Interview with José Galeano by Pablo E. Yglesias
Photos © 2010 by Mark Mantegna

© 2010 Bongohead Productions – Text and images used by permission.

A few months ago I got in touch with José Galeano - timbalero, composer, vocalist - and we chatted a bit about the new Fantasma album and got into a bit of history and philosophy. If you are interested in this great band, you will most definitely want to find out about Mr. Galeano. Having contributed writing credits to four tracks on El Existential, as well as several memorable cuts on albums past, and playing percussion and singing on many more, it's pretty clear that José is an integral member of the band and contributes to it's sound in a meaningful way. On stage, José is often the guy you see front and center in the 'Tito Rodríguez role' as it were - being both a timbalero and vocalist - though it's his uncle, José "Chepito" Areas - famed member of the original Santana band - whose spirit seems to hold sway when things get cooking and Galeano lets fly with some mad drumming. But without further ado, let's have José share a little about himself, his roots, and his creative process.

Where did you grow up, and how did that influence you as far as music is concerned?

I was born in the capitol city of Managua, Nicaragua but lived in León, one hour and a half north of there. Growing up, I was lucky to hear and be exposed to all kinds of music. Mainly Afro-Caribbean sounds, but also lots of American music, Rock ‘n’ Roll, R&B, Blues, Big Band, Pop, and the rest of Latin America's different styles, from Folkloric to Brazilian. The mixture of all these types of music made a giant impression on me because now I apply the different ideas from all those influences, and I try to draw from all of them to create a special hybrid kind of music. I think I'm doing that with Fantasma.

Yes, I think you are, and very successfully José. So do you like rock influences in tropical music then?

I think that today as musicians/composers, we have to reach out to anything that is going to make our music hip and appealing to our audience, and since I do like Rock ‘n’ Roll, I’ve applied that element to my music with Fantasma. It certainly works. You'll hear that element in some of the songs from our past albums as well as some of the compositions on our brand new album.

How did you meet the members of Fantasma and how did you get involved with them?

I was introduced to Grupo by an ex-member of the band. At that time I knew him from playing around town with different salsa bands and Fantasma needed a conga player. He invited to play with them, and I did check it out, and I thought I could bring my ideas to the band. I was lucky that the everyone was receptive to them and the rest, as they say, is history.

What are your biggest influences, musically speaking?

My biggest musical influences have been bands like: Santana, Led Zeppelin, Earth, Wind and Fire, plus Fania Records and their individual stars, as well as lots of R&B artists, and anything that has been well written, really.

What is your favorite instrument?

I’m a percussionist, and that means I’ve embarked on playing lots of different instruments in my career that I enjoy. But I would have to say my favorite one would be the timbales. My uncle, José “Chepito” Areas, percussionist for Santana [in the early years], I would say, is responsible for my choice.

(L to R) Carlos Santana, Jose "Chepito" Areas, and Michael Carabello at Woodstock

Yes, you mentioned he gave you lessons in addition to inspiration; you share a first name as well as an instrument in common with Chepito! He is an amazing musician, and I'm told that like Tito Puente, he is a great arranger and was responsible for a lot of those early Santana arrangements. I can see him there on the back of the first Santana album, playing trumpet and wearing a hair net! On the second album he contributed "Se Acabó" and the tune "El Nicoya' which means "The Nicaraguan" - a referenece to your home country. The main difference between you and him perhaps is that Chepito is not known as a vocalist, though he did some singing on his solo album from back in the day (reissue that one please, Colombia Records!). And speaking of vocals, talk about how you share the mic with Kino - do you do backing vocals (called "coros" in Spanish) for each other only? Or do you share leads on any songs? Who decides which vocalist will sing lead on a song?

We do a lot of background vocals for one another and we do split the lead singing, although I think Kino is singing more lead vocals now, especially in the new album, after all, he is the singer/percussion player. I'm the timbalero and percussionist-singer, so if I bring a tune to the band, I usually sing it, but sometimes if I think a song is more appropriate for Kino's voice, then he sings it. For the most part, he's the lead vocalist.

I see you share credits for the lyrics in "Montañozo" so you must collaborate some. How do you work on the vocals when you record - do you make it up on the spot in the studio or do you practice it and work it out with the musicians first?

It goes both ways, sometimes lyrics are done beforehand and sometimes lyrics are done on the spot. A lot of times the music is created first, then we go home and think about the topic and we write lyrics accordingly.

Do you write music or lyrics?

I do both. When I bring a song to the band, I have everything done, lyrics and music. I like to have all of it finished. It's a challenge for me and I've been doing it for a while now.

Yes I see that from the credits on the new album. So what are your themes?

My themes revolve around two things: Women and Food (usually but not always).

Do you consider yourself political or socially committed?

I would say I'm on the social side of my lyrics, yes. Once in a while I'll write something semi-political. Honestly, politics is not my thing (or theme). There are plenty of writers doing that in the world. Maybe, as I get older, I might venture into that arena.

Is romance (emotions, relationships, sex, obsessions, love) a big part of your lyrical theme?

Some of my lyrics are romantically “charged”. Like I said, I've been known to write about women I like or love. It's inevitable....

Where does your inspiration come from?

I believe my inspiration comes from all of the experiences and different styles of music that I've been exposed to in the past: my family, my relationships, all of the amazing musicians that have made an impact in my life. I'm so thankful for all of it. Thank you, God!

Do you think the new album is dark? Please explain...

I would not necessarily call it “dark”. If you listened to the lyrics, a lot of it is “positive, deep, personally meaningful, encouraging” themes. For me, it's a “bright” album/CD.

What was it like to work on the album in a rented house?

It was a great idea to record in a “studio/house”. It gave us the opportunity to be more creative individually and as a band. We did not have to worry about time too much. We also did not depend on “outside” help, we did it all ourselves.

What does your family think of Fantasma?

My Family is very supportive and happy for me. They think it is wonderful that I'm doing what I love doing. They enjoy the “Fantasma sound”....

Is music an obsession, or is it just for fun?

I believe that because is so personal for me, I have an obsession w/my music. I try to better myself and the music I create, constantly. What can you do as an artist to make an improved product? That's my challenge... And If you do that, the music should be super fun to play.

Well it's super fun to listen to, and the fans thank you for your contributions, José. We'll be looking forward to seeing you and the rest of the guys soon in concert!

Thanks, Pablo!

The Kinetic "Kino" Esparza of Grupo Fantasma

2010-07-02T05:18:00.000-07:00

Interview with Rodolfo “Kino” Esparza
by Pablo E. Yglesias
Photos © 2010 by Mark Mantegna

© 2010 Bongohead Productions – Text and images used by permission.

I recently caught up with "Kino" Esparza of Grupo Fantasma while I was researching for my liner notes to their new album El Existential that was about to be released on Nat Geo (it's out now!). Señor Kino is a very talented musician, vocalist, and composer. He's also fun to talk to and full of humor and shares some interesting anecdotes. Read on if you are curious about what makes him tick, where he's coming from and where he's going. There's some nice shots by Mark Mantegna from a couple of years ago when they played the Iron Horse. ¡Vaya!
- Pablo Yglesias aka DJ Bongohead

"Here you go bro. Feel free to tweak it a little if you have to. Just don’t let me sound bad. Ha, ha. Have a good one."
- Kino

Where did you grow up, and how did that influence you as far as music is concerned?

I was born and raised in Eagle Pass TX. a small town close to the border of Mexico. I would say the biggest influence was the Hispanic culture that surrounded me.

Do you like rock influences in tropical music?

Yes, it's different and gives it a unique "raw" and heavy flavor.

How did you meet the members of Fantasma and how did you get involved with them?

Back in the day when I was at Texas State University, I was involved in the salsa band ensemble, Salsa Del Rio. In that band was also the Fantasma conguero, Sweet Lou (Matthew "Sweet Lou" Homes) and ex-Fantasma alto sax player, Gene Centeno. I became really good friends with these guys. Anyway, on Dec 28, 2005, around 3 P.M. I was having lunch with my family at home, in Eagle Pass Texas, when I received a call from José Galeano (vocalist/timbales player) asking me if I was interested in auditioning for a vocal spot in Fantasma. With no hesitation, I said, "Hell yeah!!". That same week I drove to Austin Texas, went to one of their rehearsals, did my thing, and the rest is history. I think because I was good buddies with Gene and Lou, and knew I could sing, they mentioned my name. Thanks Gene and Lou!

What is your biggest influence, musically?

The number one influence would be my grandpa, Rodolfo "Kino" Esparza.He is the reason I wanted to be involved in music as a kid. I always enjoyed watching him perform and loved the stories he would tell me about his music life. I just want to be like him. He is my role model. That's why I go by Kino....

What is your favorite instrument?

That would be the trumpet. For four reasons.

1) That's the instrument I've been playing for 12 years. Someday I'll bust it out in one of the Fantasma performances
2) its rich sound
3) the clarity of tone
4) I love the fact that the sound cuts through anything when you rip some high ass notes.
I feel like playing trumpet now, please excuse me....

Talk about how you share the vocals with José - do you do backing vocals for each other only? Or do you share leads on any songs? Who decides which vocalist will sing lead on a song?

We used to do our own backups for a while, but recently a few guys like Adrian, Gilbert, and Speedy have stepped up and been helping out on those. This is awesome 'cause now the coros have more body to them, and there are more voices/harmonies that we can play with. I don't know why it took them so long to do this, but they are doing it now and that's all that matters...maybe they were scared? Hmmm. As far as deciding who sings lead on what, it's all on the individual who wrote the piece. He decides.

How do you work on the vocals when you record - do you make it up on the spot in the studio or do you practice it and work it out with the musicians first?

It depends. If it's music we've been playing for a while, that stuff gets recorded quickly. The only thing we change for those tunes will be who sings backups and what voice/harmony that individual will have. For the music that has never been performed, which in this album's case was like 80% of it, we, the vocalists would take the rough tracks home and practice them for a couple of days. This allowed us to get comfortable with the tune and gave us time to change the lyrics and/or melody a bit, if needed, before recording it. We've had a few "make it up on the spot" moments too.

Do you write music or lyrics?

Yes, I do both.

What are your themes?

If it's my song, I like to write any theme based on experiences I've had in my life in a form of a story whether its love, hatred, difficult moments, good times, life changing moments, etc. If there is a song someone else wrote and they need help with lyrics, they usually come to me with a theme in mind. Their themes suck most of the time...I'm just kidding, they're cool.

Is romance (emotions, relationships, sex, obsessions, love) a big part of your lyrical theme?

Not as much as I want it to be but it's there. It's hard for me to write anything with that theme in mind without making it into some type of slow ballad. I love singing romantic ballads and would be really lucky if I could sing one of those in this band someday. Oh wait, I do, “Juan Tenorio”. Although that one is not romantic. It's very dark, BUT I love that it's a slow piece.

So where does your inspiration come from then?

When it comes to writing music, I get inspired by the music I listen to, or even ideas shared by the Fantasma guys. As for lyrics, anything I've experienced, or someone I know has experienced, and everything around me: friends, wife, family, places I visit, and even movies I watch, believe it or not.

Do you think the new album is dark? Explain.

It is definitely the darkest one we've recorded that's for sure. Not all of the songs are dark, but the few that we have are based on personal experiences or just a story that came to mind. Examples :someone going through some type of emotional depression, life crisis, on the run from the law, and even killing somebody. Let me make the killing story, “Juan Tenorio”, clear. That one is definitely a story my uncle came up with. I don't know how he came up with that one. My guess would be he had finished watching some type of movie or soap opera.

What was it like to work on the album in a rented house?

It was fun and a great learning experience. The vibe was pretty laid back and we
had so much time to brainstorm, collaborate, and experiment with different styles. I think that house became our 2nd home during those 3 months. Most of us were always there even when we didn't have to be. I miss that house already.

What does your family think of Fantasma?

With the exception of my mom, they all love it. Not saying my mom necessarily hates what I do for a living but you know how moms are, they just want what's best for you...In my case, she prefers for me to go back to school,get a degree in music, and teach. Every time we touch the subject I always end up telling her. "Look mom, school will always be there. Fantasma on the other hand, won't. I'm sticking with Fantasma for as long as it goes."
*sigh* I love my mom.

Is music an obsession, or is it just for fun?

Obsession. There are so many things around it that you just can't get enough of. Such as writing music, performing, traveling around the world, the fun you have on stage, the energy you feed off from the crowd and vice-versa. I can go on forever here, there is just so much.

Thanks, Kino. See you in a couple of weeks!

Great Event in NYC this month!

2009-11-03T09:42:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween from the Zombie Hippie!

2009-11-02T11:30:00.001-08:00

Afrobeat Revolution Is Here!

2009-10-13T03:53:00.000-07:00

A bit more than a Rough Guide, if you ask us -- actually a great little set that capable shows the range of Afrobeat and and funk in a new generation - Dusty Groove

DJ Andujar and I put our hearts and souls into this one, folks. With a lot of help from my friend DJ Andujar, a man of immense musical knowledge and a willingness to share, I worked on this for over a year, and it shows; and of course we couldn't have done it without all the great bands, musicians, vocalists, and visual artists involved - plus, we couldn't have put together such an awesome package if World Music Network and Phil, Brad, and the rest of their crew hadn't believed in us and had the vision to put out two double albums of afrobeat! In fact, it was arguably the audacious idea to make a double CD of contemporary afrobeat for a label that only ever did single CD compilations that inspired Phil, the head of the label, to make it a two part series, and start his new policy of including a bonus disc from one featured artist, a unique 2 for 1 approach that has everybody talking about how cool the new packaging and marketing of Rough Guides is today! It's a real value, and quite popular with the customers; one you don't see every day and a welcome value in this economic climate. The second bonus disc concept continued with my Rough Guide to Gypsy Music and Merengue, as well as many other new R.G. titles worth checking out.

Every one of the artists on Afrobeat Revolution, including the Fela cover artist Lemi, thought this was a great project and wanted to be a part of it. There are other afrobeat and afrofunk comps out there, and some of the early ones served as my inspiration, to be sure. But there is nothing like Afrobeat Revolution! From the songs to the packaging, we are really proud of this (can't you tell?).

I was glad that graphic magician Lemi was cool enough to let me mess about with his art and assemble the covers for the CDs - thank you Lemi, it was a real thrill to work with you, you are a genius and you carry Fela's vision in your heart and hand. I am only sorry we couldn't fit more bands on here, but as it is, there are so many hours of afrobeat to enjoy on here, you will dance till you drop, and then you will start to think, as you lie there panting! This one is the next step after Afrobeat Revival - it takes you beyond into new territory, where the confines of what Tony Allen and Fela Kuti and their crew from the Kalakuta Republic initially set up, are burst wide open and take you beyond.

The bonus compact disc by Kaleta & his band, Zozo Afrobeat, is called "Country of Guns", previously only available on vinyl LP as an import from Germany, and it is incredible - Kaleta is a VERY MULTI-TALENTED soul, and it has been great getting to know him and his fascinating history. He played with everyone from King Sunny Ade to Fela! Check him out on the web or better yet, catch him live. Andujar & I wrote the notes and you get the full story so pick this up and read about Kaleta's amazing journey from Benin to Lagos to New York, plus the stories of all the other bands too. Brothers and sisters, let us be your guide to the funkiest music from the Motherland and the Great Diaspora. Like Fela said, music is the weapon, a weapon for peace, love, and overstanding!
- DJ Bongohead

We welcome a new CD compilation, "Afrobeat Revolution", which will hit the streets worldwide on Tuesday, October 13th. London-based world music specialists Rough Guides (a subsidiary of World Music Network) will release it. This is the follow-up to "Afrobeat Revival", released earlier this year. Compiled by DJs Bongohead and Andujar, both located in Western Massachusetts, USA, these CDs survey the contemporary Afrobeat scene, including several of the Revival groups and Afrika 70 offshoots, as well as the artists pushing the attitude in new directions. All of this under the stylistic and spiritual influence of the Afrobeat creators, the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and Master Drummer Tony Allen (who is featured on four tracks on these discs).

"Afrobeat Revival", released in the Spring on the Rough Guides imprint, documented the new wave of international Afrobeat, including former Fela associates Tony Allen, Dele Sosimi and Akoya's Kaleta, along with Fela's youngest son, Seun Kuti. In tribute to Fela, several other groups sprouted around the world. The likes of Antibalas, Chicago Afrobeat Project, Femm Nameless, Boston's Superpowers and Mr Something Something (featuring Ikwunga) each contribute a song. Another of these contemporary groups, Kokolo, contribute an entire bonus album! This double CD set has received positive reviews in several publications, such as Wire and Songlines.

"Without Tony Allen there would be no Afrobeat"-that was Fela Kuti's own view of the dance groove he gave to the world. Allen's superbly subtle funk provided the music's vital heartbeat, and a track by the great drummer opens this exploration of Fela's legacy. There are other Lagos connections via Fela's youngest son Seun Kuti, and London based Dele Sosimi, formerly of Fela's Egypt 80. But Afrobeat is in the ascendent in North America, and groups from Boston, Toronto, Chicago, and New York bring their own urban accents to this hypnotic, yet confrontational style. New slants rather than radical departures, but some, such as the Latino inflections of Brooklyn's horn-driven Antibalas, are really persuasive. And Afrobeat's political edgeis kept razor sharp by the clumsily named yet impressive Canadian sextet Mr Something Something And Ikwunga The Afrobeat Poet.

The above review by Julian Cowley, appeared in Wire

"Afrobeat Revolution" reports on the new Afrobeat soldiers and the multitude of directions the sound has developed. This one has artists from all over: Canada's Souljazz Orchestra and Afrodizz, North Carolina's Afromotive, Albino! from the west coast, as well as Fanga, Ruth Tafebe, house music producer Dennis Ferrer, Nigerian percussion master Lekan Babalola (remixed here by Mark de Clive-Lowe), free jazzer Ted Sirota and Afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen. Kaleta & Zozo Afrobeat offer us a bonus album, their crucial "Country of Guns".

Both of these discs are compiled by the Andujar & Bongohead team, with collaborative notes. The cover art on both CDs feature the work of Ghariokwu Lemi (former Fela cover artist). These CDs are available worldwide through such outlets as Amazon, Dusty Groove, Target, Barnes & Noble, Newbury Comics, and more. Ask your local outlet to enlighten the masses by carrying these compilations. You may also order these and other Rough Guides titles through World Music Network.

The groups on these albums deliver the Afrobeat rebel sound and message to us through this music of now. Consider the gifts and accept the knowledge.

Thanks. - DJ Andujar

Here are some images to get our juices flowing - some of the musicians in the two compilations, and some cover art by Lemi. Enjoy!

Fela Kuti

Tony Allen

Seun Kuti

Kaleta

Lekan Babalola

Antibalas (shout outs to Martin, Bosco, Sugarman, & Chico Mann!)

Ted Sirota

Ray Lugo & Kokolo

Ray and Kokolo

Kokolo again (can't help it, Ray's an old friend!)

Chicago Afrobeat Project's drummer, Marshall Greenhouse

Ikwunga, The Afrobeat Poet

Mr. Something Something

Chicago Afrobeat Project

Dennis Ferrer

Toli Femm Nameless

Souljazz Orchestra

Superpowers

Afrodizz

Albino!

Fanga

Ruth Tafebe

Akoya

Dele Sosimi

"Kakadu" - an inspirational bit of Lemi art that got me wanting to work with him - thanks for sending me this man. Sorry it's so small and thin.

Lemi working on a painting (see my earlier entry on him).

Felaosophy, the source painting by Lemi I used for the Afrobeat Revoultion CD cover.

Lemi's depiction of a typical day in Lagos, Nigeria.

This is one of Lemi's portraits of a Fela fan! Yow!

The final cover art I put together for Afrobeat Revolution!

Ocote Soul Sounds - FREE CONCERT

2009-10-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

Ocote Soul Sounds - FREE CONCERT at the Music and Dance Building, Hampshire College, Monday, October 26th, 2009.

Please pass this e-flier along to friends, neighbors, and acquaintances - it is going to be a great FREE concert, with wild video projections by Bell & Howl, and DJs Bongohead & Andujar spinning dance mania sounds from the Diaspora and the motherland - Afro-Latin-Psych-Soul - from their famed "Rumba Psycodelica" night at the Elevens club in Northampton. Doors open at 7:30. All ages, open to the public - I am pretty sure kids can come, but certainly, if you know any 5 College Students, tell them to come, PLEASE! Anybody interested in new Latino music, this is the opportunity you've been waiting for. The Music & Dance Building at Hampshire is easy to get to (enter at Eric Carle Museum) and parking is near by. See campus map - building # 8. You can grab the map and the flier right from this page and send it on to your buddies.

