Mongo Santamaria – Live At Yankee Stadium
Mongo Santamaria and his band can be proud of this album. It is a tribute to their musicianship. Recorded live, the night of Friday, August 24, 1973, before an appreciative New York audience, the music is performed flawlessly and with such conviction that it forces you to listen. 
“DR. GASCA” [...]

 
Art Blakey – Drum Suite
 

Drum Suite 

As preparations for a test run for the Drum Suite began, the air in Columbia’s studios was filled with excitement. Jo Jones and Art Blakey moved over to their respective drums, Candido and Sabu picked up their bongos, Ray Bryant sat down at the piano and Oscar Pettiford got set [...]

Well, continuing with the Latin/Afro-Cuban beat theme, here's an album by 'legendary' organist Jackie Davis.  Pretty much a corny-jump-on-the-Latin-explosion record with the new (at the time) Hammond organ.  Gimmick on gimmick.  Fortunately, there's no denying the sound of the electric Hammond, however corny the arrangements, and the rhythm section handles business.  The song "Glow-Worm" has [...]

More Cuuuba! This time it's the King Of Mambo (later called salsa), Perez Prado.  Like Mongo, he played in the Havana tourist/casino scene then moved to Mexico during the post World War II years.  He became known for the intensity and passion of his Afro-Cuban rhythms, along with his horn riffs and arrangements (my favorite [...]

Since I'm on a Afro-Cuban binge over here, I'd thought I'd post this LP up.  This is a LP of Orisha music, which is the music of the Yoruba belief system, this one being specific to the practices in Cuba.  Well, the part about the Orisha music is true, but this album has an [...]

 
Mongo Santamaria – The Watermelon Man
 

“..,.And that great captain, Ziska, would have a drum made of his skin when he was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his enemies to flight.” So wrote Richard Burton (1577-1640) in Anatomy of Melancholy. 

Mongo Santamaria has often said that part of the beauty of [...]