Vibraphones, flutes and California Latin jazz

I’ve posted extensively about Afro-Latin music in California (here, here, here and here). The subject fascinates me, so I’ll try not to belabor the point too much.

Latin jazz in the post-War Bay Area and Los Angeles was a diffuse, small-scale phenomenon. It’s not entirely accurate to summarize the cities as “scenes” the way one refers to Latin music in New York City as a “scene.” Even so, the West Coast version of Latin jazz had its own sound. If one were pushed to generalize, one might say that it was more atmospheric, less fiery than the East Coast version. Jazzier, if you will. Why the difference? To some degree, it’s a matter of demographics.

At least initially, the West Coast didn’t have the substantial Puerto Rican or Cuban communities to nurture Afro-Latin music, and, consequently, early California Latin jazz experiments were comprised to a greater degree of jazz musicians. East Coast bandleaders like Tito Puente or Eddie Palmieri, on the other hand, had groups with higher ratios of Cubans and Puerto Ricans, musicians who’d grown up playing Afro-Latin music as actual participants in the culture. These New York City groups played Afro-Cuban jazz, or mambo jazz, usually as part of a broader repertoire of guaguanco, cha cha, guajira, son montuno, plena and bomba.

In the 1930s and ‘40s, California society orchestras and Mexican-American bands like Chuy Reyes’ had updated their repertories with fashionable boleros, rumbas and danzones, of course, but their music remained polite - supper club stuff. There was mambo and montuno in the pioneering Mexican-American swing and R&B of the Pachuco Boogie Boys and Lalo Guerrero, too, but only in the most elemental form. Latin jazz in post-War California would largely begin as an import, that is, not an in situ development of the community as
New York City’s Latin jazz was.

The Panamanian-born percussionist Benny Velarde summed up the differences another way in an interview:

“On the East Coast they were playing music that was called “Afro Cuban Jazz”. It was heavily influenced by Chano Pozo who played with Dizzy Gillespie and Mario Bauza. On the West Coast we were playing what was called “Latin Jazz” - which meant jazz standards with Latin percussion …Another difference was that on the East Coast the music was played by Big Bands like those lead by Dizzy Gillespie and Machito. But on the West Coast we did not have Big Bands but the music was played by smaller combos.”

Post-War appearances of Latin jazz pioneers Machito and His Afro-Cubans and the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra (with Chano Pozo) - and later Tito Puente and mambo king Perez Prado - dazzled West Coast audiences. Few in the audience, it seems, would be more greatly affected than jazz musicians. They were a diverse bunch, the early California converts to Afro-Latin music and Latin jazz. Pianist Eddie Cano and vibraphonist Bobby Montez, for example, were Mexican-American, and major draws in Hollywood clubs. White vibraphonist Cal Tjader came from a bop background, and so did black bassist Al McKibbon, though Tjader was basically a native son, and McKibbon arrived from New York City. Percussionist Ricardo Lewis played in some early (and sadly underdocumented) Bay Area Latin jazz combos, and hailed from New Orleans, where he began as a jazz drummer. Like so many others, Los Angeles bandleader Stan Kenton began adding Latin rhythms to his arrangements after a firsthand introduction to the Machito Orchestra. Pianist George Shearing was British, and blind. The list goes on.

The remaining, and most critical, component of early Latin jazz sessions was the seasoned Afro-Latin congueros, bongoceros and timbaleros. Percussionists like Willie Bobo, Mongo Santamaria, Luis Miranda, Benny Velarde, Carlos Vidal, Armando Peraza and Francisco Aguabella had grown up in playing in the tradition. They were masters, and they were indispensable.

Together, at least in Los Angeles, these groups might play huge music ballroom events like the Mambo Jumbo, Joe Garcia’s nights at the Zenda ballroom or Lionel Sesma’s ongoing Latin Holidays at the Hollywood Palladium - events that presented visiting Afro-Latin orchestras.

