Willie Rosario and His Orchestra: Boogaloo and Guaguanco
This is easily one of the best boogaloo albums you can find for under $30. Sure, Joe Bataan’s Fania albums are amazing too, but original copies of those puppies will set you back to a flat wallet. Rosario gives you not one, not two, but three (yes three!) excellent boogaloos for your buck, plus a slick mambo jazz cut to boot. For starters, “Watusi Boogaloo” is just a solid, solid example of what a good boogaloo should sound like: fun, catchy, with plenty of people screaming in Latin-tinged voices, the whole nine. Personally, I can’t believe no one’s bothered to comp this cut yet. Ridiculous. I’ve always liked Rosario’s cover of “Taste of Honey” – it begins with a slow brass build-up but then gets a lil funky as this classic standard gets the boogaloo treatment. “Light and Sweet” is the third in the trio, and in my opinion, the least interesting, but it’s still dependable. Ending the album is the airy, swinging “Stop and Go”, that mambo jazz cut I mentioned before. For anyone looking to start up a basic Latin collection, this one comes highly recommended.
chatter