Ocote Soul Sounds is half Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, half Grupo Fantasma - so as you can imagine, it's a unique and freaky concoction encompassing funk, Latin, dub, jam band, electronics, afrobeat, psych, rock - all rolled into one unique alternative Latin party that's good for the head and sweet for the feet, coming to you all the way from from Austin, Texas.

Fist Bumpin' with Timmy Young

2009-10-02T15:13:00.000-07:00

I always did the fist bump with Timmy when I saw him in the street or at a show, so I decided to make a T-shirt with this iconic image in his memory. To the good folks at Paradise Copies in Northampton, thank you for the special fist bumpin' discount! We all remember him fondly. And thanks to the Elevens for honoring him tonight. The photos below are from their web page. R.I.P. Timothy Young!

Timmy Young Dies

2009-10-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

Timothy Young, a kind man who lived for music, died on September 26, he was the the semi-deaf man who would go to every concert around here in Northampton. Ironic, because though deaf he loved live music shows with a passion. He was always supporting me, giving me the hi-5, shouting “BONGOHEAD” across the street, telling others about my DJ gigs or concerts, going to almost every Latin Night and concert I was involved with, every live show big or small, from rock to jazz, noise to salsa, even obscure stuff. He was a fixture here, always going somewhere around downtown, on a mission, working for the Iron Horse Entertainment Group, etc. He lived alone, kept to himself except if he saw you, it was always a warm "Bongohead!!" and a rundown of all the upcoming events and concerts, I know you know him if you are from the area and went to shows. He was a regular at all the venues since at least the mid-80s. I just spoke to my friend Officer Chico Jimenez, who I DJ Latin Nights with sometimes, and he said Timmy died alone in his condo, Al from the Horse had gone to check on him – last time we saw him was at the Calvin the night of Los Lobos and he was looking kind of sick...nobody in the apartment building had seen him for a few days. Chico told Al that if he was worried about Timmy, to go and check up on him. Al came back to the station and said he had found Timmy in his bed. The cops then went and verified that he was dead. Coroner’s report is not available but we suspect it was flu or some infection, maybe heart attack – who knows – his only relatives don’t live in town and he always was a loner. I talked with Jim Neil & he said Timmy graduated from Clark and that Timmy's sister and brother are in town. Not sure if there’s a funeral or memorial, but Bill Dwight tells me there is an obituary planned for the Gazette – Timmy's dad, who according to Bill was a Smith Prof, is long gone (Timmy would have been 60 this New Years) and his mom is deceased too. Anyway, I was wandering around downtown this morning, kind of lost, wondering how this had happened, unable to comprehend the really sad news, and sure enough I bumped into several people in the street who gave me what info they knew – it really stinks, and add to that what happened to Lori and her son and their downstairs neighbor, with the house burning down, all in all it’s a pretty bad Thursday...there is a tribute concert and benefit at the Elevens this Friday, see you all there.

Working With Quantic

2009-09-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

I have had the pleasure of knowing William "Quantic" Holland for a few years now and it has been an honor to work on two of his albums as graphic designer. He is so talented and prolific, you would think he would be a manic, frantic person, but in reality, the dude is mellow and patient, and great a juggling a million people and projects at once, internationally - a great guy to work with and someone who is always questing, always experimenting. I wanted to share some pictures with you of Quantic's latest tour, as well as some images from the last two albums in their developmental stages. If you have not heard "Tradition In Transition" and its predecessor "Tropidelico" - both on the Tru Thoughts label out of the UK - well, I highly recommend you get a hold of them right now! Sheer pleasure and genius rolled into one effortless mix of styles and genres - a safari for your soul (not to mention your booty). I have to say, the music is incredible, and you might want to get the vinyl LP version because (a) you get the CD tucked into the sleeve, and (b) you get to see the wonderful collage illustrations in a big satisfying format - they are works of art really - by Symon Warwick - and the intense photographs of B+ as well (Will also takes beautifully tattered snap shots as well). My role for the "Tropidelico" project was to come up with the overall album design as well as the lettering. On "Trad In Trans", my part was smaller (I didn't have much time and working long distance had its drawbacks) - though I put a lot of work into it initially on the overall design - but in the end, I felt my role was very satisfying and successful; I ended up coming up with the band's new "logo" (see the T-shirt and other places it has cropped up) and the title lettering for the cover. We went through a lot of brain-storming sessions, back and forth, up and down, emails and such like. It was decided that I would concentrate on the lettering, much to everybody's relief, I think. Down in Cali, Colombia, they came up with the overall layout design, which ended up being similar to my original graphic concept (i.e. black with white knockout sans serif font), so it all came full circle in the end which was nice - with the photos, music, and liner notes, as you see, it hangs together quite well, in what I think is Will's best project yet. So, when I heard from a friend that Quantic was actually going to be performing near me with his original South American studio band from the album, I jumped up and down, called my DJ partner in crime Andujar (b. rule), and we planned an impromptu trip down to NYC to help celebrate the Turntables On The Hudson Anniversary party!! It was a last minute affair, and I have to say, against the odds, we pulled it off with flying colors. Going to Governor's Island in New York to hear the band live, to dance the night away, and meet the fabulous players, singers and DJs, was an unforgettable experience. Once we were let back stage, we mingled with the crew and got a taste of what was to come later that night. Talking shop with the funkiest drummer alive, Mr. Malcolm Catto, was a real thrill (he was of course freshly back from record hunting on that other island, Manhattan), as was getting to meet my idol, the Peruvian pianist extra-ordinaire, Alfredito Linares. The other members of Quantic's Combo Bárbaro were equally open and willing to hang out - I especially enjoyed chilling with talented, warm, and kind bassist Fernando Silva, the spiritually deep and fun-loving percussionist Freddie Colorado, and the beautiful and sparkly singer Nidia Góngora, plus, Mr. B+ was in the house, which was great to link up with him after collaborating 3rd hand. Also talked about Latin album covers with Beto and Nappy G, which was fun. Once the DJs started cranking, there was no turning back, and then the band got busy, and it was a magical musical mystical tour through Panama City, San Juan, Lagos, Cali, Havana, and Detroit! The audience was feelin' it, I was transported, DJ Andujar had a huge Cheshire Cat grin on his mug, and we all got sweaty and were deep into the music as one for the night. This one drunken glady was really twirling and twirling, I was afraid she was going to fall over. There were a lot of Colombianos in the crowd, so you know they were getting off. When it was all over we were exhausted and happy. On the way back from Governor's Island, on the ferry at midnight, we had an impromptu cumbia jam session, singing funny raggedy-ass songs about drinking till dawn, and the regular passengers really got into the infectious mood. As usual, DJ Nickodemus, whose event this was, held everything together in his gracious, warm way - many talented DJs (Frankie Francis, Beto from the Soundway compilations, Paolo, Busqueto) spun great records, Nappy G of TTOTH and Groove Collective was on percussion, there was a tropical downpour, and Ellis Island (as seen through the neon palm tree of the artificial "beach" in front of the stage)appeared like this exotic island mirage in the after shower sunset, beckoning in the Tropidelico haze. A night of pure magic to remember! Below are some photos we took with Fernando Silva's camera, and a few he sent from later points on their tour.
A very big & warm "Muchas Gracias" to Will, Nicko, Fernando, Freddy, Alfredito, Malcolm, B+, DJ "Frankie Francis" Merritt, the True Thoughts crew, Nappy G, Mariano, the City of New York and Parks & Recreation, all the fans and Hell, just everybody at the event. You all made it special, not to be forgotten.

Nickodemus, DJ?, Andujar, Fernando, Quantic, and Bongohead

Bongohead, Andujar, Fernando

The Combo, friends, crew backstage

The Extended members of Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro, Paris, France

My sketches for Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro logo

The booklet "spread' with Cali, Colombia (©B+), and Will's notes

One of B+'s great photos used in the layout

Symon Warwick's excellent cover art, without the lettering that I added later

One of the great Colombian t-shirts using my logo

An illustration I found with someone using my logo - looks nice!

The Tropidelico cover in all its glory!

My logo for the Tropidelico album, based on some lettering from the Peruvian label MAG

I really loved making this panel for the CD - I call it the musicians' panel - but it got shrunk down really small for the CD booklet

These are some inspirations for my lettering designs from T in T and Tropidelico

An early version of the Tropidelico cover

A color photo from the Tropidelico sessions - Alfredito Linares

This is back of the Tropidelico LP - so great to work on a larger canvas!

An idea for the CD tray inner insert with funky drummer Malcolm Catto

Everybody's Mambo - An Interview with Cecilia Noël

2009-09-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

Cecilia Noël: Everybody’s Mambo
© 2009 Pablo Ellicott Yglesias

I don’t know if you have been following Peruvian diva Cecilia Noël’s career, but to those of you who have, she has done it again with this highly anticipated big budget release, the appropriately named A Gozar! – a fabulous album from start to finish.

Cecilia might make you think of first class divas like Celia Cruz, La Lupe, La India, Albita, or Graciela; and she also brings to mind Tina Turner, Aretha, or even Kid Creole and the Coconuts – but she is a unique treasure to be judged on her own merits, which are many. With this new release, she has topped herself, building on the achievements of each of her previous three releases (all worth seeking out), but going one step further, honing and deepening her sound, focusing her arrangements, refining the infectious mix of Latin, jazz, and soul, with very consistent results.

She still has the same beautiful, sexy, supple, husky voice full of life and rhythm, still the same high quality material, the incredible musicianship of her loyal band, The Wild Clams – but here’s the catch: this time around, the focus is hard-core salsa, and it’s even better than before!! In addition to the smoking new salsa dura romp “Candela”, the sparkling Ms. Noël gives us several covers of classic salsa, mambo, and cha-cha-chá, miraculously breathing new life into them all over again (from Beny Moré to the two Ismaels, Rivera and Miranda). She deftly mixes a funky cha and 6/8 afro rhythm into her Spanglish version of Moré’s “La Culebra” – and just as you are getting the hang of it, she then playfully weds it to Ray Barretto’s slinky “Cocinando Suave” (a favorite of mine, which I named my book for). In addition, she revisits some of her own signature sounds, only making them harder, bigger, and more real. A great example of this amplification is “Pronto Salsa”, a song she first cut in the mid-90s with her spiritual/musical godfather, the venerable Afro-Cuban conguero Francisco Aguabella. The song is here in all its 8 minute majesty, but it’s like you’re hearing it for the first time, with all the members of her orchestra getting a chance to chime in. Though there is mostly just glorious full-bore salsa dura on this CD, there is also an autobiographical merengue in Spanglish, a classic sounding bolero, and to top it off there are plucky accents of timba, cumbia, and of course, bugalú – in another person’s hands this project might have been too much, but Cecilia keeps the mix just right, seasoning the pot with sass and brashness one minute, tenderness and intimacy the next. Unlike most female salsa singers who sound too soft or pop to me, Ms. Noël’s formula is what most women in tropical Latin music are lacking: a commitment to variety and modernity on the one hand, and an uncompromising vision for hard-core traditional sounds on the other.

Recently I got a chance to catch up with the always busy Cecilia and ask her a few questions. As usual, she responded honestly and with an engagingly playful mix of passion and insight.

PY: How did you get into music and writing songs?

CN: I started my life as a writer. I wrote my first story when I was 5 and my mother thought I had talent. So she would sit me down by her singer sewing machine and there I would write children's tales for a cultural magazine. But when I was 9, after listening to Pérez Prado, Tito Puente, James Brown, and watching a few musicals, I announced my retirement from writing to become a musician. I write songs, thanks to my band, The Wild Clams. They encourage me and always welcome the new ideas I bring to the table. When I sit down on the piano with Eric Jorgensen, my trombone player and orchestrator, to show him a new composition, he is always full of enthusiasm and praise, and I always get a master class from him. So I write because I want to make them proud, show them this is a real commitment. They are so loyal to me, I am blessed by their love and talent.

PY: What's the origin of your last name Noël - I have heard that some people think you are from France (!)?

CN: Oh...Don't we all come from France...? My father Teodoro, has Belgian and French ancestors far back. I am also Portuguese and Inca (as you know) from my mom's side. I grew up believing I was the grand-daughter of Papá Noël, because my grand father looked like him and when he retired (he founded the social security in Perú), he went to help a friend make toys for poor children...my mother took my older sister Desirée and I to spy on him through a tiny window...and that confirmed our suspicion...HE WAS SANTA CLAUS!

PY: What is your family background and story in brief?

CN: Artistic, Dysfunctional, Insane. Supportive, brilliant mother, Menina Pereira; dancing, gamblin' father, Teodorito Noël y Moral...adorable and unreliable...great mixture of bloods...as I said before, I Love them both...! My mom's father, Raúl María Pereira, the Portuguese, was a renaissance man...a famous artist, sculptor, architect, designed historical buildings in Ecuador and Perú, and he was also Ambassador of Portugal and Brazil in Ecuador and Perú...my mom inherited all those abilities and she was also a musician and a costume designer...my daddy just danced around the house...and never paid the bills...

PY: How/when (what age) did you fist come to the USA - and did you know anyone or have any family or friends when you first came here?

CN: As a young girl, I was singing in Lima, Perú at the Kero Bar of The Sheraton Hotel. The Great Stan Getz and his son Steve were in town touring Latin America with Stan's band. They saw me perform and invited me to his concert. Later, at a dinner party, Stan told my mother, that he thought I had talent and that maybe one day they could help me come over to the States...a few months, I received a telegram from Steve and a "One Way ticket to The City of New York"...I stayed with them for a little while, then with Linda Goldstein (manager of Bobby McFerrin and Manhattan Transfer) and with the help of the beautiful Jorge Dalto, Argentinean jazz pianist, his singer wife Adela and Mauricio Smith (flautist & saxophone player), I started recording my demos and playing around town. They were my first family in New York.

PY: A little clarification: What year did you come to NYC exactly?

CN: It was September of 1980.

PY: Did you come for school, or to work?

CN: I came for both, Jorge Dalto talked me out of the idea of moving to Boston to study at an expensive college...he said to me..."Pá qué 'mija?, between all of us, we can teach U all there is to learn AND, you'll experience THE CITY, where it all happens". So I studied percussion (not to really play, but to write and understand "clave") with Jerry González, and with Frankie Malabé and José Madera, at Boys Harbor in Harlem, took classes at The Mannes School of Music, dance with Jo Jo Smith and voice with different teachers like Joe Galliano. All of these while singing around town at the clubs. My last years in NYC, I played with Mauricio Smith's Latin Band at The Rainbow Room and recorded 2 albums with Willie Colón...

PY: What albums did you record with Willie Colon?

CN: Tiempo Pá Matar (1983) and the next one, Criollo (1984)...el que tiene “Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblón.”

PY: What exactly did you do on the albums? Was it backing vox?

CN: Yes, back up vocals, and he had us sight reading [for the parts]...which was cool!

PY: And so it's OK if I mention you are a dancer too, right? I suspected as much!!

CN: I dance...a little...always on the 2 (like old school Mambo!). Palladium style...Tito Puente and Jo Jo Smith taught me.

PY: How did you learn English?

CN: Watching Dave Letterman and Saturday Night Live, the ONLY 2 shows my roommate, Bill Koch would allow me to watch. He thought television was addictive and not good for me.

PY: When did you move to California? Is this before you married the drummer Tris Imboden of the band Chicago?

CN: Yes, before I married Tris. I started moving here in 1989...Hilton Rosenthal, the South African Producer and Tom Regis, asked me to come here and by 1990 I was learning how to drive...

PY: How did you come up with the title?

CN: A Gozar! means to enjoy, to feel deeply, like a beautiful orgasm...why not say it like it is? I've always been a free spirit, my mother Menina encouraged me to express myself and be passionate...fearless.

PY: How did you come up with the choices for “cover” versions of classic songs for the album?

CN: I am a big fan of Beny Moré. Mexican director Alfonso Arau (Like Water for Chocolate), told me, after watching my show, that I reminded him of Beny...I said...”What a complement!” And I always loved La Culebra, and the cha-cha-cha/son montuno feel, with the syncopated piano, so sexy...so one day fooling around, I wrote the Spanglish lyrics with my dear ex- husband, Tris Imboden, at a café in L.A. and added it to my repertoire. I love the 6/8 grooves [a section of the song breaks into this more complex Afro-Cuban rhythm], since I come from the coast of Peru, they are in my blood, and my arrangement in the beginning has that feel. The horns just landed naturally, and that classic sax solo is by Vince Denham, showing off his chops!

[I covered] “El Cumbanchero” [because] my cousin Mateo Pereira, loves this song, he sings it all the time, he is the most beautiful person in the world, has a mental disability, but is a genius musician, and he is the main reason why I go to Peru so often. So he kept asking me to include it on the album...he is my A&R and I'll do whatever he says! [Also] my friend and former producer, Tom Regis, asked me to do “El Cumbanchero” years ago, for a project with Rhythm Safari, and later, when I started to play the song live, Tom Timko (saxophone player) helped me with the horn arrangement.

I am still madly in love with Ismael Rivera, and his album Eclipse Total, follows me everywhere I go. He is perhaps my biggest influence in salsa singing for lay back, sassy, fast tongue spitting, scatting phrasing,...I chose “La Cumbita” with much love, because this song was written by him (he mostly sang other’s compositions) and it’s a bit obscure, so this is my tribute to one of the Greatest Salsa Singers of all times that is often overlooked.

PY: How about “Asi Se Compone Un Son” and how/why did you decide to arrange them the way you did?

CN: Another big musical love of mine is Ismael Miranda. I met him in Peru, before I moved to NYC, and this composition is one of my favorite ones he's ever written. He is a fantastic singer. The horn arrangement is mostly the original, probably done by Larry Harlow, but the middle mambo, as well as in “La Cumbita”, comes from the fabulous mad mind of Eric Jorgensen, my right hand, trombone player and orchestrator. My husband, Colin Hay (of Men at Work) sings the background vocals...ha!

PY: This album seems to lean more towards ‘salsa dura’ or classic salsa - there is still plenty of soul, some pop, a bolero, and some Spanglish ‘salsoul’- but overall I think it's a departure from your other albums - what made you decide to go in a more hard salsa direction?

CN: I wanted to make an album that would be more homogeneous, not as eclectic as the others. I used to mix it all...Salsa, Jazz, Funk, Rock, Pop...and confuse the hell out of people...who is she? What is she? Nobody knew how to define me... Labels had a tough time marketing me. So I went for what is closest to my heart, at the moment, which is Salsa Dura, Hard Core, but Wild Clam style, none of that soft stuff for me...although I sing boleros and I am a romantic, I am also a punk, a rebellious animal. Indefinable, indomitable! Don't expect the same thing from me, I get bored...

PY: What's the story (briefly) behind “Carlitos Rey”?

I got and read the script of the original movie Carlitos Way, from my publisher, and wrote it with Tom Regis. The words are an inspiration from that script, about a man that went the wrong way, but is trying to redeem himself and has a tough time doing it, because of his environment and the past that still chases him. But the song didn't make it to the soundtrack for political reasons. I joke about it and say it still one of my hit songs.

PY: Now please tell me, “Tu Condena” – that’s a very emotional, fiery song - is it about a specific person in your life or is it more about an imaginary character (like your story writing you told me of)?

CN: This song I wrote (with Tom Regis) based on an experience that Sheila E. told me about, and originally it was intended to be for a salsa album that she wanted to record, but I kept it when she didn't finish her project. It's one of my favorite songs, all around, lyrically and musically.

PY: Mine too! It makes people go crazy on the dance floor – I have even had them clap after I play it. As with a lot of your songs off this record, people – especially women – come up to me on stage after I play a cut and say, with bewildered smiles\, “Who IS this woman you are playing!” They may have never heard of you, but that doesn’t stop them from dancing like crazy and responding emotionally to the intensity of your music and voice. Speaking of intense, I am sure aspects of your life must be intense – so would you say the wild energy of “Living On The Run” comes from that spark in you? It is a merengue, right? Or at least it has elements of merengue in it?

CN: It is definitely a merengue...Wild Clam style...about my life...!

PY: Does Colin Hay speak Spanish? I see he's helping out on coros!!! How did you guys meet?

CN: He speaks a little and I can have a simple conversation with him. But his ear is awesome and he pronounces Spanish really well. We met in NYC the first time in the mid 80's, very briefly in a recording studio. Eight years later, we were both part of a benefit concert in Topanga Canyon, and he stayed to watch my show. After that, he would come to see my shows quite often, I would see him in the crowd and he would bring his friends and girlfriends to see me perform. The rest is historia, pues!

