SABU Palo Congo (Blue Note) lp 12.98

SACASAS, ANSELMO Y SU ORQUESTA Sol Tropical (Tumbao) cd 13.98
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Pianist and arranger Anselmo Sacasas was one of the founding members of the renown Orchesta Casino De La Playa in 1937. In 1940 he moved to New York and formed his own group and, being one of the most amazing Cuban pinaists and arrangers, his orchestra became one of the most popular in the New York scene during throughout the decade. Featuring vocals from Octavio "Cuso" Mendoza and Ruben Gonzalez, these recordings were made in New York between 1945 and 1949.

SEGUNDO, COMPAY Calle Salud (Nonesuch) cd 16.98
The second lovely Nonesuch solo disc for Mr. Segundo, a Buena Vista Social Club veteran. Chalk another one up for all these elderly Cuban fellows now getting their due.

SEGUNDO, COMPAY Lo Mejor de la Vida (Nonesuch/Elektra) cd 16.98
Buena Vista Social Club alumnus Compay Segundo plays the armonico, an instrument of his own creation which combines the guitar and the tres -- the armonica has seven strings but only six tones, which produces its unique sound. An oldtimer who's an alumnus of the legendary Trio Matamoros, Segundo recorded this record in Havana in 1997.

SEPTETO Y CONJUNTO MATAMOROS Camaron Y Mamoncillo (Tumbao) cd 13.98
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Miguel Matamoros formed both the Septeto (1928) and Conjunto (1942) much after he'd already aquired acclaim with his trio. With the Septeto he filled out the sound by adding trumpet (Jose Macias or Jose Quintero), clarinet (Francisco Repilado), bass (Felipe Torriente or Christobal Mendive), bongos (Pedro Mena or Agustin Gutierrez) and adding piano (Armando Beltran or Ramon Dorca) for the Conjunto. The repertoire remains unchanged with the increase in ensemble size and most of the recordings found here (made between 1928 and 1950) are still primarily the Cuban Son which Miguel Matamoros was probably the greatest propagator of.

TRIO MATAMOROS China En La Rumba (Tumbao) cd 13.98
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This cd is a broad spanning collection of recordings - made from 1928 to 1951 - by Miguel Matamoros' most resilient of groups. Consisting of Miguel Matamoros (voice, guitar), Ciro Rodriguez (voice, maracas, claves) and Rafael Cueto (guitar, choir), it was this ensemble with which "Miguel was successful in combining to perfection all the melodic and rhythmic elements that the eastern son contained, and he brought to it the very typical charms of the purest 'creole' flavor." It is this genre that is the national pride of Cuba and it is this ensemble that impressed many young aspiring musicians including Compay Segundo of Buena Vista Social Club fame.

V/A Havana Cuba, ca. 1957: Rhythms Ands Songs For The Orishas (Smithsonian Folkways) cd 15.98
I gave up on trying to come up with a more succinct description of these two new cds from Smithsonian Folkways of Cuban music when I discovered they have encapsulated the collections better than I ever could: "Recorded in Havana in 1957, the ritual rhythms and songs collected by Lydia Cabrera and Josefina Tarafa feature the bat‡ drums, used by practitioners of Santer’a to salute and summon the gods (orishas). The disc includes a complete cycle of bat‡ salutes to the orishas, called the orś de igbodś, as well as rhythms played during ceremonies to mark the presence of an orisha. With origins in Yoruba religion in West Africa, this disc serves as a hub of Afro-Atlantic music, with ties to related religions in New York, Miami, the Caribbean, and Brazil." As usual with S/F, you get almost as much written information as you do audio. A detailed 24 page booklet of liner notes and track annotations is a valuble accompaniment to this issue.
RealAudio clip: "Obatala / Odudua"
RealAudio clip: "Ibarabo Ago Mo Juba"

V/A Latin Jazz (Smithsonian Folkways) cd 16.98

V/A Matanzas Cuba, ca. 1957: Afro-Cuban Sacred Music From The Countryside (Smithsonian Folkways) cd 15.98
Second in a pair of new releases of early Cuban music on Smithsonian Folkways. They provide their own very good description here: "Recorded in Matanzas in 1957, these ritual rhythms provide a direct link to the music of 19th-century colonial Cuba, and provide a window into the religious life of the first generations of Africans who worked the sugar mills. Collected by Lydia Cabrera and Josefina Tarafa, these recordings preserve extremely rare bembŽ lukumi ritual drumming used by practitioners of Santer’a to summon the gods or salute Cuba's African nations. It is remarkably different from the urban style heard today in Havana, although some of the same songs were sung in both city and countryside. With origins in Yoruba religion in West Africa, this music reveals the roots of today's Afro-Cuban ceremonial practices." As usual with S/F, you get almost as much written information as you do audio. A detailed 28 page booklet of liner notes and track annotations is a valuble accompaniment to this issue.
RealAudio clip: "Toque Oyo"
RealAudio clip: "Babaluaiye"