More often, however, Latin jazz groups traveled along the same circuit of jazz venues, supper clubs and upper-crusty nightspots that jazz combos did, playing places like the Crescendo, the Latin Quarter, Ciro’s, the Garden of Allah and Slapsi Maxi's in Los Angeles and the California Hotel, the Copacabana Club, the Black Hawk, Bop City and the Frisco Club in the Bay Area.

These places fostered a certain dynamic, which brings us finally around to this week’s artists. Jazz players found that an exotic tone poem in the setlist was a clever way to transform a club’s atmosphere, and, additionally, it afforded a certain latitude to explore new sounds, modes, and time signatures. Latin jazz combos, too, found the same experimental freedom in exotica. Certainly it was a great way to put those vibraphones to dramatic effect.

Their audiences didn’t quite get all this, but found it all very diverting nonetheless - long enough to idly consider flute lessons before the last gin and tonic kicked in, at least.

1. Tony Martinez and His Mambo Combo, Pharaoh’s Curse (GNP)
Singer, bandleader, bassist, percussionist and vibraphonist Tony Martinez was an incorrigible showman. He wound up - where else - in television in the late ‘50s, and, for better or worse, those years as Pepino on The Real McCoys will probably be the ones that he’s remembered for.

Martinez’s spotlight flair bore its greatest fruit in music, however. There is drama in his handful of brilliant mambo-jazz 45s from the early- to mid-‘50s - this selection, for instance, as well as previously posted “Ican.” The virtuosic performance with his combo (with Eddie Cano on piano) in 1956’s Rock Around the Clock is pure showmanship.

Tony Martinez was born in 1920 in Puerto Rico. A gifted musician, he studied in San Juan, moving to New York City in the ‘40s to attend Juilliard. He’d form a few groups of his own there, and play bass for pianist Noro Morales, a pioneer of jazzy rumbas. Destined for balmier shores, though, Martinez relocated to Hollywood in the late ‘40s. His combos would be among the first to play the mambo and heavier Afro-Latin material. He was a local phenomenon; by the ‘50s he was a featured act both at upscale Sunset Strip clubs and at huge ballroom events like the Palladium’s Latin Holiday dance nights.

The Pharaoh's Curse (1957). Thanks to the fabulous Bleeding Skull for the screen shots.

Though unusual, especially the organ, this selection - written for the 1957 mummy must-see Pharaoh’s Curse - was not that uncharacteristic of Martinez, who of anyone knew his way around a spooky melody (see “Ican,” again). The movie itself was spearheaded by Bel-Air, an early independent production house known for low-budget ‘50s genre movies, which meant that most of its production values wound up in this selection. Exotica hero Les Baxter wrote this selection, by the way, and provided the rest of the soundtrack. (Note: if anyone’s seen Pharaoh’s Curse, I would love a description.)

This would not be the last of Martinez’s involvement with film industry. He’d been landing small parts in the movies since the late 1940s, and, when offered the role of Pepino Garcia on The Real McCoys in 1957, he accepted. It was a breakthrough role for a Latino on network television, though a highly problematic one - a Puerto Rican playing a Mexican farm hand, and a role scripted with every cliché in the book.

For a time, Martinez’s work was divided between television and music. There would be a good 1960 live album with Eddie Cano and bongo player Jack Constanzo. There would also be The Many Sides of Pepino LP - a sort of novelty-personality album that exploited his stereotyped image - best forgotten except for the storming instrumental “Mandarin Mambo.”

Tony Martinez’s music days wound down, and so did The Real McCoys, finally ending in 1963. Stage and screen occupied the remaining decades of Martinez’s life. He played Sancho Panza in 2,245 performances of Man of La Mancha, according to his obituary, and devoted much of his subsequent energies to creative and executive roles in the Mexican and Puerto Rican film industries.

Tony Martinez passed on in 2002.

