Joe Bataan – Gypsy Woman (1967) (Fania SLP 340)


Joe Bataan
Gypsy Woman
Fania Records SLP 340
Original release, 1967
1990’s CD reissue

Emerging out of the hybrid crossroads of boogaloo, R&B, Latin Soul, and the nascent salsa scene, Joe Bataan was defying categorization and bending genres long before it was hip.  The first album I heard by him was “Subway Joe”, but it was years before I realized he didn’t actually sing any of the Spanish-language numbers in his repertoire – those, in the early days at least, were handled by Joe Pagan.  For a fascinating glimpse into the complexities of being an Afro-Filipino in the barrio, you can watch this interview with him done by Red Bull Academy. Although I personally like that there is an entire 2 hours of it, somebody could probably edit that down a bit, for the non-fanatical. Continue reading

Gal Costa – Gal (1969) (Mono mix)


Gal Costa – Gal
1969 Philips R 765.098 L

The great Gal Costa released two classic Tropicália records in 1969, and this one is widely known as the mind-bendingly psychedelic monster of the two.  The version presented here is the original mono mix and not the stereo mix that appeared on the Gal Total boxset and later in a Polysom reissue.  Gal has always surrounded herself with musical heavyweights but she was keeping particularly heady company at this time: this record has substantial involvement from Gil, Caetano and Jards Macalé (who would serve as her musical director not long after this).  No less than two compositions from Jorge Ben are featured here, including the rather deep cut “Tuareg” in a particularly funky arrangement. Continue reading

Harlem River Drive (1971) {Eddie and Charlie Palmieri} 24-bit/96khz vinyl

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Harlem River Drive – Harlem River Drive

Originally released on Roulette Records (SR 3004), 1971
this pressing, reissue – year unknown
1 Harlem River Drive (Theme Song) (4:05)

Bass – Victor Venegas
Organ – Charlie Palmieri
Timbales – Nick Marrero
Guitar – Bob Bianco
Drums – Reggie Ferguson
Congas – Eladio Perez

2 If (We Had Peace Today) (2:56)

Guitar – Cornell Dupree
Trombone – Bruce L. Fowler
Trumpet – Burt Collins
Bass – Gerald Jemmott
Drums – Dean Robert Pratt

3 Idle Hands (8:27)

Bass – Gerald Jemmott
Timbales – Nick Marrero
Saxophone [Tenor] – Dick Meza
Guitar – Cornell Dupree
Drums – Bernard Purdy
Trombone – Bruce L. Fowler
Congas – Eladio Perez

4 Broken Home (10:35)

Guitar – Bob Bianco
Organ – Charlie Palmieri
Congas, Cowbell – Manny Oquendo
Bass – Victor Venegas
Drums – Nick Marrero

5 Seeds Of Life (5:07)

Bass – Victor Venegas
Bass [Fender] – Andy Gonzalez
Timbales – Manny Oquendo
Guitar [Lead] – Bob Mann
Saxophone [Tenor] – Dick Meza
Drums – Bernard Purdy
Trombone – Barry Rogers
Trumpet – Randy Brecker
Congas – Eladio Perez
Guitar [Accompanying] – Cornell Dupree

Produced by Lockie Edwards and Eddie Palmieri
Engineer – Fred Weinberg
Remix engineer – Jay Messina
Artwork By – Ruby Mazur’s Art Department

Technical info
Vinyl repressing -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply) > Creek Audio OBH-15 -> M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard -> Adobe Audition 3.0 at 24-bits 96khz -> Click Repair light settings, additional clicks and pops removed in Audition -> dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced -> ID Tags done in foobar2000 v.1.0.1 and Tag & Rename.

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Still a criminally under-appreciated album and were it not for the blogoshere it would be even more so. I’ve been sitting on this one for a long long time without sharing it, waiting for stars to align perfectly for me to write something inspired about this exhilarating album, and then I remembered that it made an appearance on the Orgy In Rhythm blog a few years back. The write-up there is so well-down it would superfluous to add much to it. I will only add that, since the post at Orgy, it has apparently been reissued on CD although I haven’t personally seen a copy.

