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Sad news: Jimmy Sabater, the “velvet sound” of Latin soul, just passed away. To me, Sabater is one of the most undersung of the boogaloo giants, the literal voice to many of the style’s great hits. I had a chance to interview him a couple of years back for the liner notes to the Joe Cuba Sextet’s We Must Be Doing Something Right and am grateful to have had that opportunity.
Sabater and Cuba were, for the most part, inseparable from one another. It’s impossible to consider the accomplishments of one without crediting [...]
Continue reading REMEMBERING JIMMY SABATER
Orchestre Du Bawobab: Kelen Ati Len + Jarraf
From Visage Du Senegaal (Disques Buur, 1974)
Amongst certain circles of Afro-funk fans, “Kelen Ati Len” is probably the best-known song by this Dakar band but this LP is hardly a one-tracker 1 No doubt, “Kelen Ati Len” is killer with its crashing drums and angular guitar work. It’s like Bawobab/Baobab members had spent a few years jamming with the Kashmere Stage Band before returning to Senegal.
However, I included “Jarraf” because you get a whole other sense of cross-cultural play with its [...]
Continue reading ORCHESTRE DU BAWOBAB: CROSS-ATLANTIC CONNECTIONS
Katunga: Oh Cherie
From Mira Para Arriba, Mira Para Abajo (RCA, 1973)
Katunga was a 1970s Latin funk/rock outfit out of either Peru or Argentina (I’m still not 100% certain if they were Peruvians who recorded/toured in Argentina or the other way around) with a few LPs to their name. “Oh Cherie” comes off of what is probably their “best-known” LP (to American heads), Mira Para Arriba, Mira Para Abajo (“look up, look down”) thanks to a number of b-boy break-type joints, especially “Palo Bonito.”
However, I keep coming back to “Oh [...]
Continue reading KATUNGA: OH CHERIE, AMOUR
My history of the Latin soul label, Speed, is included in the new issue of Wax Poetics. I’ve written on Speed before but never in this complete detail, which includes quotes from a variety of people I interviewed, connected to the label, including Bobby Marin, Bobby Matos and Frankie Nieves.1
Speaking of Latin, UK’s Soundway has put up an awesome, interactive map of regional Colombian music styles.
Special thanks to Mathew Warren for sharing his interview with Chuito Santiago. ↩
This morning, Will Holland, aka Quantic, dropped by the studio and I couldn’t be more pleased since I’ve been a massive fan of his work for years and though we’ve corresponded via interweb and have some mutual friends, this is the first time I’ve met him in person.
Quantic has had a remarkably prolific and diverse career over the last decade, all now captured in the new 32-song double-CD anthology, Best of Quantic. With that in mind, I asked Will about his history as a producer, beginning in his early years, recording sample-based [...]
Continue reading THE SIDEBAR 18: QUANTIC
Earlier in the year, a documentarian named Mathew Ramirez Warren contacted me about a possible interview. Mathew is putting together a full-length film on the history of Latin boogaloo – We Like It Like That – and obviously, this is a topic near and dear to me. Before he came out to interview me, he sent me a few clips of what he had already shot.
I was floored.
The story of Latin boogaloo, in my opinion, has been remarkably ignored. There are any number of theories to explain that relative absence (we don’t have [...]
Continue reading WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT: SUPPORT THIS BOOGALOO DOCUMENTARY
Sad news I just learned about; Jerry Ragovoy has passed away at age 80. I wrote about Ragovoy in 2009, after the release of an anthology of his best-known collaborations; please do check that out since it has more on his background and other songs.
I alluded to this in that post but Ragovoy was an incredibly prolific force in R&B who didn’t always get the recognition he deserved. I was amazed at how many incredible songs he touched, including a few of my all-time favorite soul songs by the likes of [...]
Continue reading JERRY RAGOVOY: RIP
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