V/A Rara In Haiti (Soul Jazz) cd 17.98
Haitian Rara music is the strange street festival music heard in ritual celebrations and processions often during Easter Week, commemorating the African ancestry of Afro-Haitian masses in a celebration that combines elements of Catholicism and Vodou in frenzied, ecstatic and often confrontational musical performances. Instruments are often bamboo trumpets, or metal pipes called vaksen, that are rhythmically struck while being blown into, and drums, metal bells and other percussive elements are combined in a trance inducing call and response of rhythms, horns and voices.
For this release, the folks at Soul Jazz ventured to Port-Au-Prince and recorded roving rara groups during Kanaval. The performers often stop traffic and demand money before moving on. Accumulating more followers as they march along, it's a truly communal experience that anyone can join who has any stick or bucket to bang on. Raw and anarchic, a fury of beautiful noise made by people. No amplification necessary!
MPEG Stream: "Le Map Pale / Reziye / Aroyo / Sepavre / Dilene"

V/A Saoco! Masters of Afro-Cuban Jazz (Rhino) cd 16.98
Collection of Afro-Cuban jazz from the genre's heyday, with tracks from as early as 1958 and on up to 1974. This is an assortment of smooth, clean, pristine and very controlled tunes that, fair or no, always makes me think of Cal Tjader -- so it should come as no surprise that he's included on this compilation. Both well known and not-so-well-known orchestras and cuts are compiled here (a number of influential artists were unfortunately left out due to licensing restrictions) including Tito Puente, Mongo Santa Maria, Machito, Cachao, Willie Bobo, the aforementioned Cal Tjader with Eddie Palmieri and much more. This is the type of music that just dares you to attempt a listen without spilling your martini on the hi-fi. Comes with a handsome booklet with liner notes by both Chuy Varela and Bobby Matos.
RealAudio clip: BOBO, WILLIE "La Descarga Del Bobo"
RealAudio clip: TJADER, CAL & EDDIE PALMIERI "Guajira En Azul"

V/A Si, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba Volume One (Waxing Deep) cd 17.98
Take any preconceptions about Cuban music you might have and throw them out the window. This is simply one of the most exciting and awesome compilations we've heard in a while from a period that has never been fully explored before, the seventies and early eighties. We've heard rumors that the compiler, Dan Zacks, of Waxing Deep Radio, had to go to great lengths to obtain these recordings including risking his life sneaking into Cuba and bribing government officials, but it seems the efforts have paid off. This compilation offers an amazing glimpse into an extremely fertile period of socialism and artistic freedom, one rife with the same progressive musical styles (son, disco, fusion, soul and jazz) that were hitting the New York and LA Latin scenes around the same time, but with their own inventive use of production, unusual instrumentation, psychedelic influences, electronic experimentation, and as the title promises, funky beats. Each track is beautifully remastered from the original Cuban sessions. Who would have thought that Communist Funk would sound so liberating? Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: JUAN PABLO TORRES Y ALGO NUEVO "Son a Propulsion"
MPEG Stream: GRUPO MONUMENTAL "Si, Para Usted"
MPEG Stream: LOS 5-U-4 "Baila, Ven Y Baila"
MPEG Stream: MIRTHA Y RAUL "Casina Y Epidecus"

V/A The World Is Shaking: Cubanismo From The Congo, 1954-55 (Honest Jons) cd 17.98
Another rich and immersive vintage compilation from the always reliable Honest's Jons label, The World Is Shaking focuses on a highly productive period during the fifties of urban popular music that was the seed for what would become Congolese Rumba, one of the African Continent's most popular musical dance forms of the sixties and seventies. We often hear of the westwardly influence of African music on West Indies, Cuba and the Caribbean Islands, but not so much in reverse. Yet the Congo in the fifties after suffering centuries of decimation from slave traders and Belgian colonial rule, embraced the Latin music of South and Central America like no other country. Many factors contributed to this, including the exports of radios and records from slave trading countries as well as the increasing popularity of early American Jazz music and European Torch singers that attracted Congolese musicians to play less traditional and indigenous musical forms in order to get work in colonial nightclubs. But perhaps the biggest factor was the arrival of recording equipment to the region that allowed radio stations to record and broadcast local musicians allowing them to become more disciplined in their musical approach due to the strict limitations of the three minute song format. And so with more records and bands, popular nightlife increased. Inspired by 78's from Latin America, musicians would often adopt the tunes and rewrite the lyrics in their own language. Adwika Depala, one of the more successful players recorded his own take on the popular latin song, El Manicero (The Peanut Vendor), changing the word for peanut (Mani) to a women's name (Moni), offering a lament to a jilting lover that local audiences perhaps related more to than the original lyrics. The danceable rhythms provided by guitars, horns, and accordions with occasional moments of odder instrumentation like banjo and kazoos sparked attraction in audiences hungry for modernity as well as a renewed sense of identity. Honest Jon's scores again!
MPEG Stream: LAURENT LOMANDE "Maboka Marie"
MPEG Stream: ADIKWA DEPALA "Akei Cimetierre"
MPEG Stream: BOMIFACE KOUFOUDILA "Tokowela Angelique"
MPEG Stream: JEAN MPIA "Tika Koseka"