As you can see below, he also states that he forked out the cash for a pricey Japanese vinyl pressing. The links are dead there so I can’t make any comparisons, but I think my rip — made from a recent reissue, year unknown, on inferior-quality vinyl — still sounds pretty nice. There is surface noise on some of the atmospheric parts of Broken Home, for example, that has been there since I tore the plastic off the LP jacket – this is NOT virgin , but it was also priced accordingly. And generally I think the sound is pretty warm and full. I hope you enjoy and encourage people to leave comments about what you think.

From Orgy in Rhythm, 2006

Eddie Palmieri’s supergroup Harlem River Drive was the first group to really merge black and Latin styles and musicians, resulting in a free-form brew of salsa, funk, soul, jazz, and fusion. Though it was led by pianist Palmieri, the group also included excellent players from both the Latin community (his brother Charlie, Victor Venegas, Andy GonZalez) and the black world (Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Ronnie Cuber). Named as an ironic reference to the New York City street which allowed predominantly suburban drivers to bypass East Harlem entirely on their way to lower Manhattan, Harlem River Drive released their groundbreaking debut album in 1970 on Roulette, including Latin and underground club hits like the title track and “Seeds of Life.” Unfortunately, Harlem River Drive was their only album, though the group did appear co-billed on Eddie Palmieri’s two-part 1972 release, Live at Sing Sing, Vols. 1-2.
The reason this record is “legendary” is because it marks the first recorded performances, in 1970, of Eddie and Charlie Palmieri as bandleaders. The reason it should be a near mythical recording (it has never been available in the U.S. on CD, and was long out of print on LP before CDs made the scene), is for its musical quality and innovation. The Palmieris formed a band of themselves, a couple of Latinos that included Andy Gonzales, jazz-funk great — even then — Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, and some white guys and taught them how to play a music that was equal parts Cuban mambo, American soul via Stax/Volt, blues, Funkadelic-style rock, pop-jazz, and harmonic and instrumental arrangements every bit as sophisticated as Burt Bacharach’s or Henry Mancini’s or even Stan Kenton’s. One can hear in “Harlem River Drive (Theme)” and “Idle Hands” a sound akin to War’s on World Is a Ghetto. Guess where War got it? “If (We Had Peace)” was even a model for Lee Oskar’s “City, Country, City.” And as much as War modeled their later sound on this one record, as great as they were, they never reached this peak artistically. But there’s so much here: the amazing vocals (Jimmy Norman was in this band), the multi-dimensional percussion section, the tight, brass-heavy horn section, and the spaced-out guitar and keyboard work (give a listen to “Broken Home”) where vocal lines trade with a soprano saxophone and a guitar as snaky keyboards create their own mystical effect. One can bet that Chick Corea heard in Eddie’s piano playing a stylistic possibility for Return to Forever’s Light As a Feather and Romantic Warrior albums. The band seems endless, as if there are dozens of musicians playing seamlessly together live — dig the percussion styling of Manny Oquendo on the cowbell and conga and the choral work of Marilyn Hirscher and Allan Taylor behind Norman. Harlem River Drive is a classic because after 30-plus years, it still sounds as if listeners are the ones catching up to it.