PY: Do you have any other Peruvians in the band? Cubans?

CN: I have at this moment besides the amazing Lenny Castro, who plays [percussion] and records live with me, the Peruvians Handark Lozano, also on percussion, Braulio Barrera on backing vocals and percussion and many great Cuban musicians, like Carlitos del Puerto, who is my dear friend, on bass, Jimmy Branly on timbales [pailas], and Conrado “Coquí” García on congas, bongos, and bell, they play on a few tracks on the album. I also had Oney Cumba and Sergio Cardoso of the Cuban band Síntesis record on [the session for the cut] “Carlitos Rey”. I love them.

PY: Have you worked with the great Joe Rotondi in the past?

CN: Talk about me [being] lucky! Joe Rotondi is the first piano player I ever worked with when I first came to L.A. We were introduced by Tom Regis, and since then, we have played together on and off, recorded different projects, and remained friends for all these years. So I invited him back to record on “La Cumbita” and “Candela”. HE IS A GENIUS...

PY: If James Brown was an early influence, who among the Latin artists influenced you to add soul to salsa - Joe Bataan, any of the old-school 60s boogaloo artists?

CN: Well, I caught Pérez Prado’s [later] boogaloo sounds; also my old friend Coco Lagos y sus Orates (from Peru) whom I worked with when I was a young girl in La Orquesta de Carlo Berscia (a fantastic Italian musician, who taught me how to conduct and lead a band), the late Mario Allison y Su Combo, Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe [they appeared on Peruvian television in the 60s] who also had some boogaloo early on. As a child I had my ears open to every sound you can imagine. I like all that silly stuff. I am also a sucker for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass...mmmmmm SEXY SILLY!

PY: Ouch, you are getting me hot there Cecilia (laugh). In your CD graphics, you are shown luxuriating in a bath of red fruit (looks like cherries??) – that’s kind of a funny take-off on the whipped cream kitchy sex-kitten cover art for that famous for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass record! On a more serious note, the phrase “Urpillay Sonquollay” – what does that mean - que significa - is that an indigenous saying (Inca, Quechua)? I see it in your liner notes.

CN: It means: lovely little dove of my heart. This is how in Quechua, our native language, we say “thank you”…Isn’t it wonderful?

PY: How did you hook up with Compass Records - have you heard Salsa Celtica and Conjunto Cespedes, some of their excellent earlier Latin releases?

CN: My husband, Colin Hay, is also signed with them, and when I started thinking about shopping for a deal, I wanted to show them the album first. I like Alison and Garry West. Luckily, they loved it and I felt wanted, so I didn’t have to show it to anyone else. Salsa Celtica’s leader and trumpet player, Toby “El Leon” Shippey, is a great musician and we met at the Edinburgh Festival in 2004. I hope to collaborate with him some day. Conjunto Céspedes is great too, I haven’t met them, but I like their sound.

PY: I believe Conjunto Céspedes are no longer together but they were fabulous in their day! Any plans to work Peruvian music into your salsa in the future?

CN: Definitely…I am at the moment writing a new project with Juan Luis Pereira, my first cousin and the band leader of El Polen, a groundbreaking Peruvian fusion band from the 70s. He and his brother Raul Pereira were fundamental in me becoming a musician and I started playing and recording with them when I was 13.

PY: Cecilia, amiga mia, you really nailed it this time. My words to all old-school male salseros out there: forget your machismo and surrender to La Cecilia; buy A Gozar! now and go out and dance to this woman’s album – it will do you good. And for the salseras on the floor: this is it, rejoice, your new diva has arrived!
...I know you have to get on with your day, so best of luck to you with this great new album – hope to see you on the East Coast some time soon. Gracias, Urpillay Sonqollay!

CN: Gracias a ti, chulo, ¡que lindas tus preguntas! XXX CECILIA

Rumba Psycodelica Continues

2009-09-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

HEYA kitties & cats out there in La La Land. We had so much FUN last month at The Elevens in Northampton, MA, we decided to keep this thing going!! Thanks to DJ George William Meyers aka "Snack Attack" the flame still burns bright. Check it out in the flier above and please feel free to drag it to your desktop and email it to friends. I know it's a late night for some of you (heh-heh), but you can drop by towards the beginning. For all you fans in far away places, we know you will be there in spirit. To all you dancers, vatos locos and go-go gals we saw last time, thank you, and please come with more friends this time. It's going to be wild - light show courtesy of Bell & Howl, plus we will have WMUA's own DJ Andujar, plus me, Bongohead from Latin Night, and some random live percussion. We will be slinging rare vinyl from around the world, with an emphasis on funky and psychedelic Latin and African music of the 60s & 70s, the odd vintage Cuban classic, plus Nuyorican salsa dura, obscure South American cumbia jams, and some old style merengue and Haitian music, plus great contemporary acts out right now that have a sound that fits in with our aesthetic of real music for real people: acts like Quantic, Antibalas, Kokolo, Up, Bustle & Out, Los Chapillacs, Brownout, Grupo Fantasma, Ocote Soul Sounds, Nomo, Spam Allstars, Kaleta, Bio Ritmo, all artists that issue vinyl today; plus various dope reissues of old school cuts from labels like Vampisoul, Soundway, Stones Throw, etc. Hey, record labels, send us your vinyl! If you like the WMUA FM 91.1 radio program "Clandestino" (Mondays, streamed live, www.wmua.org) or were a fan of my Feel Flows radio show when it aired a few years ago, you will surely DIG RUMBA PSYCODELICA! See you there.

Nomo Live, with DJ Bongohead, August 15, Northampton

2009-08-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

Yes folks, that's right - Nomo played a great concert last Saturday, August 15, at the Iron Horse (I will dig up the poster some time). They did all our favorite songs (some great ones from the new album, Invisible Cities) and the guys were just in tip-top, killer form!! There were two drummers, some amazing brass work, heavy bass, and nice chunky guitar, all in an afro-jazz dance mode - the audience were converted to the Nomo philosophy of melody as rhythm! I took pictures for them - Matt the bassist gave me his nice camera and said to shoot away so I did - maybe I can post some in the future if I can get Matt to send me some. Elliot was playing his amazing homemade mbira 'thumb pianos' (kalimba or sanza to some, and in Cuba, the 'marimbula') - my favorite element in their sound. They had the audience going gaga at the end when they did their ritualistic communal thing of playing percussion down on the dance floor among the club-goers (I was banging away on a cowbell over by the DJ console). I got to DJ some afrobeat, funk, Turkish psych, Ethiopian, and funky early 70s jazz fusion before and after the show. It was a small turn out but the band played as if it were in front of thousands - next time they come it better be! Then Nomo and 2 friends stayed at my house - we talked until 3 am about harmonicas, dogs, and Atlantic Records, and what if Arthur Russel sang ads for hotdogs and other silly 3 am stuff. Radio personality Mr. Charlie Lewis was down from Brattleboro for the show, and he crashed at chez Bongohead as well - a good time was had by all. Elliot was telling me about his mother's paintings which are on some of their covers (check out the cover for their afro-elctro-disco reworking of Sun Ra's Rocket # 9 From The Planet Venus) - totally dope artwork! Next day Nomo had to take off in the early morning hours for a 14 hour marathon road trip up to Chicago where they were doing a big open air concert in a park. Never met a nicer bunch of musician house guests! Make sure you check out all their albums if you have not heard their sound - truly beautiful.

Grupo Fantasma and Bongohead LIVE! ¡En Vivo!

2009-08-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Grupo Fantasma - funk, salsa, cumbia, Tropicalia - it's all here in one group, from Austin, Texas!! Bongohead will be DJ-ing before and after the show. Then stay around after for Latin Night, from 10 pm - 2 am - Bongohead will be playing all your favorite Latin dance music till the wee hours, FREE of charge!! Make sure you check it out. And listen to the Texas-Sized radio show we got goin' on on WMUA the day before, July 20, 91.1 FM, 12:00 - 2:30 PM. All Tejas, all Chicano music - corridos, polkas, cumbia, funk, ranchera, bugalu, 60s & 70s. Then, from 2:30 - 4:30, more music from Texas, all kinds of tunes from the "country of Texas": we'll play funk, soul, psychedelic, blues, rock, country & western, and jazz! Go to this url for full details: http://peaceandrhythm.blogspot.com/2009/07/texas-sized-program-planned-for-monday.html

Rumba Psicodelica

2009-08-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

¡Rumba Psicodelica! returns on Monday, August 17, 2009, in two parts.

First we'll be running the voodoo down on Radio Clandestino on WMUA.org, from 230-430pm (ET).

Then we'll be jamming some dope vinyl at the Elevens in Northampton at 10pm - 2 am. Bongohead will be joined by DJs Snack Attack, Andujar, and Mike P from Mass Tropicas. The vibes will be hard funk, afro-latin, cumbia & chicha, roots & dub, bugalu, soul, salsa, afrobeat, French garage psych, a surprise merengue cover by a recently deceased icon of pop music, and more. It's 21+ and free admission.

Come and hang, dance, drink, etc. For more info: bombasticos@yahoo.com.
Poster by George Myers.

TODO MUNDO CUMBIA

2009-05-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

Yes folks that's right, I am the Guest Host for DJ Andujar's "clandestino" radio show on WMUA next Monday, May 25th, 2009. The show is from 2:30 to 4:30, Eastern Standard US time zone, broadcasting from the UMass Amherst radio station WMUA, 91.1 FM. You can go to the station's web site, www.wmua.org, and stream the show live (no archives at this point), or if you can't listen 'live' on the computer or the radio, then click on playlists, and type in "clandestino", and you can see what I played. I will be selecting all the latest cumbias (ZZK, Bersa Discos, cumbia villera, cumbiaton, etc) as well as classic old school, new traditionalists, experimental, folkloric, and related genres like vallenato, chicha, porro, and champeta (different but still related!). Casting a wide net, we are! Clandestino, hosted by DJ Andujar, is a great show that concentrates on groove & rhythm, from funk to Latin, jazz to world. Many thanks to Andujar for giving me this opportunity. Don't miss it each week - he will be back June first. ¡Sabor de cuuuuuumbia!!

Links:

For streaming:

http://www.wmua.org/listen.php

For playlists:

http://www.wmua.org/musicdb/playlistsearch.php

For DJ Andujar:

http://peaceandrhythm.blogspot.com/

Obey: The Art Of Shepard Fairey

2009-02-22T05:43:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to recommend the "Supply and Demand" show by Shepard Fairey at the ICA in Boston. Great stuff! Pick up the catalog too. Go before the show comes down at the end of the summer. I know he's well known for the Obama poster and the Andre The Giant stickers, but he goes a whole lot deeper than that. Check it out. Love the mix of politics, dark humor, and music. Suitable for kids. This little gallery you see below, gleaned from the web, only scratches the surface. Fairey's art is viral and based in pop art, graff, and propaganda, so I feel justified in "stealing" imagery and posting it here. I must obey my instincts so here goes... - DJ Bongohead

The Superpowers have a new album!

2009-01-30T04:00:00.000-08:00

Check it out - great band - kind of like Nomo - instrumental afrobeat, jazz & afro-funk inspired orchestra based in Boston, MA. Have not heard the new one, but make sure you listen to them on the web or better yet, go see them live. Great band for dancing. A track by them is on the upcoming release, The Rough Guide to Afrobeat Revival, put together by DJ Andujar & DJ Bongohead. I had the pleasure of playing chekere with the band once in concert and I was very impressed.

If you are in Boston this weekend, this is the show to catch:

From the MySpace:

Internationally recognized afrobeat group THE SUPERPOWERS have been hailed by critics as a "poly-rhythmic juggernaut."

Originally formed as the Boston Afrobeat Society, having won the 2007 Phoenix Best Music Poll and 2006 Boston Music Award for Best World Music Act, this 21st-Century Dance Band has been blasting off in the Northeast. They have since relocated to Brooklyn where they have nurtured a monthly residency at Zebulon, one of Brooklyn's most well-respected music venues, for 2 years! They have played packed houses throughout the Eastern U.S. and shared the stage with internationally renowned artists including Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars, John Browns Body, Aphrodesia, and NOMO.

In the past year they have played nearly 100 shows at festivals, bars, clubs, farms, and community events, rallying to end the violence in Darfur, raising money for development projects in Zambia's Meheba refugee settlement and supporting Fair Trade in South America. THE SUPERPOWERS also toured for 2 years using a WVO (Waste-Vegetable-Oil) powered School Bus, dubbed "the Green Monster." Members of the Superpowers can also be seen around the Northeast performing with Baye Kouyate, Amayo's Fu-Arkestra, The Mobius Band, Cuddle Magic, Rubblebucket Orchestra, BQEZ, and Dead Cat Bounce. They are currently working on their second full-length record entitled Trance-for-Nation featuring Claude and Rudy Gomis (Orchestra Baobab). It is expected to be out by the end of 2008. Their first record, Revival Time is available on iTunes.

BTW, their first album was designed by Nate Duval, a friend who does excellent art and graphic design - check out his posters, illustrations, and designs on line at nateduval.com. You can check him out at the various alternative craft fairs around the country as well - his silkscreens are great. His partner, Jen Skelley, is a very talented designer and artist too - I have several of her silkscreen prints and they are KILLER!
Nate's cover:

Two Collectors Choose Some Of Their Favorite Album Covers

2009-01-26T18:38:00.001-08:00

OK, so I asked two guys I respect a lot, musician and music store owner Josh Burkett and musician/writer/disk jockey Brendon Rule (a.k.a. DJ Andujar of WMUA fame), if they could pull a few albums, from their vast collections, that had cool covers. I got the impression that for Andujar, at first this whole 'cover art thing' was kinda new, but that now he was getting into it. He had done some posters and 'zines, and was of course used to flipping through a lot of records due to his activities as a DJ, collector, and seller of vinyl. But the covers never really grabbed him until I asked him to take a second look. Then, after careful consideration, he proved to have a great eye for wacky & cool cover art. Josh, on the other hand, is a natural connoisseur of cover art, being visual artist as well as a collector, seller, & of course, maker of music, and there is even one cover here that he made himself (Vermonster) & the really beautiful album he commissioned, with a front & back that have no text but are really colorful and quirky. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little gallery from their collection. You can visit Josh at his store in Amherst, Mass., Mystery Train Records, and you can check out Andujar's radio show, "clandestino' on WMUA. So, without further ado, here are the covers...

More Classic Cover Art by Charlie Rosario

2009-01-25T17:31:00.000-08:00

Charlie Rosario always brings a sense of humor and playfulness to his work. Here has invented a great title for the record - putting together two Spanish words that describe the music and the band: 'tipica" and "picante" - what a goof! He ended up illustrating it with a mix of flying orchestra instruments from the typical charanga set up, and a bunch of very hot looking chili peppers!

Like every Charlie masterwork, this album comes with a long story about how the custom plexiglass lettering and the plastic violins were made - and how Charlie came up with the idea. Suffice it to say it involves the chance meeting of a cousin in the street who had a violin under his arm and something to do with a sign shop. Anyway, as usual, the artists was thinking outside the box - waaay outside the box! This was before Photoshop could give you all sorts of 3-D effects - so you had to just go out and construct your type in real dimensions if you wanted it to look like this.

Charlie knew a lot of musicians back in the day (still does) and one of them was the talented singer Tito Allen. This cover - Tito cooking up Superman in a skillet over a "fire" of Kryptonite - is a satirical take on the story of how Allen left Ray Barretto's group (after the album "Indestructible" that depicted Barretto as mild-mannered Clark Kent beginning to change into Superman). "Maldades" are those nasty little things people do...

This one just oozes funky 70s New York apartment life - it's like Marero, a sexy crooner, has a second apartment where he takes his part-time lovers while the wife's back home. Looks like the start of a sleezy porn flick you'd love to see - just for a little history lesson, a la "Deep Throat."

This one is just so cool. Again, before Photoshop effects, it was all done with actual lighting and lense effects - imagine that!

Charlie was so into this band he wants you to experience the power in all it's 3-D glory - too bad 3-D glasses didn't come with it! Looks a bit Andy Warhol.

Charlie actually carved this head out of a tree stump and then set it on fire. It's still at his sister's in Brooklyn, holding up a table in the kitchen. Somehow this manages to capture the wildness and rebellion of the "cimarron" - a runaway horse or slave in Colonial Spanish lingo.

Speaking of burning, this reissue of the Marin record employs a photo Charlie took of a fire down the street from his place. The original LP cover displayed a silly picture of Marin as a fire man - this one feels a lot more real - including the singed bit at the upper corner. Charlie himself suffered the trauma of an apartment fire where he lost just about everything, including a lot of art. I asked him if he took pictures of that fire and he said no way, it was in the middle of the night and way too scary!

This was another reissue. Interesting how he takes the old time image of Machito and makes it look modern. The tracks on this are from an old Roulette release of Latin Jazz, but Charlie's design goes a long way to fooling you into thinking it's current material.

Raphael Ithier, leader and pianist of El Gran Combo, told Charlie that this is the album that revived the band's sagging career in the 80s - and the intriguing and humorously titled cover helped sell it in no small measure. Once again, Charlie also named the album. This time, he had been photographing interesting shadows and light in his apartment and he liked how a just painted chair looked in the light coming from the window. Later, designer Chico Alvarez, who was doing work for Combo Records, called him up and asked Charlie if he had any nice art or pictures to put on the latest EGC album cover. Charlie showed him this and Chico was into it right away. Charlie mentioned that the music is so hot, no one will want to sit down - just like on the chair with wet paint! Chico laughed, and was inspired to creat the beautiful script logo for the title.

This is one of Charlie's freaky photo/paint collages, done with some amazing pre-computer visual tricks. Again, this album was a case of a label - Harvey Averne's Coco - attempting to sell old product in a new, "hip" package. Charlie was just the man to see. The original cover, on the Mary Lou label, is actually quite nice as well, but very dated. But this one still looks fresh and somewhat bizarre, in a good way!

Now this was a contoversial cover for some - a stinky, paint-spattered pair of old Champion sneakers on the cover of a brand new Cortijo album? What were they thinking? The label eventually did away with the cover art and stuck the portrait of Cortijo (that was formerly on the back cover) in its stead. The audacity of Charlie is demonstrated here, and it really pays off. Because the shoes may look dirty and old, but they are actually just regular work-a-day, humble tennis shoes spattered with the artists's paint, evidence of humility and creative activity - just like Cortijo. He might have been old, out of favor, without much of a career while his old band, El Gran Combo, rose to new hights. But Raphael Cortijo was actually making music that was much more cutting edge at this stage of his life, and at the same time much truer to his Afro-Boricua roots than EGC (who had forsaken bombas for just straight salsa). Thus the Champion sneakers - it's like how Jackson Pollack used to paint his drip paintings to Machito and Dizzy Gillespie albums!

Ah, Andrea, que linda eres! So, this is just a classic - great photo by the Italian former monk, Dominique - who mysteriously disappeared, owing Joe Cain a lot of money - and some nice type work and layout by Charlie.

That's it for now. I hope to have more art soon to show you all. If you want to contact Mr. Rosario for comissions, design work, exhibitions, or album cover art, please do so. The man is blessed with talent and an unbeatable spirit. Call him at: 787-529-6114.

