Michael Longo : Ocean Of His Might
taken from the album “900 Shares Of The Blues” on Curcio (197?)

Joe Thomas : Polarizer
taken from the album “Feelin’s From Within” on T.K. (1977)

Last week’s Cinco De Mayo festivities at Bembe went down PROPER. Big up once again to Busquelo, who (keep your fingers crossed) will hopefully be contributing a lil’ bit to this here collective crate. It was an ole skool Latin throwdown: funk, descargas, boogaloo, and salsa mixed with fresh broken beat tracks and accompanied by live conga mastery from Isabelle. Dancefloor went absolutely buckwild around 2:00 AM. I still feel dehydrated from sweating so much! Later on tonight (Monday) I’ve got Bryan Vargas and members of his group Ya Esta! coming on the radio show. If you’re near a computer (wnyu.org) or you live in NYC and own a radio (89.1 FM) tune in at 8pm EST to hear a live performance and some knowledge being dropped.

In the midst of all this Latin music, it would probabally make more sense for me to put up a couple timbales ‘n cowbell grooves, but I promised myself- no more Spanish numbers for at least a few weeks. Instead, a couple of mellow jazz-funk bombs to nod your head to.

I had heard of Michael Longo, but this is the first record of his that I’ve acquired (courtesy of a dollar dealer at this past weekend’s flea market). The original pressing (’74) of this album, on Groove Merchant, has a much cooler cover and can be purchased as a reissue. My copy is #48 in an Italian series of jazz giant re-issues. The music is the same, so I’m happy. This same album has the uptempo banger “Like A Thief In The Night”, but I’ve seen that on a couple comps and I’m feeling a bit more in the laid back mood right now. That’s Ron Carter on bass, with Joe Farrell and Randy Brecker on horns. Unfortunately, I realized too late that this Longo record needed a good cleaning, so you get the version with crackle and pop- suck it up.

Polarizer, better known to most as “B-Boy Document”, is a pretty nasty piece of work as well. Not as badass as some of Joe’s earlier funk, but nicely chopped syncopation with a darting flute line and a synth solo that kinda makes me laugh. The keyboard solo sounds like a really short guy getting all worked up in an argument- Danny DeVito or Joe Pesci maybe. This album was also originally issued on Groove Merchant in ’76, so there’s the connection for you; two nice Groove Merchant items that came to me through other labels.

Oh yeah, and in case you hadn’t noticed, the Crate takes comments now, so let me know what you think…

El General : Bunduff Kun-Kun
taken from the album “Muevelo” on BMG (1991)

El Comandante : Mi Gente Latina
taken from the compilation album “Latino Power” on Rota (1997)

Vico C : Bomba Para Afincar and Yogurt
taken from the album “Sentimiento Hispano” on Cassetera (198?)

My trip to the D.R. was most highly excellent. Quite a piece of paradise we found down there. Yes, there’s plenty of poverty, lack of jobs, corruption, pollution and the like; but when you have the extreme privilege of being able to temporarily experience that type of environment- when you know that you’ll be getting on a plane and bouncing back to first world comfort in a matter of days- you’re able to appreciate the sun and scenery a lot more than the locals do. No day passed without an ice cold Presidente, and we spent a good bit of time playing cards with a mellow Swedish couple. Emil, a drummer with a shaggy, practically albino-blond 70’s doo, is in a dope rock band. He didn’t dig the everpresent sounds of merengue, bachata, and reggaeton nearly as much as I did. Sorry brah, I don’t really dig the rock as much as you do- but we can still be friends.

Now that Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, & Tego Calderon, are getting serious play on pop stations (at least here in NYC), I’ve been making a lot of connections between the current Latin music boom and what happened in the sixties when “salsa”- ingeniously marketed by Jerry Masucci– first became a term. Salsa removed the specific stylistic titles (like “Son”, “Guaracha” and “Plena”) and mashed it all together under one easily digestible lable. I recently copped this ridiculously dope documentary made in ’74 about the salsa explosion. Featuring the Fania All-Stars, Manu Dibango, and a young Geraldo Rivera, the film also splices in clips of traditional African dances and disturbingly humorous, early-Hollywood portrayals of Latinos. I want to figure out a way to get video clips up on here.. maybe soon. Until then, get yourself a copy.