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in 320 kbs
MIRROR 1 /// MIRROR 2

in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO 16-bit FLAC

in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO 24-bit / 96khz FLAC

or, 24-bit MIRROR

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Rabbits & Carrots – Soul Latino (1969)

Rabbits & Carrots
“Soul Latino” 1969
Reissue on Vampisoul 2007 with extra tracks (Vampi CD 088)

1. Pais Tropical
2. Hip City
3. Romeo Y Julieta
4. Funky Chicken
5. Jarabe
6. Las 4 Culturas
7. Everyday People
8. Oh Calcuta!
9. Los Pelos Tiesos
10. Workin’ On A Groovy Thing
11. Spill The Wine
12. We Got More Soul
13. Sex Machine
14. Express Yourself

The first time I heard this all-instrumental record I was skeptical. Why bother, I asked myself, covering James Brown and Sly Stone in the late 60s when those artists were still putting out great music at incredible levels of productivity? The second time I listened to this, I asked myself, “Why the hell not?” This record is a lot of fun, even if the hype from Vampisoul about the hip DJ’s who spin it doesn’t do anything to excite me (in fact its more likely to make me ignore it..)

How can I *not* like a record that opens up with a soul-jazz take on País Tropical with a slightly-overdriven pseudo-Wes Montgomery guitar lead playing the vocal melody? If you can’t find that catchy then you’re hopeless. On first hearing this record I had thought that maybe these guys were Nuyorican because of the emphasis on black American music. Imagine my surprise to find out they were a bunch of Mexicans. Rabbits & Carrots were basically a nightclub / bar band in Mexico City, founded by Salvador Aguero with his brothers, that included mostly a lot of anglophone contemporary hits in their repertoire. But whereas there were tons of Mexican rock bands at the time with fuzzed-out guitars playing psychedelic or progressive rock with long wanky guitar solos, English lyrics, and beards, these guys were enamored with soul and funk music. Jorge Ben, Rufus Thomas, Kool & The Gang… Neil Sedaka.. Oddly enough the liner notes mention that the song “Las Quatras Culturas” is the one original composition on the album, somehow “about” the May 1968 massacre of students in Mexico City, when really the song is a blatant James Brown rip-off. But no matter, it’s still pretty cool albeit a little too upbeat for a song ostensibly about state repression. My favorite tune on here is an arrangement of a traditional tune, “Jarabe” that shows off just how well this band could cut loose in a style that really did blend a Latin rhythmic sense with soul from its northern brothers. On the whole this record has a lounge lizard, rather cheesy quality that must be what the ironic hipsters are enamored with, but the band approaches their material with enough inspiration (and some serious jazz chops from saxophonist Ramón Negrete) to make them stand apart from just a generic bar band.

 

The last four tracks on this disc come from an EP released years later by their label Musart. The band rather tragically abandons the exclusively instrumental approach they had adhered to in favor of incorporating a singer, identified only as “Max” in the typically ramshackle liner notes provided by Vampisoul. Although I can appreciate the effort of attempting to translate “Sex Machine” into Spanish, this guy is no James Brown. The results are kind of hilarious, but still doesn’t qualify as “so bad it’s good.” In fact I would have to say that these four tracks are just fucking godawful. Repeated listens only confirm how awful they are. The version of “Spill The Wine” just makes me want to pull out my Eric Burdon & War LP from my dusty archives. These songs require a vocal swagger and charisma that the singer just lacks, and I must say the results of the translation are questionable. They fall flat, and are rather embarrassing, and I think Vampisoul would have done these guys a service by leaving them off the album. But they are kind of a sketchy label anyway, seemingly consulting with nobody on these reissues (they have even been sued by Fania, for example), but they have been unearthing some nice treasures from the musicial seen of D.F., Mexico, for the rest of the world.

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Colombia! The Golden Age Of Discos Fuentes. The Powerhouse Of Colombian Music 1960-76

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Colombia! The Golden Age Of Discos Fuentes. The Powerhouse Of Colombian Music 1960-76
Various Artists
Soundway Records (SNDWCD008)
Every Soundway compilation is a labor of love and this one is no exception. This collection focuses on the Fuentes label of Colombia, which has been active there since the 1930s. Covering a mighty chunk of stylistic territory and a span of over fifteen years is no mean feat and it’s remarkable the collection holds together as well as it does. It has its flaws but they are relatively minor and far outweighed by the fact that Soundway is making this music available to a wider audience that to a large extent have not had much access to it. Continue reading