Alex Wilson's Mali Latino

2009-01-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

NEWS FLASH:
Please check out pianist Alex Wilson's new project, "Mali Latino". Not since the 2 seminal "Songhai" projects has there been such an exciting fusion of Griot/West African music and forms from the Spanish/Latin tradition. Alex is an amazing pianist and all around genius who has put out ambitious Latin and Jazz recordings in the past, but his versatility goes way beyond these categories. Now he is mixing the traditional griot music of West Africa with hot Afro-Cuban forms and Nuyorican salsa, with a jazzman's sense of swing and the sensitivity of an ethnomusicologist. He's collaborating with two fabulous musicians from Mali, Ahmed Fofana and Madou Sidiki Diabate, joined by another musician from Mali and two of Alex's UK-based band-mates, and they are all really cooking together in a fusion that seems like it just sprung whole from Pacha Mama (Mother Earth). Sounds to you like Africando, but it's not: it's a more organic, integrated approach, with equal weight given to the African part of the music, and from the looks of it, it's less glossy and commercial. There is a 3 part documentary ("First Steps") about the making of the 'Mali Latino' project - so please watch it if you are curious. I know I was - Alex never ceases to blow my mind with his wild juxtapositions and fresh ideas (I licensed some great music from him for 3 of my Rough Guide compilations over the last few years - RG to Salsa, RG to Salsa Clandestina, and RG to Latino Nuevo). He is currently looking for funding (a small group of investors) to make the studio recording of "Mali Latino," and perhaps a label to put it out. Anyone willing to help fund this incredible recording can contact him through his Alex Wilson website at:

The musicians on the video are :

Alex Wilson piano
Madou Sidiki Diabate kora
Ahmed Fofana balafon / guitar / flute
Michael Mondesir bass
Davide Giovannini drums/timbales
Will Fry congas

You can also listen to the beautiful track "Remercier Les Travailleurs" at that same site.
OK - that's it, just wanted to hip you to my man Alex. In case you don't know, he is a very creative man with his heart in the right place. I know the ancestors are smiling down on this project, the spirits of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Bronx, Mali, Senegal, and The Gambia are all dancing together. You can praise whoever, praise Allah, praise God, Yahweh, Buddha, Mohammed, praise Obatala, Chango, and Ochun, Mami Wata and all the Saints. or you can just say: well done.
Help this project get recorded if you can. Invest what you can afford. Go see Alex perform the music live if you are able this May in England.
Gracias,
DJ Bongohead

You can also support him now by buying his albums too:

Afro Saxon - 1998
An auspicious debut, I remember hearing this on the radio, on Amherst's WMUA (thanks to Glenn Seigel and Brandon Marger), and going: wait a minute, this is wild, this is different, all over the place. I got to check this dude out! A decade later I am still learning from Alex. ¡Gracias, maestro!

Anglo Cubano - 2000
A very CALIENTE record - before I knew Alex or anything about his artistic mission, I used to play the title track to this little disc, and a few others from it, at Latin Night when it was still at Bar 19 (before it moved to the Iron Horse),and the dancers went crazy, though they didn't know what hit 'em. I knew from then on that Alex was my man, was a force to be reckoned with, and that he was going to provide me with innovative salsa that would open people's minds but also keep them moving their feet on the dance floor. Was I wrong? No way. Read on...

R&B Latino - 2002
What I wrote about the title track:
I am not one to wallow in nostalgia, so it is typical for my set to move from the traditional to the ultra hip in a heartbeat in my DJ sets. The whole atmosphere of Latin dance parties in general is multi-generational, and in the US, often multi-ethnic. It was this multi-cultural ambiance of breaking down the barriers that appealed to me when I first began to DJ in New York in the late 80s, and that’s what attracted me to the local scene in my current digs. The futuristic fusions of the UK’s own Alex Wilson and his CD “R&B Latino” are equally attractive for their wide ranging experimentation, where electronic DJ effects, beat loops, and techno sounds mix with blasting analog trumpet, a hot jazzy piano solo, and authentic Cuban vocals. When describing this particular project, Alex put it this way: “…you have R&B loops, programmed by Craig David’s musical director Frank Tontoh, combined with Puerto Rican salsa, and also elements of [Los] Van-Van influenced music [i.e. songo] which put together provides the backdrop for R&B Latino.” By the age of 30, Alex had already played jazz piano with some of Britain’s best, among them Courtney Pine, Roberto Pla, and Gary Crosby's Nu-Troop. " I'd spent a year in Courtney Pine's band playing not only jazz but everything from drum'n'bass to hip-hop. After that I felt equipped to try something different.” Seems Wilson had been hearing records by people like Sisqo and Destiny's Child on the radio, and “was struck how much the drum programming borrows from the Caribbean." He goes on to say: "So there's a direct link to Latin music. Rhythmically r&b is very sparse and Latin music tends to be very busy. But they both fitted like a glove. I could have easily made another salsa piano album. Latin music is so seductive it sucks you in. But I wanted to create my own sound." When asked if he’s ever experienced any problems playing Latin as a non-Latino (a silly question because you don’t have to be an African-American to play jazz!), Wilson answers matter-of-factly: “As a mixed race, British/African with a complexion very similar to many Latinos, I have made a point of not pretending to be anything else other than myself — I hope this reflects in my playing and my music productions.”

Aventuras - 2005
This is a really heavy jazz album that I highly recommend. It has elements of Latin, African, Funk, and modern instrumental avant guard music. full of moments that are both lyrical and dark, mature but loose, natural yet sophisticated. As usual, Alex's piano is the backbone and shimmers through out. Some great vocals by Mary Pearce too. Pick it up today!

Inglaterra - 2007
What I wrote about the track "Oh Kuri" from the album Inglaterra:
Sometimes it takes a gifted visionary interpreter from outside a culture to bring fresh perspective into a tradition. The freedom to dispense with convention so as to produce rich re-interpretations often needs to come from a different but parallel place. Alex Wilson, born to British parents of Sierra Leone background, and raised in Africa, the UK, Switzerland, and Austria, is just that courageous person, inhabiting a special world that finds him comfortable in many modes of artistic expression. In one way his music reflects the cosmopolitan experience of living in one of the world’s great cities; in another way, it is evidence of a restless spirit that travels at will between the real and the imagined. And thank goodness his imagination never gets trampled by the realities being a struggling independent musician. On “Oh Kuri,” Señor Wilson hops several boundaries at once, but the leap of faith seems quite logical and feels very natural in the end: mixing Asian (specifically from the Indian Subcontinent) with Caribbean music has been done before (think eclectic Bollywood filmi music, or Trinidadian chutney, and of course the UK’s own bhangra), but not this way! It’s as if Willie Colon’s menacing herd of stampeding trombones rushed forth from the Bronx and collided straight into a wedding ceremony in New Delhi. Alex has teamed up with vituoso tabla player, composer and record producer Kuljit Bhamra, and Shahid Abbas Khan, a young vocalist “who is seriously going places,” to create a first: salsa dura bhangra. Bhamra is one of the most influential musicians working behind the scenes in British Asian music today. He has composed, produced and recorded more than 700 songs to date - many of which have been international hits on the Asian music circuit, some featured in popular movies such as Bhaji On The Beach. The lyrics of “Oh Kuri” describe the adoration of a girl's beauty - in a very pure (and non-suggestive) way. The song was originally entitled “Gee Sakde” before it was adapted to the bhangra-salsa format. But don’t categorize it too swiftly; like a lot of the music on this compilation, Alex Wilson’s albums defy niche parameters; suffice it to say this jam will get both salseros and Asian Underground dancers going. According to Alex, “I had been writing and pre-producing the song with Kuljit for some 6 months beforehand so everything was prepared. We put the four percussionists in the room and they [just] played! It took some meeting in the middle - salsa is a 'straighter' feel and the bhangra is very swingy/triplety, but the musicians were able to combine to make a unique sound. That moment when I went back into the control room to listen, I honestly felt like it was a very special moment! “Oh Kuri” fits very well into my music as a whole as my philosophy has always been to produce a flavor of Latin music that reflects where I come from - which is the exciting, open-minded, musical melting pot of London. I am also working with Kuljit on producing more Indian-Latin tracks with a possible launch concert/album next year.” Until then, savor the spice of “Oh Kuri” and be glad Alex is so fearless. - Pablo E. Yglesias for The World Music Network.

What I wrote about the track “Subelo”:
Inglaterra is London-based keyboardist Alex Wilson’s fifth release, and his most ambitious take on salsa to date. Colombian rapero MC Magico and the sexy Criolla provide the party vocals over the reggaetón beats, while Wilson and his brass players keep it real, blending tasty acoustic mambo licks with the programmed loops to form an organic whole. This style of salsatón has been popular in Puerto Rico and New York for a while now, but Wilson brings the dancehall flava full-circle to the UK in his own inimitable fashion. In a way Alex’s entry into the reggaetón market is a round about return to his roots because as a younger musician he played with West Indian saxophonist Courtney Pine and ska-boppers Jazz Jamaica.

Salsa Con Soul - 2008
One of DJ Bongohead's Top 10 Picks for 2008
What I wrote about Alex's new album, "Salsa Con Soul," for descarga.com:
"Alex Wilson’s new album has it all - hard driving salsa, funky Latin Soul, and modern fusions of Latin with gospel, r&b, Brazilian, and contemporary jazz flavors - plus great vocals (in Spanish and English) from multitalented guests and sizzling piano courtesy of the master, Alex Wilson. The two stomping Colombian themed salsa dura scorchers will blow you away; there is also a very tight and tasty instrumental salsa number that is perfect for dance lessons. No stranger to trying something new, in the past Alex collaborated with Jamaican and African musicians, as well as Cubans and South Americans, jazz players and a reggaeton artist. He has also created intriguing fusions of Nuyorican style salsa with Indian music (specifically bhangra), and worked with some hot young urban r&b producers to bring in electronic beats and diva vocals. This time around he tweaks the collaborations in favor more of gospel, and it’s an interesting mix, perhaps not one that you might have though of yourself – and that’s why we have the gifted Mr. Wilson! If you don’t know this African/British composer yet, this is a good place to start. Somehow, it all makes sense under Alex’s spirited, capable leadership, and though you will want to dance to the infectious uptempo numbers, you'll also want to listen deep to the mellower grooves, because this salsa has soul!"
Very highly recommended. (Pablo Yglesias, 2008-09-25)

Alex wilson, a man who's music is a gift to us all.

The Album Covers of Charlie Rosario

2009-01-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to show the people out there some of Charlie's great album covers from the bad old days. He does graphic design as well as original art. Some of his pieces are painting, some are what he calls "sculpture graphics" - there will be more to come in future posts. Dig 'em and let me know if you want Charlie to do your cover, he's ready, willing, and able!

Tito Puente - The King (Charlie's first cover)

The interesting story behind this cover is that it started out as a concert poster. Charlie made a big psychedelic poster of Puente in art school (late 60s), and later went to a club in Chinatown, NYC, where Puente was performing. He wanted to sell the poster to Puente, the maestro, to let him know that he was a fan & that he had made this cool poster for him. Charlie Rosario's brother, the percussionist Pablito Rosario, had recently joined Charlie Palmieri's group (leaving Willie Colon), and Palmieri was also performing that night at the same club, so Charlie Rosario thought he'd visit his brother and see if he could meet Puente at the gig too. After waiting till the last set was over, he met up with the piano player Charlie Palmieri and asked him if he would help introduce him and show Puente the poster. When he saw it, Puente flipped over it the minute he laid eyes on it, and took it into Tico's offices where they made it into the cover of his next LP. He paid Charlie about $100 on the spot. The art department at the agency cut the poster down to fit, losing a lot of fun details (Charlie had hidden a lot of humorous things in the imagery) but it still looked great - giving Puente just the image boost he needed with the youth of the day, updating his look for the boogaloo Woodstock Generation. People still to this day go nuts when they see it - but few know it is Charlie's brain child, his debut into the world of cover art, his first entrepeneurial effort, and a real success with the musicians from the start.

Brooklyn Sounds! (friends of Charlie's from the hood - Charlie's poem is on the back)

Growing up in the Barrios of Brooklyn, Charlie used to play congas with a lot of cats and hang with bands. Here he did a cover for his friends in Brooklyn Sounds (a really raw trombone group playing salsa brava) - Charlie artfully used a contrasted-out photo he took of a typical hard-core ghetto tenement fire escape, transforming into an iconic piece of abstract pop-Latino art. Charlie did a few covers for Salsa Records up in the Bronx but soon grew tired of the subway commute, handing over the job to his buddy Angelo Velazquez.

La Fantastica - All Ears (exterior gatefold)
Another art school painting/collage that Charlie turned into a crazy gatefold cover for the short lived (but highly collectible) Ghetto Records.

La Fantastica - All Ears (interior gatefold)
Goes to show what's good to your eyes on the outside may be good to your ears inside!

Orchestra DJ - Forget It

Orchestra DJ were more friends from Charlie's neighborhood. Great band, on a tiny label (on Ralph Lew's oddly named Lew Gas) with a freaky cover - what were they thinking? It's certainly not your typical commercial Fania, but very effective in its guerrilla tactics, none the less. Charlie always thought outside the box, and had originally intended for the last question mark to be upside-down, but the printer thought he made a mistake and "fixed" it, turning it the 'right' side up. I guess the printer didn't know ¿Spanish?

MEET VISUAL ARTIST CHARLIE ROSARIO

2009-01-04T09:14:00.000-08:00

I want all Latin musicians, vocalists, labels, and designers to know about Charlie Rosario, a great artist who designed some of the great album covers for salsa back in the day (think Eddie Palmieri's "The Sun Of Latin Music" for instance). Charlie is alive and well, working on fabulous paintings, sculptures, and collage art. He's still designing, and also is well versed in photography. His specialty - as far as the subject matter for his art - is the roots of the Latino experience - African rumba drumming, Aztec and Mayan imagery, and Taino themes. He knows his colonial and Pre-Columbian (B.B., as in Before Columbus) history as well, so his paintings and sculptures are very accurate and evocative of exotic times in the past. Charlie is also engaged in modern art making as well, working with an ongoing experimental, abstract vision that uses color and geometric shapes to evoke the energy and spice of Latin music. Charlie thinks outside the box - just check him out in my book, "Cocinando"! If you are a Chicano rock artist, check out the Aztec and Mayan 'sculpture graphics' on this page. If you are a salsero, you can commission any scene you like, from portraits to island vignettes, from musicians playing to El Barrio, from psychedelic and surreal to folkloric - he has many styles. If you are in jazz or Latin jazz, Charlie has the image for you. And, if you are in any 'típico' or folkloric music - Santería, rumba, jibaro - Charlie knows all about those subjects and will blow your mind with his creativity. he has been around musicians his whole life - his father was in a group with pete "Conde' rodríguez in the 60s, and his brother is a famous percussionist who has played with all the greats, from Harlow to Willie Colon, Mongo to David Bowie. Charlie has soaked up all this musical goodness (and is a poet and musician in his own right too!), so when you are dealing with him, you are dealing with an experienced master, a great soul who has been there, done that, seen it all. Stay tuned for many more postings of Charlie's artwork over the coming months. Please do not steal these images. If you are seriously interested in contracting with me or Charlie to do album design with his artwork, please contact me through the blog. Gracias — DJ Bongohead, January 2009

American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music October 13, 2007 – September 7, 2008, Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA

2008-05-04T04:47:00.000-07:00

Jasen Emmons, Manager EMP Programs, and Senior Curator at EMP walks through the exhibit....

"American Sabor, which opened last week at EMP and will run until Sept. 7, 2008, savors the Latino influence on American popular music [and is] a joyful, colorful, interactive study and celebration of the long-overlooked contribution of Latino music and rhythms to American pop music since World War II."
- Oct. 18, 2007

By Peter Kelley for University Week

This is a show that I was invited to help curate, "American sabor" - specifically I was asked to create a wall of album cover art & write about it for the wall signage. The wall's size and scope grew as I got deeper into it; I also expanded my input to help the EMP team find archive material, as well as providing a "soundtrack" of sorts for the listening kiosks attached to the album wall. In addition I put together some displays covering the different record labels that serviced the Latino markets in the various U.S. cities focused on in the exhibit. Below is some text that will help give you an idea of the show, as well as some pictures. ¡A gozar! - enjoy!

From the EMP web site:

American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music is the first interpretive museum exhibition to tell the story of the profound influence and impact of Latinos in American popular music. The exhibition was created in partnership with guest curators from the University of Washington. Rich with artifacts, instrument interactives, listening kiosks and films, American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music is open at EMP|SFM through September 7, 2008. A cell phone audio tour is available in the exhibition gallery.
The 5,000-square-foot exhibition focuses on five major centers of Latino popular music production in the post-World War II United States—New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio and San Francisco—which represent the diversity of Latino music. Each city section draws visitors into the broader histories and cultures that shaped these musicians’ contributions through artifacts, hands-on instrument interactives designed to teach key concepts, highly produced listening kiosks that allow critical listening and learning, three films created for the exhibition and interpretive text presented in English and Spanish.

American Sabor: Latinos en la Música Popular Norteamericana es la primera exposición inter pretativa sobre la profunda influencia eimpacto de los latinos en la música popular de los Unidos. Repleta de artefactos, juegos interactivos con instrumentos, cabinas musicales y películas, American Sabor: Latinos en la Música Popular Norteamericana se inaugurará en el EMP|SFM el 13 de octubre del 2007.
La exposición, con 5,000 pies cuadrados, se enfoca en cinco centros de producción de música popular latina en los Estados Unidos de la postguerra, que representan su diversidad: Nueva York, Los Ángeles, Miami, San Antonio y San Francisco. Cada sección urbana atrae al visitante a las historias y culturas que definieron a estos músicos mediante la presentación de artefactos, actividades interactivas con instrumentos cuyo propósito es resaltar conceptos clave, cabinas musicales de alta tecnología que promueven la audición y el aprendizaje críticos, tres películas producidaspara la exposición, y material interpretativo en inglés y en español.

The Catalog to the Exhibition

(exerpts from the American Sabor Narrative Touring Text provided by Experience Music Project)

Experience Music Project, in partnership with the University of Washington School of Music and College of Arts and Sciences, is currently creating American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music, the first interactive and interpretive museum exhibit to tell the story of the profound influence and impact of Latinos in American popular music. Rich with artifacts, instrument interactives, listening kiosks, and films, American Sabor will debut at Experience Music Project (EMP), a non-profit music museum in Seattle, Washington, in October 2007, before becoming a national traveling exhibition in October 2008.

To tell this complex story, the 5,000-square-foot exhibition focuses on five major centers of Latino popular music production in the post-World War II United States—New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio, and San Francisco—which represent the diversity of Latino music. Each city section draws visitors into the broader histories and cultures that shaped these musicians’ contributions through artifacts, hands-on instrument interactives designed to teach key concepts, highly produced listening kiosks that allow critical listening and learning, four films created specifically for the exhibit, striking graphics, and interpretive text presented in both English and Spanish. Following its 11-month run at Experience Music Project, American Sabor will travel to five cultural institutions (and possibly more) around the United States, spending 13 weeks at each venue.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SUBJECT
Latino contributions to popular music in the United States have too often been relegated to the margins and footnotes of a narrative dominated by the interaction of African and European Americans—an overly black and white view of our musical history. Where it is addressed, Latin music is often portrayed as an exotic resource for “American” musicians, as suggested by pianist Jelly Roll Morton’s famous reference to “the Spanish Tinge” in U.S. music.

American Sabor (sabor is the Spanish word for taste or flavor, commonly used to describe good music) is a museum exhibit that turns that phrase and that perspective on its head, documenting the roles of post-World War II U.S. Latino musicians as interpreters and disseminators of Latin American genres, but also highlighting their roles as innovators within genres of music that we understand to be indigenous to the United States, such as jazz, R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, and hip-hop. American Sabor thus addresses problems of cultural representation that are of concern to members of an increasingly visible and influential community in this country (Latinos constitute approximately 13% of the U.S. population, and gaining), while at the same time documenting musical histories and connections to the broader Americas that can be embraced and celebrated by all Americans.

Recent exhibitions about Latino music have been much narrower in scope. Latin Jazz: La Combinacíon Perfecta (Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service) focuses exclusively on Latin Jazz and does not contain any artifacts, while ¡Azúcar! The Life and Music of Celia Cruz (Smithsonian National Museum of American History) concentrates on a single artist. By focusing on five major production centers, American Sabor demonstrates the ethnic roots and diversity of Latino music, from mambo, salsa, and hip-hop in New York City to mariachi, punk, and banda rap in Los Angeles, from post-disco and pop in Miami to conjunto and Tex Mex in San Antonio and salsa and psychedelic rock in San Francisco.

The choice to focus on “popular music” is not simply a curatorial bias or a way to attract big crowds, but is predicated on the fact that popular culture is a medium through which many people make sense of their histories and their places in society. Rather than simply dismissing popular culture as a commercial product of the mass media, contemporary scholars also see it as a source of new ideas that may even shape “high culture.” American Sabor looks to popular music for what it can tell us about how people make sense of a fast-changing world and for the ways Latinos have articulated their identities in and through it.

The Exhibition

Curated by a team of experts from Experience Music Project and the UW School of Music, American Sabor presents the music of U.S. Latinos as never before, in an interpretive and interactive museum exhibition. The exhibit explores the five featured cities’ unique histories, artists, and musical styles since World War II. These geographical and chronological boundaries make the scope manageable for a 5,000-square-foot exhibit while remaining flexible enough to allow stories in the exhibit to extend into other places and times when necessary.