V/A The World Is Shaking: Cubanismo From The Congo, 1954-55 (Honest Jons) 2lp 22.00
Another rich and immersive vintage compilation from the always reliable Honest's Jons label, The World Is Shaking focuses on a highly productive period during the fifties of urban popular music that was the seed for what would become Congolese Rumba, one of the African Continent's most popular musical dance forms of the sixties and seventies. We often hear of the westwardly influence of African music on West Indies, Cuba and the Caribbean Islands, but not so much in reverse. Yet the Congo in the fifties after suffering centuries of decimation from slave traders and Belgian colonial rule, embraced the Latin music of South and Central America like no other country. Many factors contributed to this, including the exports of radios and records from slave trading countries as well as the increasing popularity of early American Jazz music and European Torch singers that attracted Congolese musicians to play less traditional and indigenous musical forms in order to get work in colonial nightclubs. But perhaps the biggest factor was the arrival of recording equipment to the region that allowed radio stations to record and broadcast local musicians allowing them to become more disciplined in their musical approach due to the strict limitations of the three minute song format. And so with more records and bands, popular nightlife increased. Inspired by 78's from Latin America, musicians would often adopt the tunes and rewrite the lyrics in their own language. Adwika Depala, one of the more successful players recorded his own take on the popular latin song, El Manicero (The Peanut Vendor), changing the word for peanut (Mani) to a women's name (Moni), offering a lament to a jilting lover that local audiences perhaps related more to than the original lyrics. The danceable rhythms provided by guitars, horns, and accordions with occasional moments of odder instrumentation like banjo and kazoos sparked attraction in audiences hungry for modernity as well as a renewed sense of identity. Honest Jon's scores again!
MPEG Stream: LAURENT LOMANDE "Maboka Marie"
MPEG Stream: ADIKWA DEPALA "Akei Cimetierre"
MPEG Stream: BONIFACE KOUFOUDILA "Tokowela Angelique"
MPEG Stream: JEAN MPIA "Tika Koseka"

V/A Wolf's At The Door: Lost Recordings From The Spirit Of The South (Sutro Park) lp 17.98
When seeing this record, most people will assume it's a killer new comp from Mississippi. In fact, it is a killer new comp, only from the Sutro Park label, which gave us those amazing Sandy Bull lp reissues a while back. Wolf's At The Door features 12 field recordings from the late '60s and early '70s, when a 19 year old Swede named Bengt Olsson decided to travel through the depths of the American South in search of the authentic sounds presented here. All of the artists on this record are unknown to us, and as the liner notes point out, Olsson's odyssey was marked by his introduction to many of Memphis' older, more obscure bluesmen, and many of the performers' stories remain unknown. As far as we can tell these recordings were unreleased before this, and the material offers a stark, powerful glimpse into the lives of these performers. The edges are rough and raw, but the fidelity is surprisingly clear. The songs here are even more interesting when you take into account the time in which they were recorded, as they seem completely oblivious to the innovations that had been rapidly shaping the music industry for better and/or worse. What you have here are some real sounds representative of a culture that managed to avoid all that, and the results are quite powerful. Recommended stuff which will no doubt appeal to fans of labels like the aforementioned Mississippi, Monk, and the like.

VALDES, MIGUELITO WITH NORO MORALES' ORCHESTRA Mr. Babalu (Tumbao) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another one of the top vocalists in Cuba, Miguelito Valdes probably received the greatest fame of any Cuban singer in the U.S. Having received his big break singing for Xavier Cugat's orchestra in 1940 - playing at Waldorf-Astoria's famous Starlight Roof in N.Y. The famous song Babalu, made so by performances of it by Cugat and Valdes, became so associated with Miguelito Valdes that he became known as "Mr. Babalu." The recordings here were made in New York City in 1949 (with Miguelito Valdes' orchestra) and 1951 (with Noro Morales' orchestra.)