Gnarls Barkley (Cee-Lo & Dangermouse) : Smiley Faces and Crazy
taken from the upcoming album St. Elsewhere on Downtown/Atlantic (2006)

Cee-Lo : I’ll Be Around and All Day Love Affair
taken from the album Cee-Lo Green… Is The Soul Machine on Arista (2004)

Cee-Lo : Gettin’ Grown
taken from the album Cee-Lo Green And His Perfect Imperfections on Arista (2002)

First off, I was really really really having a good good good time watching this movie. I think I would be happy just watching Questlove drum for 2 hours straight, but seeing all these cats together was just outta control. It was so good that it almost made me not be mad at myself for missing the concert in person- where was I?

Perhaps the only person missing was my man CEE fuckin’ LO to the mutherfuckin’ GREEN! If you haven’t been travelling through the Siberian backcountry for the past 5 years, then you’ve heard his music. You very well might have all these songs in your iPod already, but on the off chance that somehow you have missed the absolutely brilliant career of one of our greatest contemporary soul music geniuses (yup, I ain’t afraid to say it!) then you will be thanking me for this revelation.

From Goodie Mob to Dungeon Family to solo steez to countless sideprojects (“Sugar” by Trick Daddy or “Don’t Cha” by Tori Alamaze if you need to be reminded), this man has never ceased to deliver TOP quality music while still managing to actually make it sucessfully (at least somewhat) in the industry. “All Day Love Affair” can bring me to tears, no joke. Plus, dude writes mad songs that make it to the Billboard charts without most of us ever knowing it. To me, that’s genius.

As much respect as I had for the Cee, I really didn’t think I could be as blown away as I was when I first heard “Crazy” a while back. But there’s just nothing else like it. Not sure how or when Cee-Lo first hooked up with Dangermouse to form Gnarls Barkley, but the match seems to fit just right. Simple, haunting, raw, organic… the man has a voice worthy of delivering the gospel. Then just this week I got my hands on “Smiley Faces”, holy crapoli. I’m really feeling tunes at this tempo right now, it’s that ole’ tyme side to side sway shizzz. Makes you clap your hands and bounce and bob yer freaking head and shake your hair and just WILE OUT! I’ve heard some other songs of theirs on the internet (including a really interesting cover of Violent Femmes’ “Gone Daddy Gone”), check it out for yourself. You know I don’t usually post music that is easily available for download from any file sharing network, but this is an exception, this needs to be everywhere. This needs to be what gets played non-stop on the top 40. This needs to go triple platinum. Sadly, it’s very unlikely that it will. Thank you Cee-Lo. and Dangermouse too.

Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 : Mais Que Nada
taken from his self-titled album on A&R (1966)

Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’77 : Promesa De Un Pescador
taken from the album “Primal Roots” on A&R (1972)

Sergio Mendes (ft. Q-Tip & Will.I.Am) : The Frog
taken from the album “Timeless” on Concord (2006)

I gotta admit, I was really getting my hopes up about this Sergio project. Sure, the guy has had plenty of leanings towards the ever expanding empire of cheesy-dom, but I still have much respect for Will.I.Am (I can hear you folks jeering in the bleechers, but come on now, listen to how he flipped Jorge Ben’s “Comanche” back in ’98 and tell me that ain’t siiick) and I just kept hearing about more and more artists getting on the album (Erykah, John Legend, Pharoahe Monch, Marcelo D2, and even STEVIE for cryin out loud!), so I was honestly expecting some hotness. Well, “Timeless” doesn’t quite make the grade in my opinion. It’s comes across kind of like a lighter version of the Red Hot + Riot album, but not as badass (Sergio just doesn’t compete with Fela), not as diverse (I would have loved to hear Bugz freak some of this material), and it’s just not as much “Brazilian” as it is “Hip Hop”. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, Hip Hop is good, we love Hip Hop, but I wish Sergio could have exploited his uniqueness a lot more. The sad thing is, whenever he does step up to solo, I usually wince and wish he hadn’t… I don’t want to get old like that.

This old school version of “Mais Que Nada” highlights the type of swinging, groovy, pop originality that I had hoped to see more of. When Sergio’s first A&R album (produced by highly herbie Herb Alpert) dropped in the U.S., it shook. It still shakes. That track is timeless. He continued swinging through the 60’s, fusing latin sounds with British and American pop and soul. There were a lot of cool, jazzy, swingin tunes that came out of it. The early seventies saw Sergio getting a bit funkier. “Promesa” has that nasty drum break (used by none other than Madlib on one of his many side projects) but it also has those elements of Afro-Brazilian music that make it so unique.

This new album ain’t bad, aside from a couple forgettable tracks and some very cheesy soloing, but it doesn’t have anything to really get me excited – so that’s dissappointing. “The Frog” is very playable, same with “Yes, Yes, Y’all” and a few others, but it’s basically just a hip hop track (is Sergio anywhere on this?) with a catchy Brazilian hook. I want to hear Quantic do a track on this album, and Ursula 1000, and Dangermouse could have really flipped one of these songs… oh well.