Among the more than 100 artifacts are instruments, costumes, and photographs that document the cultural history of U.S. Latinos, as well as records that have changed the course of U.S. music history. Hands-on music-making, critical listening, and films created by the EMP/UW curatorial team are central elements of the exhibit, designed to deepen visitors’ understanding of Latino music, rhythms, and dance. The instrument interactives teach visitors some basic techniques of button accordion, clave, hand drums, and keyboards, and the five listening stations help visitors identify some of the distinctive components of different genres, through a close listening to and breakdown of key songs. Exhibit films are especially important for the representation of social dancing, which has been a primary means for the integration of Latin music genres into the U.S. mainstream. An hour-long audio tour allows viewers to hear artists and experts share stories about specific artifacts, events, and developments. An important aim of this exhibit is to provide educational models and resources for teachers, including a companion catalog and book of essays, supplementary Web-based materials, and references to other resources.

American Sabor communicates important new perspectives on the music and cultural history of this country by providing ways for visitors, educators, and students of many different backgrounds to actively engage with the music of U.S. Latinos.

American Sabor Album Wall (Curated & Written by Pablo Yglesias)

VISUAL FLAVOR

LOOKING AT LATINOS/AS THROUGH 50 YEARS OF VINYL ALBUM COVER ART

Before I started to design Latin album covers, they were usually put together by the printers. They'd get a photo and then put down the type / titles with their eyes closed (or so it seemed to me at the time). The album covers did not have much importance to anyone, it was just some small market. I gave up my job at an advertising agency to devote myself to improving the image of Latinos by combining Music and Art.”
—Izzy Sanabria

This wall of record jackets explores the evolution of Latin music album cover art over the last 50 years. Album art should be seen not as a mute ephemeral commodity enslaved to the demands of the music bursting within, but rather as a window onto a culture’s identity, evolution, and inner dynamics. Latin music, and the design that presents it, is a unique collision of influences: African, Indigenous, European, American.
This exhibit proposes that the album is not only an invitation to dance, but that the jacket is a piece of art inspiring feelings of nostalgia while speaking to social themes (the immigrant experience, food, dance, machismo, rebellion, ethnic pride, faith) and political concerns (justice, oppression, racism). Note that humor, folklore, and fantasy were often used in the cover art to mask deeper commentary on aspects Latino life.
These album covers provide us with a visual companion to the evolving soundtrack of various Latino identities as they were shaped by experiences in the U.S. What emerges from looking at this time line of Latin music packaging is the sense that a growing consciousness of self over time has been integral to shaping perceptions of both how others see us and how we see ourselves as Latinos. The covers became more powerful and artistically challenging as the imagery moved away from the outsider view during the first 5 decades of the 20th Century that saw Latino cultures as mysterious, primitive, titillating, threatening, and hopelessly exotic. By the late 1960s, a more native identity was being expressed by designers from within the musical culture, producing a body of work increasingly in control of its own destiny and commercial representation, sometimes honest, sometimes playful and irreverent, but predominantly self-created.
In addition to representing the diversity of Latino musicians in the U.S. market, and investigating representations of identity, this wall of covers pays tribute to the numerous graphic designers and artists who frequently received very little (if any) credit or recognition for their efforts in promoting Latin music and culture.
The left half (six panels long by 12 panels high) concerns itself with the largely Chicano/Mexican-American produced music of Texas and California, while the right half shows the music industries of New York and Florida, produced primarily by people of the Spanish Caribbean. African-American influences and contributions to Latin music are also represented through out.
Though the music and cultures of the two halves are different in many ways, there are some similarities, crossovers, and common themes, the most important of which is the unique aural and visual flavor of Latin music made in this special melting-pot environment of the United States.

1)
By the late 1960s, a more native identity was being expressed by designers from within the musical culture, increasingly producing work free from the constraints of the past, and in control of its own destiny.

2)
Though the music and cover art of the two halves (Chicano versus Caribbean) differ in many ways, there are similarities, crossovers, and common themes, most importantly the unique flavor produced by the U.S. melting-pot environment.

3)
Cover art helps shape perceptions of both self and other. Graphics became more powerful and artistically challenging as the imagery moved away from the initial portrayal of Latino cultures as primitive, wanton, threatening, foolish, exotic.

4)
Humor, irony, folklore, and fantasy were often used in cover art to mask deeper commentary on aspects Latino life such as the immigrant experience, food, dance, machismo, rebellion, ethnic pride, faith, justice, oppression, and racism.

5)
“[Our] aesthetic forces you to deal with being simultaneously enlightened and offended. [It] display[s] a keen sensitivity to universal fears, fantasies, frustrations, and stupidities. In essence, raunch and taste…achieved through craftsmanship [and] truth...” —Walter Velez

American Sabor Record Label Signage (Curated & Written by Pablo Yglesias)

NY

The diverse melting-pot environment of the East Coast, specifically New York City (or La Gran Manzana), has been immensely important for the creative development and sustainability of Afro-Caribbean based Latin music and dance. Many record labels, big and small, have been documenting this vibrant scene for over a century now.

TX

Various small domestic record labels sprung up in Texas from the 1950s - 70s to record the diverse Latin music made by people of primarily Mexican-American heritage. Some were Latino owned, while others were not. Starting in the 80s much of the music was licensed to multi-national corporations based elsewhere.

CA

California represents a musical environment as multi-cultural as New York, though the musicians are primarily Mexican-American. From tiny independent labels to huge corporations, the music has found a home, with markets based primarily in L.A. and San Francisco.

FL

Until the arrival of multi-national corporations in the 1980s, small labels were the norm and flourished in Florida, though some of them had previously existed in Cuba, and were transplants to the U.S. due to the Cuban Revolution.

Photos of the opening and related events

The three guest curators of American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music. From the left, they are Michelle Habell-Pallán, Shannon Dudley and Marisol Berríos-Miranda. Behind them in a similar pose are Latino performers Celia Cruz, Ricky Martin and Gloria Estefan.

Pablo Yglesias, curator, and renounded mambo, Latin Soul, and salsa singer Willie Torres (member of the Joe Cuba Sextet, composer of hit tune "To Be With You" and the guy dancing in the photo used for the invitation and show signage)

Members of Santana, the EMP crew, and Manager EMP Programs/Senior Curator Jasen Emmens

Jasen Emmons, Manager EMP Programs, and Senior Curator at EMP and the man in charge of the exhibit (a LOT of hard work and dedication!)

Jorge Santana, leader of Malo

Mark Guerrero, musician (solo work, Mark & The Escorts, Tango, son of Lalo Guerrero, exhibit guest curator, historian, educator) with Pablo Yglesias

Santana percussionist Mike Carabello

Santana drummer Mike Shrieve

Exhibit curators Marisol Berríos-Miranda, Shannon Dudley, and vocalist (and pster boy!!) Willie Torres

DJ Bongohead plays at the opening...

Dr. Phil Scher, scholar of Carnival

Outisde the EMP building

Album cover wall

Album wall with listening stations featuring music selections from the albums on the wall, assembled by Pablo Yglesias

Musicians from the opening: Adrián Areas (the son of Chepito Areas) and bassist and orchestra leader Joe Santiago

Bassist and orchestra leader Joe Santiago (played with many salsa and Latin Jazz greats in NYC in the 70s, including the original Willie Colon Orchestra where he played trombone, and with Andy Harlow, as well as playing on the Eddie Palmieri "La Perfecta II" albums!!)

Full text of article on the show:
EMP's 'American Sabor' savors the Latino influence on American popular music
By Peter Kelley - University Week

It's possible to discuss American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music, the new exhibit at the Experience Music Project curated by three UW researchers, without singing -- but it's not nearly as much fun.
So we'll be doing some humming and singing to ourselves in this story. Ready?
Let's start with "Louie, Louie," that famous song by The Kingsmen. (You know: "Dadada! da-da, dadada! da-da …") Get it going in your mind and we'll get back to it in a minute.
American Sabor, which opened last week at EMP and will run until Sept. 7, 2008, is a joyful, colorful, interactive study and celebration of the long-overlooked contribution of Latino music and rhythms to American pop music since World War II. You can learn more at http://www.empsfm.org/.
The exhibit was guest-curated with love and enthusiasm by UW faculty Michelle Habell-Pallán, associate professor of women studies (formerly with American ethnic studies); Shannon Dudley, associate professor of ethnomusicology; and Marisol Berríos-Miranda, who has taught in ethnomusicology, music education and Latin American studies, with assistance from graduate students Rob Carroll and Francisco Orozco. The project also was supported by the UW Simpson Center for the Humanities and the College of Arts & Sciences.

"Without Latino music there wouldn't be any pop music in the United States as we know it," said Berríos-Miranda. "And what is exciting about this exhibit is the amount of creativity and enthusiasm and love that Latino musicians have given to the U.S. that has never been acknowledged."

Dudley, the UW ethnomusicologist, said, "The exhibit covers music that most Americans think of as 'Latino,' including salsa, which first developed in New York, or conjunto music from Texas. But we also wanted to show how Latinos have contributed to musical styles that we think of as quintessentially American, including jazz, rock, hip hop, and country music."

His colleague Habell-Pallán said, "Everybody knows the story of how rock emerged -- country and western got together with the blues and had a baby named rock and roll. But there was a third party there, too," she added. "The rhythms and musical sounds of the Latino community. You can't have rock and roll in the U.S. without that third element."

Sabor in Spanish means taste, or flavor. In American Sabor the researchers ask, "What makes the music of the United States tasty? What flavors distinguish it, and where have they come from?" The exhibit answers these questions with about 100 artifacts -- record sleeves, lyrics, posters, musical instruments and films -- and perhaps best, listening kiosks where visitors can hear for themselves the powerful influence of Latino rhythm on the music they've been hearing for generations.

Still humming "Louie, Louie"? Good. You're humming a cha cha cha rhythm straight out of Cuba, called "El Loco Cha Cha." Dudley said, "That riff was composed by a Cuban band leader named Rene Touzet, and then an African-American musician named Richard Berry picked up on that recording and wrote the song."

He added, "The cha cha cha has become part of the language of rock and roll, and people don't identify it as Latino anymore, because it's the American sound now. And that's the point of the exhibit -- these Latino musicians are American, they have been participating in American popular culture all along."

Let's try another. Remember "96 Tears" by ? (Question Mark) and the Mysterians? Let it play in your head ("You're gonna cry -- cry-cry-cry! You're gonna cry -- ninety-six tears!") right up to the organ solo in the middle.

Got it? That organ solo you're humming, performed by keyboardist Little Frankie Rodriguez, is an icon of 1960s pop, but it started out as a Tex-Mex-style accordion solo. Habell-Pallán said, "When you hear it in that context you say ‘Oh my God,' and you can never not hear the accordion again."

Group and performer names were often changed by record companies to hide the ethnicity of the performers, she said. But in some cases, bands invented their own "way-out" names such as Question Mark and the Mysterians or used barrio names such as Cannibal and the Headhunters, who did the 1965 song "Land of a Thousand Dances." You might remember it for its famous "na-na-na-na-na" refrain that tells listeners, "You gotta know how to pony! Like Boney Maroney!"

"They were a group out of East L.A. and you wouldn't know they were Mexican-American," Habell-Pallán said, "At the time, records were marketed as black or white, and if you were brown you really felt out of that alignment."

Examples abound throughout American Sabor. In fact, visitors of baby boomer age who have a mainstream, Top-40 sensibility are likely to hear many familiar riffs, rhythms and refrains -- only this time attributed to the correct ethnic and international influence.

The exhibit focuses on five American cities that have been key centers in Latino music: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Antonio and Miami, with maps showing the international influences on each city. It celebrates the music of well-known Latino stars -- Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Richie Valens (whose vest, which he wore on the television show American Bandstand, is on display as well as a guitar), Selena, and the great Carlos Santana, who started life as a violinist.

There is the painful history of Latino marginalization here to be explored as well as the celebration of Latino music, said Dudley, and the researchers worked hard to strike the right balance between academic and pure musical fun. "We've all brainstormed a lot about, what are the big issues here? And what can this exhibit achieve in terms of opening people's eyes?" They even brought in scholars from across the county to help decide what the exhibit would include, and how.

Dudley said three major themes guided the curators as they worked:

* that these "irrepressibly exuberant" musical movements were born of the youth culture. Then as now, young people use music to find and express their place in the world.
* second, that the political issues of immigration and migration are "part and parcel of how this music took the shape it did," and that such issues remain in the headlines today, and
* third, that this wonderful music is how Latinos expressed their American experience, and still do.
American Sabor takes up 5,000 square feet of space at the EMP, which is about twice the space originally planned, said Jasen Emmons, EMP curator. Emmons (whom the curators credit with much help and having "great ears") said the EMP partners with the UW, radio station KEXP and with a group called the Seattle Partnership for American Music, and had been looking for a new project. He said the museum took down its Jimi Hendrix area to make room for the American Sabor exhibits.
The UW guest curators said they could not have done their work without an original seed grant and ongoing support from the UW's Simpson Center. They are proud, too, that Spanish-speaking UW undergraduate students will get service learning credits for acting as Spanish language docents for the exhibit -- making it the first bilingual exhibit hosted by EMP.
Marisol Berríos-Miranda knows that the historic ignoring of the Latino influence in American pop music is part of "a larger challenge -- we have to recognize the contributions of Latinos not only in music but in life, too, as well as in academia.
"We're trying to correct that," she said, "in a humble way."
Stop by the EMP to see American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music and learn more about what you've been hearing all these years on the radio.
If you don't -- sing it with me now, just as Question Mark said -- you're gonna cry!
Cry cry cry!

Joe Santiago, Salsa/Latin bass, percussion

Joe Santiago (courtesy U Washington)

When Joe was playing trombone in Willie Colon's orchestra, c. 1968

Joe Santiago was born in 1950 in Naranjito, Puerto Rico. He grew up in the Bronx, New York. His first musical instrument was the viola, assigned to him by his junior high school music teacher because of the size of his hands. Santiago was more interested in the trumpet, though, and shined shoes on the street corner until he earned enough money to buy one. Not long afterwards he met an ambitious classmate named Willie Colón and switched to the trombone so he could play in Colón’s band. Playing for dances at clubs and community centers, these teenagers’ brash trombone-heavy sound (soon to be labeled “salsa”) earned them an enthusiastic following in the Bronx and attracted attention from record producer Al Santiago of Alegre Records. Santiago went on to play trombone on Colón’s first two albums for the new FANIA label, “El Malo” (1966) and “The Hustler” (1967), before switching to the instrument he was to play for the rest of his career, the bass.

Santiago supplemented his catch-as-catch-can learning in the Bronx with formal training at the New York School of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Berklee School of Music. By the 1970s he had become one of the most sought-after bass players in the burgeoning salsa scene. He stands today at the top of his profession, with a portfolio that includes recordings and performances with some of the great names in Latin music, including Machito, Mario Bauzá, Mongo Santamaria, Carlos “Patato” Valdez, La Sonora Ponceña, Johnny Pacheco, Celia Cruz, and Tito Puente, to name just a few. Since the mid-1990s he has played and recorded with pianist Eddie Palmieri, from whom he earned the nickname “Timba” (a word that refers to the sound of a drum) for the powerful rhythm of his bass playing.

Willie Torres dancing at a gig in the Catskills, late 50s early 60s (thanks Johan K.)

Joe Cuba Sextet

Johnny Pacheco

Ray Barretto

Ritchie Valens

Lalo Guerrero (Mark's dad)

Mark Guerrero's band, Tango

San Antonio legend, Flaco Jimenez

Celia Cruz album cover in show from Henry Medina, Jr. (thanks for all your help Henry!!!!)

Cooking With Gas - Stories Behind Latin Album Cover Art

2008-01-14T06:28:00.000-08:00

This article appeared in a slightly different form in Wax Poetics Magazine, issue 12, Spring 2005

I can still remember the first time going down into the funky Times Square subway station in Manhattan in the mid 70s as a kid and being blown away by Jesse Moskowitz's Record Mart, a crammed joint selling both the latest and classic Latin music. The sinuous sounds coming from that urban oasis echoed down the tiled halls empty of commuters. There was a display in the window of album covers, and being a young artist, I was immediately drawn to the titillating illustrations and photographs, depicting for this virgin novice swirling worlds of the conga and trombone, sexy smiling mulatas and swaggering bandleaders strutting their stuff. The vibrant colors, obvious joy and exuberance of the musicians, as well as more troubling images of urban decay, outlaw criminality and Surrealist fantasy, grabbed me, wouldn’t let go. Because I wanted to know the story behind each cover, I wanted to hear the sounds seductively packaged within. The art set me up, suckered me into paying cash I didn’t have. Down in the subterranean record stacks I was reminded of my father’s wild tales of Cuba, an exotic place I had never been. His treasure trove of abused old records served as crucial visual aids to a lost world that was otherwise hard to imagine. As I grew older I realized that the LP jacket is far from being the mass-produced pulp of ephemeral unreality our quickie throw-away culture wants us to believe. Rather, it serves as a sacred talisman and Rosetta stone that unlocks the mysteries of identity and history, and artist/designers like Izzy Sanabria, Ely Besalel, Charlie and Yogi Rosario, Ron Levine, Chico Alvarez, Dominique, and in Brazil, Rogério Duarte and Hélio Oiticica, are the poet-seers of the vinyl realm, guiding us along the path to self knowledge. It is with this in mind that I share with the reader a little taste of the richness that lies behind the classic covers on the following pages.

Mongo Santamaria’s "Feelin’ Alright" LP was Izzy Sanabria’s first airbrush job. The year was 1970. The gleaming tool was fresh out of the box when disaster struck. Charlie Rosario, Sanabria’s assistant at the time, recalls that the pressure was really on due to a looming deadline when, during a routine cleaning operation at the kitchen sink, one of the precious intricate parts of the airbrush popped off and fell into the wash basin, disappearing seemingly forever down the drain. Izzy “freaked out because there was very little time to complete the art” relates Rosario. This job was not for a regular familiar client like Fania, but for a relatively new customer, Atlantic Records, and Izzy did not want to disappoint. A lot of desperate fishing about in the drain for the errant piece of equipment resulted in absolutely nothing but a finger-full of old food and gloppy hair. Yelling something like “We gotta get this damn thing if it kills us!,” Izzy rushed down stairs at break-neck speed to the basement of the building, Charlie in hot pursuit, where they found the super and excitedly explained their dilemma. After many anxious minutes of waiting, the designer and his assistant saw the super return with a huge wrench, with which he helped open up the building’s extensive plumbing, and by some miracle of the gods of graphic art, there was the wayward airbrush piece, shining dimly in the gook of a dismantled elbow joint, more precious than a diamond nestled in the deepest mine pit! The job was finished on time to the relief of all, and Izzy, always a flamboyant dresser, rushed out the door, portfolio nestled under his arm, draped in his special bullfighter jacket, and proceeded downtown, showing up at the offices of Atlantic no doubt looking like a pimped-out cross between Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. The cover hit the printer’s on time, but not before Atlantic’s art director “ruined” the cover with “corny lettering,” according to Sanabria. He still has the original art to this day among his most cherished archival possessions. Though others may differ with Izzy’s opinion of how the layout finally ended up, and the music on the LP seems a bit dated, one thing’s for sure: it was well worth it to go to the ends of the earth to find that pesky little airbrush piece!

Willie Colón’s early Fania album covers (1967-1975) trace a cinematic trajectory of the Latino as criminalized outlaw (with a dash of humor), starting with the tough street kid (El malo), and petty pool shark ("The Hustler"), graduating to thievery and organized crime ("Guisando/Doing A Job," "Cosa Nuestra"), leading to the inevitable incarceration and escape ("La Gran Fuga/The Big Break") and trial ("El juicio"), and ending as a hostage taking terrorist ("Lo mato"). Sanabria, who conceived this identity for Colón, explains how he hit on the unprecedented use of a mug shot for "La Gran Fuga": “I was always bumping heads at Fania, Jerry Masucci wanted complete control most of the time, but occasionally I was able to turn things around and be completely accepted. Typical was 'La Gran Fuga.' Willie’s whole bad-ass image was kind of a goof, though these kids really did hang in the street, some had been to prison, and I seriously wanted to play up on the whole gangster image to subvert it. The concept was ahead of its time, look at all those rappers’ album covers following in Willie’s footsteps! They handed me a photograph, which was the guys in prison outfits, escaping over the fence of a prison in PR. A funny half an idea, but it needed a story. I used that photograph, turned it into a black and white to make it look like a newspaper, and made a replica of the New York Daily News on the back. In the 60’s I had seen these posters of Black Panthers who were wanted by the FBI. Hippies were selling copies of the posters to dramatize oppression, and that was my inspriartion. The irony is, those mug shots are the cheapest damn photographs ever taken for an album cover! I went to the corner where there was one of these arcades. Four for a quarter. I wanted that bad quality! The prison numbers are his previous LP catalogue numbers. The fingerprints were taken from a post office Wanted poster. I pasted them into position, my friend Vinny Alonso and I wrote the copy ‘Wanted for exciting riots with his trombone,’ and the FBI was the ‘Freaks Bureau of Investigation.’ What made that album cover so controversial was that the FBI stopped the thing in its tracks because there was also a poster on the inside of the album, which was pasted around the city, and in Puerto Rico, advertising it, which asked people to turn Colón in to the FBI. Plus I did these tie-in radio ads. So Willie’s grandmother was hysterical, they were telling her ‘Ay, they want your grandson!’ Soon the Feds became aware of it, and what we found out was that it’s illegal to put anything on the market that will in any way give the impression that the FBI is behind this. You can’t do this kind of parody, you see. Whereas the posters these hippies were putting out were exact replicas, and were just helping the FBI’s propaganda. What they had them do was turn the album covers around for display in the stores, so you were looking at the back of the LP, and all subsequent printings could only say ‘Wanted’ without the FBI part. The albums that have the ‘Wanted by the FBI’ with the poster inside are the collectors’ items!”

