Tito Puente and His Latin Ensemble • Mambo Diablo Concord/Craft Latino CR00643
Here we have a reissue from Craft Latino and much-admired Puerto Rican-American Tito Puente, who succumbed to complications following heart surgery in 2000. He was only 13 when he held down the drum chair in Ramon Olivero’s big band. Later, after returning from military service and taking advantage of the GI Bill, he entered the Juilliard School of Music, where he studied composition, orchestration and piano. Puente’s popularity peaked during the 1950s, when his various ensembles, featuring him on percussion and timbales, performed intensely rhythmic music usually categorized as Latin jazz, salsa and/or Afro-Cuban. Perhaps the best example of this genre is his album Dance Mania, released in 1958. A few years later, in 1962, Puente’s most popular composition, “Oye como va,” surfaced on the album El Rey Bravo. Latin-rock superstar Carlos Santana turned it into a mega hit with its appearance on his 1970 album Abraxas. Through the course of his fifty-year career, Puente had over 100 albums and 145 singles and EPs to his credit, and he has earned five Grammy awards. He made time in his busy schedule to appear in three major Hollywood films. In addition to his receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990, he was awarded Billboard’s Latin Music Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. He has had a United States Post Office in Spanish Harlem named after him and a street in that same community named Tito Puente Way (E 110th St). His likeness also appears on a US postage stamp. Mambo Diablo won a Grammy for Best Traditional Tropical Album. Originally released in 1985 on Concord’s Picante label, this collection contains, among its eight tracks, a mix of originals (“Mambo Diablo,” “No Pienses Asi,” “China”) and jazz standards (“Take Five,” “Lush Life,” and “Lullaby of Birdland”). From the first lively seven-note phrase of the title tune, you know something good is happening. Puente’s prowess on the vibes is fueled by the dynamic rhythm section of timbales, bongos, congas and other tapped and slapped instruments. The song builds slowly, eventually culminating in a salsa riot of sax, trumpet and trombone punctuated with Puente’s vibes. If you can sit still listening to this tune, you’re made of stone. You’ve probably never heard the iconic jazz tune “Take Five” like this before. Gone is the polite tone of Dave Brubeck’s original performance, replaced by an infectiously swinging small-band version with spirited solos from Mario Rivera’s sax and Ray Gonzalez’s trumpet. “Lush Life” is a showcase for Puente’s mastery of the vibes. It oozes elegance as he works his way along and around the melody. Rivera again contributes a fine solo to close the song. The ensemble is all business as it rips into “Pick Yourself Up.” The feeling is carefree and celebratory as the sax and trumpet pull their solos out of the happiness basket. Pianist Sonny Bravo has his say, also backed by some fine ensemble work by the band. Guest artist George Shearing gets to solo on his own composition, “Lullaby of Birdland,” and, no surprise, it sounds as if he’s played this music his whole life. The arrangement and ensemble work here are outstanding. The lush, pensive late-night bolero “No Pienses Asi” suggests betrayal as reflected in its translated title, “ Don’t Think Like That.” If this album harbors a tune with a solemn tone, it would be this one. A bold intro to Puente’s original composition “China” changes the mood and leads to a pleasant, wistful stroll through an imaginary marketplace featuring some nice flute work from Rivera and more of Puente’s vibes. The album’s closer, “Eastern Joy Dance,” is an adventurous musical change of pace for the band. Penned by the late modern-jazz pianist Mulgrew Miller, it catapults the ensemble into a genre previously unexplored. Add timbales and other percussion and it becomes another exciting Afro-Cuban excursion. To its credit, Craft Latino has kept the cover, label art and liner notes of this reissue honest to the original. Pressed on 180-gram quiet vinyl, the LP is flat with a laudable absence of surface defects. The all-analog mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original master tapes is the icing on the cake, giving the listener a dynamic, transparent recording laden with ambiance. Craft has scored another winner here. The music is
exciting, the sound is exceptional and the listening experience returned me to times
passed, when on any sweltering summer night the sounds and rhythms of salsa bands on Ocean
Drive in Miami (just an hour south of where I live) could be heard on the crowded street.
It just might transport you too. |
ver the past few
years, Craft Recordings, a sub-label of Concord Music Group, has established an enviable
reputation for its musical selections, pressing quality and sound. With recordings
hand-picked from the Concord, Fantasy, Milestone, Prestige, Riverside, Rounder, Specialty,
Stax, Sugar Hill, Vanguard and Vee-Jay catalogues, the decision-makers at Craft have
access to much of the most important instrumental and vocal music of the past hundred
years.