Bossa 70 : Think
taken from the compilation “Jeff Recordings on Crippled Dick Hot Wax! (2002)

Bappi Lahiri & Salma Agha : Come Closer
taken from the compilation “Indiavision” on Buda Musique (2005)

Some really cool stuf on these two collections. The first one features 16 tracks all engineered by a German chiller named Jeff Nieckau. Not really feeling the scene in early 60’s Germany, he took off for sunnier, funkier places. First stop was Tanzania, but that proved to be so much fun that he decided to keep on trekking. All the recordings from this comp were made between 1972 – 1976 while he was working/living in Peru and Trinidad. The album has some great liner notes and cool pics that help paint the picture of this groovy man’s musical (and technological) adventures. Turns out he engineered a record I have by Lord Shorty which Jeff claims was the first Soca (soul + calypso) record ever – dope stuff.

If you’ve been checking my blog for a while, then you know I like to slip in a little bollywood stuff here and there, thing is, the really sick tunes are so hard to come by. That’s why I was psyched when Buda Musique (the same French cats that keep putting out bangers under the Ethiopiques series) decided to do this awesome collection of Hindi film songs. They’ve got a bunch of songs from the more well known soundtracks (at least to beat diggers), but then they dig up some gold like “Come Closer” (from the soundtrack to Kasam Paida Karnewale Ki, 1984) which is kinda in a league of its own. Smooth drum machine porno preparation music. When the horns slide in, just after the sitar solo, I’m definitely ready to get it on with melady – good thing she digs the bollywood too, haHA!

Ray Barretto Tribute Mix
Part 1 (mixed by DJ Busquelo)
Part 2 (mixed by Captain Planet)

I’ll post some new stuff soon, sorry to keep you hanging, but for now enjoy this Tribute Mix. It’s about as much Barretto as could possibly fit onto an 80 min CD. Part 1 is Busquelo bringing you many heavy oldies and the full length version of ‘Cocinando’ – bonkers. Part 2 is my handiwork, more oldies and some of the funk and soul as well. Enjoy the tunes and share with friends. Oh yeah, I guess you’ll want a proper tracklisting… well once it’s up in the “Loose Tape” section (gimme a minute) you’ll have that as well.

PEACE

Ray Barretto 1929 – 2006 :
Descarga Criolla
taken from the album “El ‘Ray’ Criollo” on United Artists (1966)

The Soul Drummers
taken from the album “Acid” on Fania (1967)

Hard Hands
taken from the album “Hard Hands” on Fania (1968)

Right On
taken from the album “Barretto Power” on Fania (1972)

Pastime Paradise
taken from the album “La Cuna” on CTI (1981)

Somehow I can’t imagine Ray Barretto “resting in peace”. The man was all about causing a raucous, stirring things up and making it funky. From his younger years in the jazz scene as a session musician (appearing on records with Art Blakey and Lou Donaldson among many others) ’til his more recent efforts, Ray made the conga clap like few others in history have. O-Dub and Jeff Chang have teamed up on a proper homage piece that you can find at Soul-Sides.com. I can’t really add too much in the way of historical significance, but on a personal note, this man is one of the main reasons I got into Latin music in the first place. Being a DJ that relies heavily on afro-latin music, people often wonder what the hell a whiteboy like me is doing digging so deep into salsa. I can always say “Look at Larry and Andy Harlow, look at Symphony Sid, whiteboys have always been into salsa”, but really it has to do with the fact that the music is simply irresistable; that the first time I heard “Soul Drummers” I could barely contain my excitement. Barretto was one of those rare geniuses, regardless of genre or era or location on the planet, that knew how to bang out a rhythm so contagious it’s nearly impossible not to enjoy- my weekly TOQUE sessions are definitely a testament to this. You hit ’em with boogaloo and latin soul, then drop the serious descarga jams, the dancefloor will be moving.

Ray was in it from the early days, shaping the Nuyorican Sound, giving the salsa its sabor picante, consitently putting out records with proud positive messages and thunderous breakbeats. I’m gonna try to finish a Barretto Mixwith Busquelo in the upcoming week, but until then, here’s a few of my favorites (to add to the ones that O-Dub’s already got up).

I had prodded and pushed, begged and pleaded, and finally I had given up. But, to my surprise, freshly returned from his trip to South America, here comes… GUEST POST FROM DJ BUSQUELO! Now I’m gonna have to start pushing all over again for another one…

Harold : Busque el Gato
taken from the 7″ single put out by Eveready Batteries (197?)

It feels fitting that my first (and overdue) introduction to the loyal readership of the Captain’s Crate should be a namesake nugget of esoteric fire. Picture this: somewhere between Panama and Venezuela, Union Carbide commissions a guy named Harold to write a little jingle to remind a tropical nation, better known for kidnapping and drug trafficking than for its magnificent birds and friendly people, how to identify their line of Eveready Batteries. Just Look For The Cat (eveready logo has a cat doesn’t it?). 30 or so years later, Harold’s “Gato” makes its way into my trembling paws, and further proves my theorem that the Quest is its own Reward.