Producer and jazz musician Joe Cain was at the helm at Tico records for many funky Joe Cuba albums, and two of them stand out cover-wise: "Bustin’ Out" (1972) and "Cocinando la salsa" (1976). The principal parties involved discuss their unique qualities below. Ely Besalel on "Bustin’ Out": “We went around the corner from my studio to 53rd Street where there were some unoccupied brownstones, it was one of the worst times for real estate in New York, even mid-town looked like the ghetto. The band went to the stoop, grabbed trash cans, and started banging away, playing their congas and singing, and I’m in the middle of the street shooting pictures, dodging traffic! I looked around at other covers and said why isn’t this kind of thing [documentary social-realism] being done for a major Latin artist? I mean black and white for the Joe Cuba Sextet in the age of affordable four color printing? Unheard of!” Ely used graffiti lettering, a technique previously employed by Sanabria. Graffiti brought street credibility with youth appeal and also signified a gritty authenticity opposed to the glitz of the Palladium days. “I hated the graffiti on the walls everywhere,” Izzy says of his early Ray Barretto cover "Acid," “but it was a fact of city life; it might have looked like I did it slap-dash, but I labored over it!” With "Bustin’ Out," Besalel created a documentary-style barrio street rumba scene in sepia, burned around the edges like the image had survived rioting or been saved from the garbage. Cuba: “Headbands and bellbottoms were in. That was the first time we posed in our street clothes. Earlier we used to be all flash, Palladium style. We made a racket! My t-shirt said Young Devils, my stick-ball team. I didn’t know it was going to be black and white at first, but it showed our new hard style of music.” Cuba’s "Cocinando la salsa" documents another side of the bandleader, that of host and cook. Ron Levine comments: “Yeah, that’s Joe’s cooking, very tasty. I guess it’s like a salsa album, right? Name like that, pretty obvious it’s capitalizing on the term salsa. "Sofrito" [a stone funk fusion album by Mongo Santamaria, designed by Levine] is a nice cooking album too! Mongo made the skillet of food you see on the cover himself, we shot it at Jerry’s place.” Cuba on "Cocinando la salsa": “I love to cook, experimental dishes especially. This picture shows me cookin’ all the good Puerto Rican stuff at La Asia No.1 Restaurant, a Cuban-Chinese joint on the West Side where we used to hang out.” Food is culture, and congueros like Cuba, Barretto, and Santamaria cook with their hands, be it drum or frying pan.

While most Latin covers never strayed too far, another more radical body of work was forming in the apartment studio of a unique thinker and fine artist, Brooklyn’s Charlie Rosario. Charlie was consistently the most outrageous designer of the 70s in Latin music. Indeed, his daring puts him on par with the best of any LP genre, at any time. There is a story behind every Rosario cover, and Charlie remembers it all: “It was ‘Hey man, let’s break the monotony!’ because Izzy was doin’ just about everything. He was basically an illustrator with great ideas, I followed all his covers from when I was a kid and I was amazed by his creativity, but I said ‘What am I waiting for?’ I can sculpt, I can photograph, I can paint. So I just broke away and did my thing. I was the first to do sculpture graphics! Orchestra Harlow’s "Live In Quad" was weird, totally spontaneous, I just engraved this copper by hand, we had to photograph that in black light, long exposure, so it would really shine. Had to make it a gatefold, my stuff never fit their requirements. The metal kept puffing up so I had to beat it back down with my fist. Felt funny to be hittin’ Larry in the nose like that! For Charlie Palmieri’s "Electro duro," the two hands are made of Colt 45 beer cans. And I drank like ten of them and said lemme start hammering away, two hundred nails, man! I only stopped when I banged my fingernail! The silver in the back is a printing plate, and the gold part is one of them cracker cans. The cover really blew people’s heads apart man, they weren’t ready for that. I showed the sculpture to Charlie Palmieri at a dance, and he said ‘This is my next cover!’ because it was all electric organ tunes! I came up with the title, ‘duro’ means hard like metal but also like ‘strong.’ Now the "Kako" cover [on TR Records], Kako Bastor’s an outta sight percussionist that made mystical music. I made a sculpture of a tribal guy playing a drum, he’s missing an arm. The concept is music is as primitive as the first heartbeat or when the sun showed up for the first time. As time goes by [everything man made] breaks apart, made of materials from the earth, like the pyramids in Giza, so that’s why he looks like he’s made of sand, sittin’ on top of a pyramid with the sun on his shoulder. I made this imitation beach at 3 a.m. in my apartment with sand from the boiler room. Poured it on the living room floor! I had back projections of Puerto Rico, the sky and waves right on the wall behind. But it was too limited in the photo angle, too dinky lookin’! So I was gettin’ tired and silly and my brother said why don’t we pour alcohol over the figure, set it on fire like he’s playin’ so hot. Well that was the worst thing we could do! The damn paper caught on fire, the whole beach went up in smoke, we started panicking, sand all over the rug, alarm went off, my sister yellin.’ So then I went to a real beach, Coney Island. I had bought this giant lizard, a gila monster, from the pet store, and some potted cactus plants, to make the picture more prehistoric. I built this giant pyramid, dug out a trench and photographed it looking up so this 7 inch clay sculpture looked huge, monumental. Thing was, the lizard ran away down the beach so the shoot ended with me chasin’ him all down along the boadwalk! Back in the studio, I took this aerial photo of Puerto Rico that I had, with sun streaks through the clouds, turned it upside down, did a double exposure, and it looked like the drum was exploding with light! I used to go from one extreme to another, brakin’ all the rules, making history, it kept me from being bored. The Tipica ‘73 cover ['La Candela'] is the only Latin tapestry on a record jacket! I wove that thing from wool in fire colors, but it caused a fight at Inca Records, they didn’t want spend for a gatefold on it, and it didn’t fit in the regular confinement of the square. That project took forever, I was freaking out, time was runnin’ out, so I got my family and friends on it, we’d have a party, get them all high so they’d really get into the work, and it was like ‘Everybody’s gonna sew here till our eyeballs fall out, man!’”

The Covers

Discography (left to right, top to bottom)

Page 1

Desi Arnaz
Babalú
RCA Victor P 198, c. 1940s

Beny Moré
Canciones de las Antillas
RCA Victor MLK 3085, c. 1950s

Machito
Afro-Cuban Jazz; The Music of Chico O’ Farrill,
Supervised by Norman Granz
Cleff MG C-689, 1950
Design: David Stone Martin

Cal Tjader Quintet
Cal Tjader Quintet
Fantasy 3232, 1956
Design and illustration:
Betty Brader

Joe Loco and his Quintet
Viva Mambo
Tico LP 1013, 1954
Art and design: Sandoval,
Lee Myles Assoc.

Orquesta Aragon
Cha Cha Cha
RCA Victor MLK 3070, c. 1950s

Pacheco y Su Charanga
Pacheco y su charanga
con Elliot Romero
Alegre LPA 801, c. 1961
Art and design: Izzy Sanabria

Fajardo, Chapotin, Orefiche, Conjunto Casino
Cuban Dance Festival; 4 Bands !!
Toreador T-539, c. 1965
Art & Design: Ely Besalel

Sabu Martinez
Sabu’s Jazz Espagnol
Alegre, 1961
Design and illustration:
Izzy Sanabria

The Alegre All-Stars
The Alegre All-Stars In
“Lost and found” Vol. 3
Alegre SLPA 8430, 1966
Design, concept, art:
Izzy Sanabria

Arsenio Rodriguez y su conjunto
Sabroso y caliente
Antilla MLP-586, c. 1950s

Cachao y Su Ritmo Caliente
Cuban Jam Sessions in Miniature: “Descargas”
Panart 2092, 1957

Joe Cuba
Joe Cuba
Embajador E6003, c. 1960s

Various Artists
Charlie Palmieri: Lo Ultimo
con La Playa Sextet, Emilio Reyes
Embajador E 6001, c. 1960s

Cal Tjader
Mambo with Tjader!
Fantasy 3326
Illustration and design: Wanek

Forbidden Cuba in the 80’s:
Grupo Afrocuba Smooth Jazz Moods
RMM RMD82235, 1998
Design and photo imaging: Pablo Yglesias
Photo: Jorge Garcia Torres
Art director: Carlo Angelo Moralishvili

Mongo Santamaria
Mongo Santamaria’s Afro-Cuban Drums
SMC LP 592, 1952

Various, incl. Ignacio Piñero y los Roncos
Festival In Havana
Riverside RLP 4005, 1955
Design: Gene Gogerty

World Pacific Presents The Music of Cuba:
Various Artists
El jazz cubano
World Pacific/Capitol/Blue Note CDP 0777 7 80599 2 9, 1993
Design: Patrick Roques
Painting: Pablo Yglesias

Luis Gasca
Collage
Fantasy F-9504, 1976
Art direction: Phil Carroll
Art: Jamie Putnam

Page 2

Ray Rodriguez and his Orchestra
Delusion
Alegre LPA-869, 1969
Design, photography, illustration: Ely Besalel

Orchestra Harlow
Heavy Smokin’
Fania 331, 1966
Photo: Lee Kraft
Art director: Izzy Sanabria

Joe Bataan
Subway Joe
Fania SLP 345, 1968
Art director: Izzy Sanabria
Photo: Marty Topp

Willie Bobo
Uno dos tres/1•2•3
Verve V/V6-8648, 1966
Design: Acy R. Lehman
Photo: Charles Stewart

Johnny Zamot
Tell It Like It Is
Decca DL 74945

T’n’T Boys
Sex Symbols/Simbolos Sexuales
Cotique CS-1038
Art director: Izzy Sanabria
Photo: Bradley Olman

Tito Puente and his Orchestra
El Rey Tito Puente/The King
Tito Puente
Tico SLP-1172, 1968
Art and concept: Charlie Rosario

Eddie Bastian and his Orchestra
Hippies Boogaloo
Hopes 885

Ray Barretto
Acid
Fania SLP 346, 1967
Design: Izzy Sanabria
Photography: Marty Topp

The Latin Souls
Tiger Boo-Ga-Loo
Kapp KS 3553

Mongo Santamaria
Feelin' Alright
Atlantic 1567, 1970
Illustration: Izzy Sanabria
Design: Haig Adishian

Monguito “El Único” y
su conjunto
De todo un poco
Fania LP 386
Art and design: Izzy Sanabria

Eddie Palmieri
Superimposition
Tico SLP-1194, 1970
Art and design: Ely Besalel
La Lupe
La Lupe es la reina/La Lupe - The Queen
Tico LP 1192, 1969
Design: Ely Besalel
Photo: Warren Flagler

The LeBron Brothers
I Believe
Cotique CS-1022
Design: John Murello
Photo: Charles Stewart

Cal Tjader
Soul Sauce
Verve V-8614, 1964
Design: Acy Lehman
Photo: Murray Laden

Tom Zé
Tom Zé
Rozenblit LP 50.010, 1968
Design and Photo: Officina Programacao Visual-SP
Art: Satoru

Gilberto Gil
Gilberto Gil
Philips R 765.087 L, 1969
Art and design: Rogério Duarte and Antonio Dias
Photo: David Drew Zingg

Jorge Ben
Jorge Ben
Philips F. 765.100L, 1969
Photo: Johnny Salles
Design: Lincoln
Illustration: Albery

Tom Zé
Todos os olhos
Continental SLP 10121
Concept: Décio Pignatari
Photo: Reinaldo de Moraes
Design: M. Pedro Ferreira
and F. Eduardo de Andrade

Page 3

Silvestre, El Rey del Canto Afro Cubano y Su Orquesta
Oriza: Afro-Cuban Rhythms
Seeco CELP 4260, 1958
Design and art: L. Pearl

Mongo Santamaria
Up from The Roots
Atlantic SD 1621, 1972
Concept: Izzy Sanabria
Art direction and design: Richard Mantell

Emilio Barreto
Santisimo en ritual
Luz Productions LUZ 0002, 2001
Design and digital imaging: Pablo Ellicott Yglesias

Los Pleneros de la 21/Conjunto Melodia Tropical
Puerto Rico, Ruerto Rico:
Mi tierra natal
Shanachie 65001, 1989
Art: Manny Vega

Jaime de Jesus y su cuarteto ‘Alma Alegre’
El Plenero
Ninfa NLP 03 1083
Art and Photo: R. Oliva
Model: Deda Hunt
Design: Hispanoamerica Advertising Agency

Daniel Ponce
New York Now
Celluloid/OAO CELL 5005, 1983
Design: Felipe Orrego
Type setting: Elliott Dunderdale
Layout production: Thi-Linh Le

Harlem River Drive
Harlem River Drive Featuring Eddie Palmieri and
Jimmy Norman
Roulette SR 3004, 1971
Design: Ruby Mazur’s Art Dept.
Art: based on a photo by Leonard Freed

The Jimmy Castor Bunch
It’s Just Begun
RCA LSP 4640, 1972
Design: Frank Mulvey
Artist: Corrigan
Art Director: Acy Lehman

Harvey Averne Barrio Band
The Harvey Averne Barrio Band
Heavy Duty SLP 101, 1971
Concept: Harvey Averne
Front cover art: Ludovico de Luigi/Galleria d’Arte Moderna Ravagnan, Veneto, Italia
Back cover photo: Bob Gruen
Design: Izzy Sanabria

Joe Cuba Sextet
Bustin’ Out
Tico CLP 1300, 1972
Design and photography:
Ely Besalel

Cortijo
Cortijo and his Time Machine/Cortijo y
su máquina de tiempo
Coco CLP 108, 1974
Photo, art, design, and concept : Ely Besalel

El Chicano
Revolution
Kapp KS 3640, 1971
Art direction: John C. LeProvost
Design: Virginia Clark
Photography: Eddie Caballero

Mongo Santamaria
Afro-Indio
Vaya XVS-38, 1975
Art and design: Ron Levine

Malo
Malo
Warner Brothers BS 2584, 1972
Illustration: Jesús Helguera and
Galas de Mexico, S.A.
Design: John and Barbara Casado
Art direction: Chris Whorf

Azteca
Pyramid of the Moon
Columbia KC 32451, 1973
Design and photography: Bruce Steinberg

Seguida
Love Is...
Fania XSLP 00478, 1974
Concept: Bill Garretson
Illustration: Izzy Sanabria
Design: Izzy Sanabria

Cándido
Thousand Finger Man
Solid Sate SS 18066, 1969
Art direction: Frank Gauna
Photography: Chuck Stewart

Toro
Toro
Coco CLP 106, 1975
Art direction: Izzy Sanabria
Design: Chico Alvarez
Illustration: Walter Velez

Santana
Santana’s Greatest Hits
Columbia PC 33050, 1974
Photograph: Joel Baldwin
Design: John Berg

Page 4

Willie Colón
La gran fuga/The Big Break
Fania SLP 394, 1971
Concept and design:
Izzy Sanabria

Willie Colón
El Juicio
Fania (S)LP 00424, 1972
Design: Izzy Sanabria
Illustration: Aggie Whelane

Ray Barretto
Indestructible
Fania SLP 00456, 1973
Design and shirt: Walter Velez/WE-2 Graphis, Inc.
Photography: Roberto Schneider

Hector Rivera con Tony Molina
Lo máximo
Tico CLP 1324, 1974
Art, design, photography:
WE-2 Design, Izzy Sanabria, Yogi Rosario
Illustration: Walter Velez

Azuquita y su Orquesta Melao
Pura salsa
Vaya VS-34, 1975
Art direction and design:
Izzy Sanabria

Ralphy Santi y su conjunto
Ralphy Santi y su conjunto
TR 132X, 1977
Design: “The Big Red”
Design Studio

Eddie Palmieri
The Sun of Latin Music
Coco CLP 109XX, 1974
Painting and graphic design: Charlie Rosario
Photo: Gary Mason

Francisco “Kako” Bastor
Kako
TR, 1970s
Art, photography, design: Charlie Rosario

Charlie Palmieri
ElectroDuro
Coco CLP-111, 1974
Art and design (“sculpture graphics”): Charlie Rosario
Photography: Gary Mason,
Yogi Rosario

Orchestra Harlow/Larry Harlow
Live-Quad
Fania QXSLP# 00472, 1974
Art and design (“metalgraphics”): Charlie Rosario
Photography: Gary Mason

Conjunto Melao
Conjunto Melao
TR 1976
Concept, art, photo and design: Charlie Rosario

Tipica ‘73
La candela
Inca XSLP 1043, 1975
Art design and concept:
Charlie Rosario

Hector Lavoe
Comedia
Fania JM 0052, 1978
Photography: Yoshi Ohara
Layout and design: Michael Ginsburg/Gazebo Group
Art director: Alberta Dering

Ray Barretto
Rican/struction
Fania SLP 552, 1979
Art: Jorge Vargas
Concept and art direction and design: Izzy Sanabria,
Latino Communications, Inc.