I’ve been into reggaeton for a minute; ever since my big sister spent a year down in the D.R. and hooked me up with some original hits by Tego. As soon as I started backtracking I learned that like “salsa”, the “reggaeton” title is pretty new. This music I’m giving you today is from the days before “reggaeton”, when music like this was called “underground” or “reggae espanol”. Vico C (from Brooklyn & P.R.) and El General (from Panama) are some of the godfathers of the music, and they’re both still putting out semi-hits (nothing in comparison to the sales of newer artists like Zion Y Lennox or Don Omar). Expect to see some exclusively reggaeton labels popping up under Sony and Universal really soon.

A lot of the tunes from that time (like “Yogurt”) were heavily influenced by early house and techno too. You can hate if you want, but everytime I’ve dropped this C + C Music Factory meets El General track, the party goes buckwild. Try it yourself. The other tunes I selected are more directly coming out of Jamaican reggae, dancehall and hip hop. I don’t know much about El Comandante, but the dude got mad flow. “Bunduff Kun-Kun” uses that synth horn sound that can be deadly- it usually is- but here it sucessfully becomes a trance inducing bounce generator. The two Vico C tracks come from a CD that sounds like it was dubbed from a cassete tape- kinda weird. He looks like he’s 13 on the cover of the album. I’m not sure about the date, but I have another record from him that dates 1990, and by that time he had grown a stache and acquired a lot of gold.

The LTG Exchange : Corazon
taken from the 7″ single on Fania (1973)

Joe Quarterman & Free Soul : (I Got) So Much Trouble In My Mind Pt. 2
taken from the 7″ single on GSF (1972)

Ahhhh. Warmth has returned to the city and I can’t stop feeling high. It also helps that I’m leaving for the Dominican Republic on Saturday. Palmtrees and sandy beaches for a week, jugo de lechosa, chillin’ out with my girlfriend in a tent. It don’t get much better than that. Just to make you that much more jealous, this is the beach we’re going to be camping on. Sorry folks.

But for a beat digger such as myself, cherry blossoms and popping leaf buds also signal the return of the Flea Market. Sure, for the die hards the market runs year-round, but come on, how much fun is it to pick through a couple of tables with mittens and earmuffs on? The essence of the flea experience is a laidback sun-drenched weekend afternoon spent languidly strolling through the overcrowded mayhem, bumping into friends, haggling, and most importantly, digging up treasures from the trash. That pretty much sums up my Sunday. If you weren’t out enjoying the honey glazed glory, then let these two funk bombs brighten your regretful despair. I got them both, along with a stack of reggae and ska oldies, from a Dominican no less! I’m crazy busy right now, so I’m not about to school you on these folks, but get off your ass and dig up the background yourself. Anybody remember “El Tiburon” by Proyecto Uno? They use that same volume gag at the end of their track too- makes the crowd get involved.
“un poco mas duro… Y UN POCO MAS DURO….. Y UN POCO MAS DURO!”

Oh, and by the way, the Toque party last week was ILL. Big up to Busquelo, go peep that shiz…

Tito Puente : Batuka
taken from the album “Para Los Rumberos” on Tico (1972)

Armando Peraza : Viva Peraza
taken from the album album “Wild Thing” on Skye (1968)

I was guest hosting the Friday night dance music spot on 89.1 this past Friday, and I had a happy listener write to me wanting to link up after enjoying the set (which I’ll put up in MP3 segments under Loose Tape real soon). Turns out this listener is a sick DJ in his own right, hosting a classic latin and broken beat night at the Williamsburg hotspot Bembe. DJ Busquelo has a bunch of nice mixes on his website– check out the one with Martin Perna (of Antibalas and Ocote) playing flute on top. The “Soulnado” mix will also be a treat for anyone who digs funky broken beat. So, tonight I’m going to the Zap Mama show @ S.O.B.s, but tomorrow I’ll definitely be heading to check the vibes provided by Busquelo. In light of that, a couple of latin jammers for ya.

I first picked up “Para Los Rumberos” on cassette tape last summer, which as we all know, can be as painful as it is rewarding. The whole album is classic material, but I downright flipped when I heard “Batuka” for the first time. Of course, any time I wanted to play it for someone I had to search the whole tape- FF, REW, wait, ahhhhh. As much as I wanted to sample the heckfire out of the ridiculous repeating break, I knew deep down that an inescapable hiss would interfere. So I was thanking the gods when it turned up in its original vinyl form at a local record spot. I’m not about to try and tell you much about Tito, there’s no shortage of coverage on this guy, but I will say that I saw him perform live (with Cachao and Poncho Sanchez) in the last year of his life and it still stands as one of the top 5 musical performances I’ve ever experienced. I know this track has been remixed by several folks (including Masters at Work) inna house style. Makes perfect sense, the form of the tune, with repeating gradual build-ups and drop-outs, is really similar to a lot of house music. Climax and false stops always makes a dancefloor happy… it’s like playing a game.