Joe Cuba
Cocinando la Salsa (Cookin’ The Sauce)
Tico JMTS-1405, Series 0698, 1976
Photography: Lee Marshall
Design: Ron Levine

Ismael Rivera y sus cachimbos
Esto fue lo que trajo el barco
Tico CLP 1305, 1972
Design and illistration: Ely Besalel

Sonora Ponceña
Sonora Ponceña
Inca SLP 1033, 1972
Art design: WE-2 Design
Art direction: Izzy Sanabria
Illustration: Walter Velez

Sonora Ponceña
Energized
Inca JMIS-1072, 1979
Concept, illustration and design: Ron Levine

Eddie Palmieri
Lucumi, Macumba, Voodoo
Epic 35523, 1978
Photo: Jim Houghton
Design: Paula Scher

Fania All Stars
Live in Japan, 1976
Fania No. 116, 1976
Art, concept, and title lettering: Ron Levine

The designers:

Photo of Jorge Vargas courtesy of Jorge Vargas

"Here is my photo...25 or 30 years ago...(my hair is almost white now). This was my studio in Long Island (IT IS ALWAYS ON MY MIND...). By the way, you can see in the backgroud some album covers I did on the wall and...of course, no computers. Those where the days my friend. Great memories, with Izzy and the latin world. The music, the culture; it's our roots...and, 30 years later, people are taking about it again." - Jorge Vargas

Photo of Steve Quintana III courtesy Steve Quintana III

"The Joe Bataan "Salsoul" cover was interesting - I put a lot of jokes in thre, a lot of details of New York in that painting, the board I did it on was really big, and when I was finished I took it to show the guys at Mericana and one of them said - where is Joe? Put Joe's face on there somewhere, we want to see him on there! Man, I was not happy about that - it was finished and I wanted to get paid and move on to the next thing, you know? So, at the last minute, I had to air brush in there a portrait of him. I still don't think it goes, but they loved it over there. Anyway they say it's a classic album, maybe but I liked the first version better - the original painting was destroyed in a fire." - Steve Quintana III

Photo of Charlie and Yogui Rosario building sets at Carnegie Hall for the Tico-Alegre All Stars show, May 24, 1974; courtesy Charlie Rosario; photo by Dominique; cover designed by Angelo Velazquez, interior by Yogui Rosario

Photo of Rogério Duarte: By Milla Petrilho/Courtesy Rogério Duarte and Ana de Oliveira

“To me, Tropicalismo represented the synthesis between spirituality and Marxism, the people’s naive creativity and political militancy. The designer is committed to anonymity, like the artisans who are recognized by their work and not by their names. I have changed the visual arts in Brazil and I am acknowledged for it now to a certain extent, but not popularly because my work is more erudite. Our album covers represent Brazil itself: all it’s conflicts and joys, all it’s milk and cocoa, all it’s naked girls and starving children in the streets, all it’s richness and misery! Latin America: the 3RD world wailing in front of the gates of the first world!”
—Rogério Duarte

Photo of Ron Levine: Courtesy Ron Levine

“I look back at the 70s, it was the heyday for salsa, it was really fun, wild, and the friendships that I made were great. There was always a party. Jerry Masucci at Fania was a wonderful friend and mentor to me, we treated each other with respect. Tito Puente was a gentleman, Celia Cruz was a sweetheart. A year before he died, Masucci called me up to do another fantasy painting for a Ponceña cover, and he said ‘I miss you man, I love you,’ and he didn’t just talk out through the mouth to me, he was usually a very closed off kind of guy. I was sad when Jerry passed.”—Ron Levine

Photo of Izzy Sanabria and Walter Velez: Courtesy Izzy Sanabria Archives

“Before I started to design Latin album covers, they were usually put together by the printers. They'd get a photo and then put down the type/titles with their eyes closed. The album covers did not have much importance to anyone, it was just some small market. I gave up my job at an advertising agency to devote myself to improving the image of Latinos by combining Music and Art. Just as great works of art reflect social, religious and political views at different periods of world history, these covers should also reflect the same things in relation to our music and culture throughout 50 years. Am I flattered and thrilled about ‘Cocinando’? Damn right I am. Am I proud? Damn right I am. And to those Latinos picking up this book, I hope you will share my pride. If you're a non-Latino, I hope and expect that this book will help shed some light on this small part of our visual and commercial Pop culture.” —Izzy Sanabria

“[Our] aesthetic forces you to deal with being simultaneously enlightened and offended. [It] display[s]a keen sensitivity to universal fears, fantasies, frustrations, and stupidities. In essence, Raunch and Taste. Taste that can only be achieved through craftsmanship, dedication to the truth (though somewhat stretched), and polish.”
—Walter Velez

Photo of Yogi Rosario: Courtesy Charlie Rosario

" I loved working on the album covers - it did not pay well, but Latin music is in my blood and I would never trade those years for anything. I love making collages, and I used to have a whole stack of magazine pictures and photos and books just for doing collages. The carving I did for the 'Pacheco Greatest Hits' was a funny story - they ended up putting a sticker over the flute because Joe Cain was afraid it would look like Pachecko was sucking a you know what. I didn't see it that way at all, but in the last minute they slapped that ugly black sticker on there covering it up. I was mad about that, but at the same time I didn't want people getting the wrong idea." - Yogui Rosario

Photo of Angelo Velazquez courtesy of Angelo Velazquez

"Pablo, we may have created these album covers, but that was a long time ago, and you're the one that's making sure that people know who we are and what we've accomplished. At one point last night Charlie told me 'Angelo, I just feel so damn proud, because I thought all the work we did was forgotten. I never thought anyone would care enough to do this, or that we would ever get any recognition.' God bless you, brother. - Angelo Velazquez in a personal communication

Photo of Charlie Rosario: Courtesy Charlie Rosario

“I was continually trying to challenge myself with these covers, to go beyond. I didn’t care really about the ‘market’ or the buyer or whatever. I loved the music, knew a lot of the musicians. I wanted to take this stuff as far out as it could get!” —Charlie Rosario

Photo of Chico Alvarez: Chico Alvarez

“You can say that I gave up the business because the art of the album cover was "lost" when the CD was invented. There is just no way that I can appreciate art that is supposed to be bigger than life, when it is in such a small format. Album cover art was crucial to the selling of the record, and the artists who mastered it were the “chosen few.” Today, anyone with a computer can design a cover. Like Frank Gauna and Walter Velez, there were a lot of guys (and ladies too I imagine) who worked on the album covers simply because it was their gig, but who would have preferred designing in another field, unlike Izzy and myself, who dedicated ourselves almost exclusively to that particular genre, a specialized field you might say, to the (almost) exclusion of everything else. I've never taken a lesson in either fine or commercial art in my life. The only courses I took where night classes at School of Visual Arts in airbrush techniques and a very good course in the layout and preparation of art for offset printing. In those days that was the equivalent of taking a course in computer graphics. Yes I did have an art teacher in High School, as well as an art teacher in grade school in Cuba, but I can't remember anything about them. I think that I either developed my skills through instinct or they came to me through geneolgy - my mother was an artist.” —Chico Alvarez

Photo of Ely Besalel: Courtesy Ely Besalel

“I know production very well, so I could control the design and printing processes even though I couldn’t translate my ideas instantaneously the way you can now with computers. Sometimes an idea never made it off the sketch pad! It was like pulling teeth with these people to get your name in the credits. Morris Levy of Roulette Records screamed and threw me out of his office once because I told him his idea for a cover was in poor taste.”
—Ely Besalel

Photo of Hélio Oiticica: Courtesy Editora Abril and Ana de Oliveira

“Before anything else it is necessary to clarify my interest for dance, for rhythm, in my particular case it came from a vital necessity for a disintellectualisation [...]. It was therefore, an experience of greater vitality, indispensable, particularly in the demolition of preconceived ideas and stereotypification, etc....[my] environmental art...is much more than macaws and banana trees: it is the consciousness of a non-conditioning to the established structures, therefore, highly revolutionary as a whole. Any conformism, being it intellectual, social or existential, is out of its main idea." - Helio Oiticica (conceptual artist and designer of the cover for Gal Costa's "Legal" album, 1970)

Photo of Izzy Sanabria at Latin NY Magazine: By Charles J. Gonzalez, Courtesy Izzy Sanabria Archives

"Just as the great works of art reflect social, religious and political views at different periods of world history, these covers ...also reflect the same things in relation to our music and culture throughout 50 years." - Izzy Sanabria

Some mercantile recommendations

2008-01-08T03:53:00.000-08:00

Check out one of my favorite record stores: Dynamite Records. You can find them online at www.dynamiterecords.com. They have great vinyl and a whole lot of cool CDs and the staff is very helpfull and knowledgeable. Ronnie the owner is a DJ and is always putting on great events. They also will process orders fast. The Muhammad Ali cover came courtesy Dynamite, and many other covers in my book have come from them.

Another is Dusty Groove. You can find them at www.dustygroove.com. These guys were innovators in the online shopping category way back when and they are still the best for all your grove oriented needs. Great reviews on the site, and the occasional used vinyl treasure. Plus they have hard to find imports too! They are doing a great job selling my book and several CDs/LPs I have worked on over the last few years, muchas gracias. One of the top dudes there, Rick, is an excellent guy - shout out to you my man!

For Latin music online, I also go to descarga.com - very knowledgeable staff, excellent articles, and informative reviews. The owner Bruce is very nice and deserves a lot of respect. You can usually find whatever you neeed for your Latin jones, from CDs to DVDs, even the odd cutout or sealed vinyl from time to time.

Bruce

One of the best record labels around - they do vinyl!! - is Vampisoul over in Madrid. The folks there have put out some GREAT funk, soul, Latin, jazz, afrobeat, and garage rock over the years. Make sure to visit their site at www.vampisoul.com!!!!! [full disclosure - we work together on various projects from time to time:)]

I am also partial to The Rough Guide series of CDs - really great overviews of music from around the world. Check them out at www.worldmusic.net - they also have several other labels like Introducing, Riverboat, and Think Global. A lot of fun. They are affiliated with the music guide books of the same name, and are in the same general umbrella as the travel guides. It was a dream come true to be able to work with them on a bunch of CDs. Plus, the people there are super nice and very hip!

Plus, if you are ever in Amherst, MA - make sure to fall by one of the hippest and best-priced vinyl & CD stores in the area: Mystery Train Records. Josh, Cynthia, and Bredan will be there to help you with all your obsessions, from used DVDs & videos to books, records & CDs. A VERY cool place! Located at 12 N Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002 - phone: (413) 253-4776

Cover Story - an unofficial review

2008-01-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

Cover Story - 2007 Wax Poetics Publishing

The new book “Cover Story” from the excellent Wax Poetics magazine out of Bklyn is a lot of fun – there is something liberating about doing a cover book that throws such a wide-ranging net over the esoteric world of album cover art connoisseurship - boundaries are made to be broken and re-configured. When I opened this book and started flipping through I got very excited – I saw some covers I knew and loved, but there were many, many more that were completely unknown to me – I could only wonder about their stories. To that end, there are some cool essays at the front, though much is left up to the imagination, which is as it should be. Some amazed me; some appalled me, some made me laugh, some were moving - the good, the bad, the ugly, the full spectrum. It's like having your own wild record collection available at the flip of a page.

The look, feel, and design of the book is pleasingly simple, and reminded me of my own book (check out the label logos on red – mine were on yellow, but very similar). They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so if waxpo was inspired by some aspects of "Cocinando" then I am happy that the book shares a few similarities with my own; however, they were not really imitating my book, I'm not so egotistical to think that. Debating any similarities really is a moot point hardly worth talking about anyway so I do not even want to bring it up; what I will say is who cares about where "Cover Story" got it great looks from; the folks at waxpo came up with it, worked hard on it, and in the end it is a thing of beauty. I also owe them a debt for indulging me with publishing my article about stories of Latin album cover art in issue 12; they very generously put in 80 covers and also featured some photos of the designers, something which my publisher was not interesed in. FYI, my book’s general layout is not original, for it owes a debt itself to a previous album cover book that Princeton Architectural Press had put out, “45 RPM,” and Chronicle’s subsequent New Wave cover book, “This Ain’t No Disco,” has the same feel and basic layout as mine and "45 RPM" put together! Way I see it, it's like this: with a great idea, it does not really matter where it comes from, there is no origin really; just that the idea serves as a jumping off point, a kernel of possibility; great ideas help creative minds to achieve their goals.

The idea behind “Cover Story” is just perfect. The main guidelines for the 12 collectors who contributed art from their incredible collections was for them to pick covers that spoke to them in some way – visually, or in terms of the music inside, or the juxtaposition of one cover next to the other across the page. I sent a copy of “Cover Story” to Puerto Rico to my friend Charlie Rosario, an artist and musician who made many interesting artworks for Latin covers over the years (he called some of them “sculpture graphics”). He is featured in the book with his wacky psychedelic art for the extremely rare La Fantastica’s “All Ears/Ear To Ear” album on Ghetto records - props to Andre Torres. Charlie was blown away that someone other than me would want to put his cover in a book, and I think it made his day! Charlie is quite a story-teller himself, and of course he has one for that cover; I myself have a story to tell about how I came across the record – but sometimes leaving the mystery is better – that way the viewer can bring to the art whatever they have in their head (or between the ears). That’s what’s so cool about this book – it is the messenger, but the story really is the cover; it is retold by each viewer as they flip through the book. Every album has multitudinous stories to tell – and waxpoetics was there to put it all in an album of memories and revelations. Buy it!

Just for fun, I was inspired to take a look at my own record collection with an eye toward doing a similar “cover story” exercise in selecting LP jackets that are weird, goofy, beautiful, fun, sexy, horrible; covers that speak to me and to each other, covers that tell stories. I may have a reputation among friends as being obsessed with Latin covers, but here I am stretching out into other genres that I also love: jazz, funk, reggae, hip-hop, rock, blues, folk, world, etc. I will be scanning more covers and adding them each week, so please check back periodically. Course I also have a rep of being a motor mouth, so I will be commenting on each cover. Your comments are welcome as well.

Sun Ra: "Jazz By Sun Ra, Vol. 1" (Transition; Cover by Wilson/Reid) Let's start this universe of cover art with the Sun. My papi's roommate and friend Tom Wilson started the Transition label out of his dorm room at Harvard - not quite the Def Jam of the 50s, but still pretty dope! They had so many loud parties in the dorm they got kicked out and my pops had to rent a room in a boarding house just to get some quiet. The record is cracked from the spindle out but it plays fine without any skips - extra thick vinyl with a grooved edge. I must say, the mysterious cover is nice - gold and black - is that a spider web?

Russell Woollen - "Quartet For Flute & Strings" (Transition) At one point Papi had all of these Transition records at his pad, including a very early Donald Byrd; dad was there for some of the sessions; the Sun Ra & Woolen are all that remain. Tom Wilson might have designed the cover - it's signed "Wilson." Tom went on from cutting edge jazz to produce acts like Dylan, Zappa, and The Velvet Underground.

Various - "Noman Granz Presents: Jazz At the Philharmonic, Vol 12" (Mercury 10") A fave of my parents; they used to go to a lot of these jazz gigs in Boston, New York, Providence, Havana. this little ten inch uses a peppy modern art museum style: a mixed-media urban look, like Pop-Surrealism or something. Great old-school hand-lettering. Those were the days of paste up. Record showcases jam sessions with the likes of Roy Eldridge, Ray Brown, Bird, Buddy Rich, and Pres.

Slim Gaillard - "Slim Gaillard Cavorts" (Clef Records 10"; cover by Hubley) My dad & I used to laugh at this clowning trixter's tunes, especially the Cuban themed ones, when I was a kid; I caught Slim's live show in London in the early 80s and was floored by his raw guitar, piano antics, funny lyrics, and vodka screw-driver intake. Bless you Norman Granz for giving this cosmic clown the benefit of a doubt. The cover is kind of Picasso-esque. Voot-o-rooney!

John Berks "Dizzy" Gillespie - "Dizz Over Paris - Vocals by Joe Carroll" (Roost 10"; cover by Burt Goldblatt) One of the dopest jazz covers ever by the great Burt Goldblatt, who whipped up a stunning combo of graphics (map) and illustration (Dizz) giving you the feeling of transport - long before Photoshop and Illustrator. Sonically snappy, and featuring the fabulous hipster vocals of Joe Carroll!

Redd Foxx - "Mr. Hot Pants" (MF Records; cover by Foxx) Well I just had to. I mean it's another great example of mixed media album cover design...really! Not to say Redd is claiming the right to wear Mr. Dynamite's Hot Pants as Soul Brother #1. Not hardly. I just love Redd's f.u. attitude and jaundiced eye. Plus Foxx makes me think of funky black humor of the 60s & 70s and the theme song to his show - you know the one by Quincey Jones. I just love Redd as a cultural relic; not that he is a favorite comic of mine really - I leave that honor to the one and only Richard Pryor, R.I.P.

Juanucho Lopez - "Aha! Let's Pachanga with Juanucho Lopez" (Estacy Records; cover art by Abel Navarro) A great example of mixed media usage, this time from Nuyorican advertising designer Abel Navarro - a really fun cover, the text excitedly trumpets "Let's Pachanga!" - so it was no doubt part of the 'pachanga' craze that was sweeping New York in the ealy 60s (also see other records by Johnny Pacheco, Charlie Palmieri, and Tito Puente). Lopez, a timbales player, was originanally from Spain, and like Xavier Cugat he was way into the Cuban sound, though he also did merengues it would appear.

Various - "Norman Granz Presents: Jam Session, Vol. 1" (Mercury) David Stone Martin's "x-ray style" lines are still exciting all these many years later. Big influence on many designers (see next cover!).

Various - "Alegre Allstars, Vol. 1" (Alegre) Abel Navarro may not have been aware of Martin's jazz covers, but the general 'line drawing' style was definitely well known in the illustration world. Though he is Latino, and went to high school in the Bronx with people who would later figure importantly in the Latin music scene, Navarro was not himself into Latin music until he started designing on spec for Al Santiago's label. Abel was married to Al's sister, that's how he knew Al; he was called in to design for the label - though he was in the much more lucrative field of advertising at the time. He worked from photos and visited the studio. An instant classic - spare and effective.

Special AKA - "In The Studio" (Crysalis/Two Tone, 1984; photographs by Davies/Starr; design by Jerry Dammers and David Storey) Another studio cover. Copping the Blue Note look a little before it caught on in trendy London; riffing on the ska music of yesteryear - which had it's second and third resurgences in the U.S.A. years later; a form of music that is still popular all these years later. A smooth cover, great LP, excellent band. Ska/punk/soul/jazz/world beat/new wave - part of the sountrack to my 80s. See the real thing below.

The Jazz Messengers - "The Jazz Messengers" (Columbia; photo by Don Hunstein) A classic record, and a cover that has served as the blueprint for many designers over the years, most recently inspiring the cover of Greyboy's "Soul Mosaic" on Ubiquity (the Sharon Jones joint on there is ILL!)

Bud Powell - "Jazz at Massey Hall...The Amazing Bud Powell" (Debut 10" 1953; photo by Bob Lang) Historic Canadian live summit recording of power trio: Powell, Mingus & Roach. Amazing Bud, the high priest of bop piano; the tragic Bud Powell, on Mingus' Debut label. Just look at the rapture on his sweaty dripping face - the cover puts you there where he is. I owe all my knowledge of bop to my pops. (R.I.P. Max Roach).

Leadbelly - "Rock Island Line" (Folkways 10" 1953; photo by Jim Chapelle) My parents were part of the bohemian bop/folk set that straddled the 50s/60s, and there were a lot of great old blues documents around the house, this one being highly influential on my little ears. Leadbelly's dignity and experience shines out from his 12 string and big-hearted bellow in this documentary portrait that feels like I dug it up from a time capsule.

Fela A. Kuti "Sorrow Tears and Blood" Another great portrait album cover, this time by my favorite African cover artist, the super-talented Lemi Ghariokwu, who is a Nigerian painter and graphic artist. He has created some 27 classic Fela covers and recently has done some for the new generation of afrobeat-inspired musicians. someone should do a book on this man!

Buari - "Buari" (RCA, 1975) A nice afro-funky disco album - and a happy portrait with cool cowrie shells. Sidiku Buari is a vocalist and hand drummer from Ghana, and he has Bernard Purdie joining him on drums - a plus in my book!

Alhaji Bai Konte - "Kora Melodies from the Republic of the Gambia, West Africa" (Rounder) Another great African portrait. The album that launched me on the quest to discover more about the griots of West Africa and the beauty that is the kora. From 1973. Dug out of my dad's dusty record shelf.

Dr. John - "Babylon" (Atco, 1968; photo by Norton; Stanislaw Zagorski) The psychedelic swamp priest zapps you! A very sick album if you can find it. Babylon - a lesson to us all!

Irma Thomas - "In Between Tears" (Fungus/BASF, 1973) Also from The Big Easy, Queen Irma Thomas. Freaky circle shaped crying moon art on the cover, beautiful R & B music inside, rumored to be with Duane, the Allman Soul Brother #1 on guitar, & produced (with piano) by the first dawg of soul, Mr. Swamp Dog, Jerry Williams, Jr.!

Jim Pepper - "Jim Pepper's Pow-Wow" (Embryo, 1972; photo by Joel Brodsky, design by Haig Adishian) More circles, this time the drum circle and the cry of the tenor saxophone; deep spiritual jazz meets ritual drums and Native American history. "Wichi Tai To" is an essential mantra for clensing the earth of all the Bad Spirits brought by the White Man, and is a song of basic thankfulness that we all should remember in this age of shop-till-you-drop consumerism and cluster bombing for oil.

Milly Jackson - "Caught Up" (Spring/Polydor, 1974; album concept by Millie Jackson; cover by David Wiseteltier) Another circle shape like the Jim pepper, and it kinda makes me think back to the Sun Ra album above. Well known record from back in the day of relationship rappin' funk & soul by the dirty talkin' diva Ms. Jackson, but still and all, a worthy cover. Caught my eye first time I seen it!

Cold Blood - "Thriller" (Reprise, 1973; cover design and 'execution': George Hunter and Herb Greene) Pulp fiction and macho violation meet blue eyed funk and acid rock with a Latino twist in 1973 - and graphically speaking, the back of this LP is even more of a killer in a way, perfectly imitating all those cheesy 50s detective magazines. A real funky version of "Kissing My Love" to boot.

Muhammad Ali & Friends - "The Adventures of Ali And His Gang v.s. Mr. Tooth Decay - A Children's Story " (St. John's Fruit & Vegetable Co.) Side 'A' of this rediculous but touching album (courtesy of Dynamite Records, www.dynamiterecords.com). I just fell out laughing when I clapped my lamps on this - but I do love it - and it makes me want to eat my fruits and vegetables!

Muhammad Ali & Friends - "Ali And His Gang v.s. Mr. Tooth Decay" (St. John's Fruit & Vegetable Co.) Side 'B' of this corny platter - the 'gang' consists of Ol' Blue Eyes hisself, plus Ossie Davis & Richie Havens, with Howard Cosell doing the play by play, no less! One surmises this is even better than the 'Rumble In The Jungle.' The inner sleeve advertizes that the next Ali LP will be dedicated to fighting drugs: "The Fight of the Century: Hey kids our next story is "Ali and His Gang" Vs. "Fat Cat the Dope King" and his Sidekick Peter Pusher" (yikes).

Cassius Clay - "The Greatest" (Columbia Records; cover by Bob Cato) Yes he is the greatest - and this album is really something - perhaps one of the original rappers? Anyway, an important cultural artifact from a historic figure of pride and power - one of the most well known and loved icons of the 20th Century. For Black History Month.

Various artists - "Swing Latino" (Fania Venezuela, 1979; cover art by Daniel Jaimes) Has that art brut/prison art/home-made comics look to it - totally brilliant salsa joint put together in Venezuela - you can tell. Wack LP jacket to be sure - that's why I love it.

Funkadelic - "Tales of Kidd Funkadelic" (Westbound, 1976) Hard to pick which P-Funk jam to throw up here, but I love this one - had to be a cover by the original cosmic afronautical comic strip artist, Pedro Bell, Sir Lleb of Funkadelia (though the first couple of photographic covers are ill too). You can spend hours gazing at this crazy gatefold, the drool drippin from out your lip, making you smirk and guffaw, or squint and scratch your head, reading the "fabulous literary rap-manship" of Ileb (Bell backwards), a job where minutes that can seem hours, you dig?

The Barkays - "America, Do You See What I See" (Stax/Volt; cover art by Jack Martin; art direction: the Graffiteria/David Krieger) Gatefold soul. Yes, the Barkays did have their Funkadelic phase, and this obscure, as yet un-rereleased LP from '74 is really brilliant, full of social comment & acid drenched funk-rock. Scary clown cover award!

The Barkays - "America, Do You See What I See" So you can see the cover more close up, Amerikkka!

Osibisa - "Heads" (Decca, 1972, design by David Howells/Carol Smither; painting Abdul Matti Klarwein) No album cover collection is complete without at least one Abdul Matti Klarwein - this is one of his freakiest. Plus the LP has an African version of "Che Che Cole" from around the same time as Willie & Hectors - and it's good, too.

Rufus Thomas - "Funky Chicken" (Stax, photo: Joel Brodsky; design: The Grapheteria/David Krieger) Chicken albums are a favorite delicacy of mine; this just happens to be the one with the best cover - don't care if it's well known. On here is one of the stankiest way-back-yonder fonk tunes, Rufus' version of "60 Minute Man" - making love all the way back to Africa.

Randy Weston - "African Cookbook" (Atlantic, 1972) Speaking of Africa, Randy Weston used to have a night club in North Africa - where people like stevie wonder and Don Cherry rubbed elbows with tribal muscians of Jujuka and the Gnawa trance healers. Weston is a gentle giant of the ivories, and this is his illest cover. I smell you cookin', circa 1964, Mama Africa! The uncredited painter was really doinf something brilliant with this art - too bad they didn't list any info on this!

Orchestra Makassy - "Agwaya" (Virgin, 1982) More African art. Picked this up in London (during the whole explosion of so-called 'world beat') in the early 80s when it came out and loved everything about it - the folksy shebeen painting on the cover, the dubby remix of "Mambo Bado," and the unbeatable mix of Congolese/Kenyan/Cuban vibes throughout.

Mor Thiam - "Dini Safarrar (Drums of Fire)" (Rite Record Productions, 1973; cover by Phillis Commons) It really freaked me out to read in Wax Poetics the blurb about this record - it seemed incredible to me that someone else knew this album aside from a small circle of people whose lives had been personally touched by this Senegalese master drummer's music. I mean this record is OBSCURE, dude. I got this a number of years ago during my quest for African funk; it was lent to me by a good friend who's parents were friends of the musicians on it (indeed it is dedicated to them by conga player Billy Ingram on the cover). I fell in love with the music on this when I first heard the first cut "Ayo Ayo Nene" at a party, sight unseen, knowing nothing about it. Imagine my excitement to discover the players - Mor Thiam, who I had been in a production of street theater with down at the WTC in the early 90s; Oliver Lake who's music I discovered through Kip Hanrahan's ecclectic records of the 80s like "Conjure"; Oliver Sain, incredible jazz/funk/blues sax player and producer, and my free jazz hero, Lester Bowie. And to top it off, the clincher: a great homemade looking cover!

Third World - "Third World" (Island, 1976) I love this artist's work - he did all the early TW covers and some others for Island in the mid-70s. Island folk art style - but the group was a very sophisticated Uptown mix - some looked down on them as less than roots, saying dem not heartfelt bredren of the streets, but I say 'bumba clot' to that! They were as legit as the next group, hotter than the rest, who cares about some of their pop syling all the while. I really enjoyed their sophistication and fresh approach - remember their live 'dub orchestra' circa 1985, with the clear plastic cello? On the back cover it says "Enter into this gate with thanksgiving" and I do give thanks for the classic years of reggae and TW's innovations.

The New Aces/Frank Rodarte & the Del Kings - "I Wanna Be a Low Rider b/w "Lowrider Fever" Right on! This little 7" single is a bit of Lowrider history from down San Antonio way. ¡Orale ese! This is some baaad 45, carnal!

The Incredible String Band - "Relics" A really nice piece of 'folk art' style cover; kind of tribal, like Voodooo cut metal from Haiti, or the carvings of the Inuit, or ancient Celtic metalwork.

Crazy José - "Cha Cha Cha" (UA) OK, let the cheescake begin! By the way, when I first saw this at a junk shop, I thought it was some long lost spin off of the New Wave Latino/Soul/Pop outfit Kid Creole & The Coconuts, but no, it's from the mid-50s! Totally out there, man. So square it's hip!

Mohammed El-Bakkar & His Oriental Ensemble - "Port Said - Music of the Middle East" (Audio Fidelity, 1958) What would you call 'cheese cake' from the Middle East? Bahklava? Anyway, bellydance has come around again in popularity - here's an original from the bad old days.

Akido - "Akido" A fdifferent kind of cheescake - Psychedelic African Girl you turn me on!

The Jungle Brothers - "Straight Out The Jungle" (Warlock/Idlers Records, 1988; cover & photography by Ken Kaufman)Man when I came across this record, their first, it was in the most unlikely of places - the Colorado Rockies. It had just come out and an artist friend, Irv Tepper, who I had just met, had all these cassettes with him of the new generation of Native Tongue Posse and other rappers like EPMD and NWA. What a revelation - we used to tool around the dirt roads of Snowmass and Aspen blasting these tunes, scaring away the deer, rabbits, buffalo and the rich dilettante people who had come to study art at the nearby Anderson Ranch. I really enjoyed the home made quality of this record particularly, the rapping, scratching, and figuring out all the samples was a very exciting and fruitful enterprise. As someone who always loved the music called Latin, or anything from the Caribbean, and also New Orleans funk, it was a real excitinmg time to rediscover Mandrill and find Cymande for the first time through the JBs and De La. Dope and humorous airbrush cover art.

Tavin Pumarejo - "Paco En Intimidad" (Koitre) What can I say, a man who loves his horse - the feeling is mutual, it seems. I found this in Old San Juan in a dusty junk shop with a million stories to tell - that used to be a very popular record store back in the day (which incedentally I am old also was pivotal in helping Puerto Rican reggaeton get its start). This is one of those "what the Hell?! covers.

Teddy Fire - "The Fluxing Headset Man" (Sealed Hotel Records, cover art by Teddy Fire) I love you, my brother! Teddy Fire was a kid singer who did all these 4 track lo-fi recordings - real home-made stuff, not for the weak of heart. I, as his brother, helped out on beats and keybs, and Philly Phil 'Nordit' and Bond Bergland are on the guitars & bass. Chimp music, some called it at the time.

Bob Marley - "Punky Reggae Party" (Tuff Gong 12" single; Jamaican pressing; 1977) I loved this 45 RPM Disco record from the first time I put the needle to the groove - the cover alone flipped me. I remembered hearing the live version on WBCN in the 70s in Boston, but this sound was something alltogether different: the "Scratch' Perry sound, mon! I got this little slice of Jamdown from the 'Rasta Van' that used to park on Thayer Street in Providence throughout the 80s. The colorfully painted bead and LP festooned van always had a strong island smell (mix of patchouli, coconut, and of course ganja), and the rasta vibes reverberated all the way down the street to Ras Jacob's home base, a store appropriately named The Lion's Eye.

Bunny Wailer - "The Struggle" (Solomonic Records, Jamaican pressing, 1978; artwork: N.Garrick and C. Jackson) Another piece of carib treasure from the Rasta Van, though on the more serious tip, visually. the Jamaican pressings were always warped and came with built-in crackles and pops. they were never sealed, and the bass sound was off the charts, mon. Neville Garrick is some kind of genius - all of his covers are really something. Had to have at least one.

Various Artists - "La Salsa de Borinquen, Volumen 3" (Borinquen Records, 1974; Cover by Drago) 'Drago' Fernández was a Cuban designer and artist working in Miami in the 70s & 80s who did a lot of cool cvers for Latin albums - and he wasn't part of the Fania mainstream. As such, his work is a little more obscure. This dynamic comic book style is just one of many that he employed in his arsenal.

Grandmaster Flash - "The Official Adventures of Granmaster Flash Sampler" (Strut 45 RPM 12" Disco) I loved the 'Official Adventures' project Quentin did with Flash; this was just one of the related products, a cool 12" with a blistering "Freestyle Mix" on side one and a deconstruction of "Apache" on the other - a recreation actually of what he used to do back in the day I think - live no tricks or overdubs y'all. I liked the graphic style of the cover - Strutt product always looked so nice as well as being top notch musically speaking - I was bummed when it went belly up! The licensing/permissions on this baby were a real headache for Quentin, I remember him saying. Cover art is uncredited.

Pat & Lolly Vegas - "At The Haunted House" (Mercury) Moster rock by two Chicano soul brothers who would later claim their Indian roots and form Redbone (joining acts like XIT and slide guitar wizard Jesse Ed Davis to make 'rez rock' in the 70s). Dig the crazy smokin' beast and the go-go dancer gyrating on it's tongue! Ah, L.A. discoteque culture in the mid-60s!

Frank Chickens - "We Are Frank Chickens" (Kaz Records, 1984; airbrush by Jamie Bettell; sleve by David Thomas; photographer: Yann Sylvane) Crazy Japanese New Wave/Rap! A British production, so it's no suprise that David Toop (of all those cool books like 'Exotica' and 'Rap Attack') plays on it as well as Steve Beresford, Roberto Pla and Lol Coxhill, not to mention Tony Coe. Interesting. Love the retro monster movie poster cover art, man - quite funny. And a very special thanks to Mr. Micro Davies of London and George Hirose on NYC for turning me on the modern Japanese music!

Orquesta Sakamoto - "Orquesta Sakamoto del Japón en el Chateau Madrid" (Alegre) Before Japanese salsa sensations Orquesta De La Luz, there was Orquesta Sakamoto - beat 'em to it by about 20 years! I saw this in a rare Venezuelan Fania catalog at the Discos Viera store in San Juan a few years back; I knew I had to find it - and lo and behold, I did this year - from a Colombiano at the 4th annual Lain record collector's convention in NYC.

The Clash - "Pearl Harbour '79 - The Clash" (CBS Japan, 1979) The Clash discovered in Japan! This was an LP and single with a special paper sleeve that provocatively stated "Pearl Harbour '79" which covered the original cover. I forget my clash history, but I seem to remember that was the name of their '79 tour - many years ago! The album is not from '79 of course - their debut came out in the U.K. in 1977. This edition did come out in '79 however. Nice dynamic design, kinda better than the original in a way! I always loved Japanes imports.

ESG - "Dance" (99 Records, 1982; sleeve by Gina Franklin) - I love slinging the A-Side at clubs - really an up number from the Scroggins gals. "Moody" is also a good cut - see the reissues on Soul Jazz Records, all you younguns. A great E.P. of NYC punk funk by a couple of African Americans and a Latino from da Bronx that was taken up by the down town scene as a cause celeb for a year or two. Love the ultra modern "techno" art on the cover - brings back the arcade games my buddy Dom used to play like Space Invaders, Pac Man, etc. Thanks Carle Groome!

The Amazing Kreskin - "The Basic Principal's of Kreskin's ESP" (SSS International) From ESG to ESP! Don't stare at this one too long. We used to sit around the dorm and laugh at this one back in the day - then I realized it was totally dope for mixing into a freeform turntablism set on the radio years later.

Lionel Hampton - "Hamp In Paris" (Em Arcy 7") Hamp looks a bit like the amazing Kreskin, doncha think? Nah, you been staring at record covers too long, dude.

Capoeira, an incredible discipline. Geraldo Vandre - a great singer!

Robyn joked that if he autographed this it would make it worthless - so I asked him to sign he back. one of my favorites done by him.

Lame French disco courtesy of my wife from her days in Paris - but awesome album art!

Palmieri, Pacheco, Fajardo - La Charangas (Alegre) Abel Navarro's first cover and an early example of the use of cartoon drawings by Latinos on album art (the first was probably by the Cuban/Spaniard Xavier Cugat who was a fine caricaturist). love the acid green and drawing style. Abel was always great at the hand-lettering thing, too. Many thanks to Don Cristobal Diaz aAyala for sending me this cover!

Maravillas de Mali - African Salsa - charanga to be exact (note the flutes & violins). Nice line drawing. Not sure when this is from - my guess is the early 70s. See my article on the subject earlier in the blog. I got it in Brooklyn, sealed, for a few bucks.

Augie Colón - "Chant of the Jungle" (Liberty) Hot on the heels of his "Sophisticated Savage" LP (those were the days of rampant predjudice and 'Exotica'), Mr. Colon shows us the power of the drum, the call of the chant.

Cyril Jackson - "Afro-Stereo" (Counterpoint, 1958) A very cool title for a really swinging album. Ed Mentken's concentric cover makes you want to play your drum - or your Hi-Fi - or both!

Joe Quijano - "Joe Quijano and his Fantastic Conjunto Cachana" (Cesta) Joe is a great guy (I licensed a track from him for my compilation The Rough Guide to NYC Salsa Dura), and I love this mod cover (thanks to Academy Records in Brooklyn).

'Pello' El Afrokan - "Mozambique" (Egrem) A seminal ritmo from a percussive Afro-Cuban powerhouse. Big influence on Eddie Palmieri. The original LP - love the early EGREM releases for their art too.

Various - "Flamenco Pop" (Belter, 1967) I love this kind of music - Afro - Cuban meets Barcelona gypsy meets Austin Powers - groovy baby, ¡Olé! Reminds me of my time when we were living in the south of Spain my lady & me, in Andalucia to be exact. Me & my girl were painting, teaching, and digging the sights, tastes, and smells of 700 years of Islam & Judaisism that forever left their mark on this region of my forefathers' homeland.

Exuma - "Do Wah Nanny" (Kama Sutra, 1971; cover painting by Exuma) Some very dark freaky voodoo folk from St. Vincent. Kind of like the underbelly of the flower generation - at times Exuma's sandpaper vocals are almost too painful to listen to. the choirs sound kind of cultish, communal like the early swampadelica of Dr. John. Pee Wee Ellis blows sax on the title song. Calypso wierdness - we used to put this guy's records on late at night to scare ourselves.

Gaspar Lawal - "Ajomase" (Cap, 1980; cover weaving by Adesose Wallace) One of my favorite albums by a Yoruba man. Funk, dub, afrobeat, traditional, unclassified goodness - you name it - all here on this illmatic 80s release from back-a-wall London. The crafty crochet cover and hand done lettering on the back really grabbed me with its unassuming folkiness when I saw it in a shop in Camden Town 20 years ago. The back claims the guy has played with everyone from Barbara Streisand to Funkadelic, Ginger Baker to Stephen Stills, and I believe it - Hell, it shows (hah - just kidding). HE influenced THEM, more like it! The title translates as "We All Have To Do It Together." There is no other song out there in afrobeat land like "Kita Kita" - and when I turned Quentin Scott onto this record, he had heard that one song but not the whole LP - he flipped, I burned it for him, and "Kita Kia' ended up on his super-duper Strut compilation, "Nigeria 70."

Various Artists - "Sonic Chimp" (Sealed Hotel; cover by Wes Wallace) One of those newer guerilla sampler records that colonizes old record jackets, feeding on them like a parasite feeds on its host. Lo-fi gems, all home made amature music - my brother Teddy Fire is on one cut. Thanks to Wes Wallace of Providence, R. I. for putting this sick stuff out in the mid-90s. Bless you, brother! Check out his old zine, Wingnut, if it's still around on eBay. Sealed Hotel - get it? the nut house!

Various Artists - "Sonic Chimp" (Sealed Hotel; cover by Wes Wallace) Another one! Freaky.

Various Artists - "Sonic Chimp" (Sealed Hotel; cover by Wes Wallace) so many of these hand-made covers that Wes did back in the day are so fun and cool - I think they deserve to be seen, they are one-of-a-kind.

Kent Gomez & His Orchestra - "My Ghetto" (Mio Records) My Ghetto is: Spanish Harlem, EL BARRIO, circa 1968! These guys are very 'chevere' - totally cool wearing their striped shirts and chinos, they are sooo ghetto fab in the old-school sense. WFMU Record fair is a MUST for finding this kind of stuff - snagged this bit of treasure for a few bucks - I almost wet myself when I saw it flippin through the stacks of Perry Como and polka.

Pucho & His Latin Soul brothers - "Tough!" (Prestiege) I love the varied ramshackle ghetto backdrop and Pucho's furrowed brow denoting the title with a slight tongue in cheek feel. My neighborhood growing up looked a lot like that before 'gentrification.' Thanks to Mystery Train Records for alerting me to this pristine copy.

Culture - "Bald head Bridge" (Blue Moon, 1983; design A. Lewis) Another Joe Gibbs production, the back cover proclaims. A really rootical outing from this tremendous trio, love to see them hanging out on a wall in Kingston Town in their psychedelic dashikis, and the graphic elements on the left are quite nice. Originally recorded in 1976, it still sounds as spiritual and 'dubsonic' now as it did over 30 years ago. There is no voice like Joseph Hill (R.I.P.) backed by his bredren, Albert Walker and Kenneth Dayes; hearing them live in London's Dingwall's club around '86 was a mystic experience, lemme tell ya mon. Band that gave the name to the Clash with their debut, "When The Two Sevens Clash." The standout track has got to be the sublime anthem, "Behold I Come," a Rasta Hymn to chant down Babylon.

The Congos - "Heart of the Congos" (Go Feet Records) A lot has been said & written about this mighty Lee Perry production; suffice it to say that for me, it is my favorite. I also dig the cover; brothers with their hand drums is always a heavy theme with me. This is a reissue that may or may not have been legit - and probably came out in the 80s. It says copyright 1978, but that is not when The Beat reissued this. But thank god they did - I found it at a time when you could not find the Jamaican version in Providence where I lived at the time, and the whole sound of t really turned my head around. The luxurious CD reissue package from Blood & Fire was a couple of decades away - big up to them for taking it to the next level.

The Talbot Brothers - "The Talbot Brothers of bermuda - Calypsos" (ABC, 1957; cover by Alan Fontaine/Bob Crozier). All of the ABC Paramont covers from the 50s and early 60s are killer, and top quality (just check out all the ones they did on Candido!). I love this record - crisp, jaunty calypsos that sing of atomic nightmares and freaky sex changes - stuff on every one's mind in the happy 50s, but rarely adressed in popular song. The font treatment for 'Calypsos' is very cool. Not too many calypsos feature accordeon or home made string bass either, so the sound on these is really great.

Ravi Shankar (Regal/EMI India; photo David Farrell) I reckon this is from some time in the 60s; Shankar had already impacted the UK & US when this came out. My pops & I used to fall back of a Sunday morn and listen to this man's ragas - sublime! But the intensity of the cover is what gets me - he is a guitar hero from another dimension - and his expression is kinda "what you lookin' at, honky?"

Floyd Westerman - "Custer Died For Your Sins" (Perception, 1969) Inspired by Vine Deloria Jr.'s seminal work of the same name, this is a great country and western albumwith Indian chants and themes (some would call it 'rez rock' for the music listened to on the reservations out West) by a Native American musician, actor and activst Floyd Westerman (you may remember his part in the Doors movie). Some great funky drumming on the disk too - just waiting for the sample hounds to pick up on this one. From an old girlfiend of my dad's - thank you Abby for turning me on to 70s Native American contemporary music.