Armando Peraza is a highly respected conga/bongo player with only one album title to his name; that kinda makes this piece of wax special. That also made me feel lucky when I was walking away from the fleamarket with it under my arm this past weekend. Coming outta Havana, Peraza worked with legends like Mongo and Patato before moving to Cali. Stateside he hooked up with Cal Tjader, Gabor Szabo and a buch of other cats in the worlds of jazz, latin and beyond. Backed here by giants like Johnny Pacheco, Sadao Watanabe and Chick Corea, this album also features the boogaloo bomb “Red Onions” that can be found on this highly recommended compilation. The track that I’ve picked for you has been compiled on this great collection from the groovy folks at HiTop. Gotta keep on dancin’.

Eddie Holman : Four Walls
taken from the album “I Love You” on ABC (1969)

Sonya Spence : Peace & Unity
taken from the album “In The Dark” on High Note (197?)

Dennis Brown : The Promise Land
taken from the album “Revolution” on Yvonne’s Special (1985)

Stella Chiweshe : Live on “Passport”
recorded during a guest spot on my radio show back in 2003

It’s another mixed bag, but not at all random. This week I got some love from blog bredren, so I felt obliged (especially because I’m so new to the blogosphere) to do what little I can to return the favor. Each one of these songs goes out to a particular person that has been feeding my incessant music habit for the past several months. They all have dope websites that do what I want to be doing, and they all (as far as I can tell) have a whole hellovalot going on beyond what you see on your screen. So check out the tunes here, and then go hit up each one of the sites that have been giving me inspiration. It’s like a dialogue see…

First off, a straight soul gem for my man O-dub at Soul-Sides. Word up. Crooner Eddie Holman has mainly been remembered for one hit song back in 1970, and from the looks of it, he’s still playing that same tune. This is not that tune, but it is a heart-breakingly beautiful plea, full of remorse and longing, and some serious vocal range. I gotta give credit to my little bro too; he dug this record first, and put it on a mixtape that he made directly after breaking up. Let’s not talk about that too much. You can always dance to funk. If you go out to a club, you’re guaranteed to hear the hypest, most blatantly movement-inducing music around. But I fondly remember the days of elementary school dances, when the only time you got to get up close with a girl was during the SLOW songs. Even the overweight scary 10-o’clock-shadow dude that DJ-ed your high school prom played the slow tunes, but you won’t hear ’em when you go out nowadays. At least I don’t. My sole request to O-dub and everyone else who downloads Four Walls: DANCE TO THIS SONG.

Sonya Spence is completely off my radar. I don’t know who she is or what her story is. That’s why I’m throwing this out there to my man Christopher Porter who hosts The Suburbs Are Killing Us. I feel like there’s a pretty good chance that he knows more than me about Sonya. Regardless of my ignorance, I do love this utopian tune. For not having much of a reputation, she definitely got the right backing band- Sly Dunbar, Ansel Collins, Tommy McCook, Vin Gordon and the I-Threes as back up singers! I dug it at the legendary two-dollar vinyl graveyard in Greenpoint, BK. Thus the crackle and pop. Honestly, I find MP3s with the rice crispy sound quite poetic (no pomo!). If anyone else knows something about Sonya, please share.

For the dusty-fingered cats at Ear Fuzz, I’m just playing off your last post. But it’s all good stuff. You haven’t actually given me any love yet, but I’m preempting it. I like your tunes. That Aswad dub version is siiick. Here’s the classic vocal version blessed by Dennis Brown, who doesn’t need much of an introduction.

And last but certainly not least for today, some quality African music; the likes of which you can regularly find at one of my favorite spots online: Benn loxo du taccu. After hip hop and funk, listening to African music opened my ears monumentally- and continues to do so. I happen to share Matt’s weakness for the Mbira. I’m actually a novice player. VERY novice (meaning I took four lessons). Two years ago I had the extreme pleasure of having contemporary Mbira innovator Stella Chiweshe on my radio show. She is otherworldly. Don’t know how else to say it. She’s constantly interacting with spirits while simultaneously walking on the same plane as you and I. I had known about the Hwa hwa drinking that takes place during Mbira ceremonies, but Stella was regularly sniffing white powder from a small wooden container during her visit to the studio. I might have questioned it if her music didn’t make me feel like I was sharing some of the intoxication.

Keep up the good work folks. PEACE.