2. Pepe Fernandez and His Afro-Cubans, G.I. Rhapsody (Key)
One distinguishing feature of “G.I. Rhapsody” is that it absolutely represents California Latin jazz: flutes, vibraphones, a combination of jazz musicians and Latin percussionists, an exotic port-of-call sensibility.

The other distinguishing feature is a total lack of forthcoming information - great, if you like unresolvable mystery. I identified Pepe Fernandez as a New York bandleader in an early post. This record changes that, of course, but adds little else, despite the musician’s roster on the label. Flautist Bob Messenger was a studio musician who later played winds on Carpenters albums. Wally Snow is a percussionist and vibraphonist who still turns up on Los Angeles sessions. Pianist Amos Trice played on some West and East Coast jazz recordings, mostly in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. These are the best known players here, which says something, and, either way, nowhere else are they credited for their work in the Afro-Cubans.

Key Records was a tiny Hollywood record label, with probably no more than a dozen or two 45 releases from the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, mostly country and rock 'n' roll. There were also several long players on Key, notable only in that they were almost entirely anti-Communist screeds, albums with titles like Our Nation’s Pact With the Devil and The Two Fists of Communism. Not to mention 1960’s Rendezvous With Destiny, an album of speeches by then-political-upstart Ronald Reagan. The album’s back cover praises Reagan for his logic, which reminds us just how nutty the Cold War mentality got, though there’d be far worse to come.

“G.I. Rhapsody” was recorded in the early part of 1958. One wonders if its goofy patriotic introduction was a stipulation of the same brainiac who commissioned all of those albums.

3. Manny Duran and Orchestra, Tabu (Fantasy)
Mexican-American jazz pianist Manny Duran grew up in San Francisco playing music with his two brothers - also excellent jazz musicians - guitarist Eddie and bassist Carlos. The three, inspired by the urbane jazz of the wildly popular Nat King Cole Trio, first performed professionally as the Duran Brothers in the late ‘40s, and would continue to play on each others’ records over the coming decades.

Fixtures in San Francisco, the Durans would also play, individually and collectively, with the major names of post-War Bay Area jazz. Foremost among these was vibraphonist Cal Tjader, whose string of ‘50s and ‘60s Latin jazz recordings convened many of the West Coast’s finest Latin jazz and bop musicians, and set the mold for the sound of California Latin jazz. All three Duran brothers would enjoy residencies early on in Tjader’s working combos, with Eddie playing on a Tjader bop session in late ’54, and Manny and Carlos appearing on Tjader Plays Mambo - one of two watershed Latin jazz releases by Tjader, also that same year.

That incarnation of Tjader’s Latin combo dissolved after only a year or two together. But Manny and Carlos, along with Benny Velarde - also from Tjader’s group - would continue as a working unit through 1960, including a long residency at the Copacabana Club. Only two records - this 1960 reading of the exotica warhorse “Taboo” (on the premier Bay Area jazz label Fantasy) and the equally stunning “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Mambo” - came of it. Both were incredibly hip records with everything going for them except sales, which is not the last time you’ll see that around here.

A gifted professional, Manny Duran was like all but only the most fortunate of musicians. He continued to divide his time between Latin jazz and bop, enjoying an active recording and gigging career without becoming any sort of recognizable star, insofar as such is possible in the world of jazz and Latin jazz.

Manny Duran passed away in December 2005.

Incidentally, according to Benny Velarde, Duran assembled the Mambo Devils, one of San Francisco’s first Latin music groups, in the early 1950s.

Naked City Latino

Few of Tinseltown’s directors, writers, cinematographers or creative minds - and certainly none of its soundtrack and television composers - turned a blind eye to opportunism in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Each location or genre came with its familiar set of musical formulas, moods, metaphors and cues. North African epics with their sweeping “Bolero”-style scores, caper movies with their saucy continental themes. And detective movies and crime dramas with their jazz.

The point, and the money, was in indulging audiences’ fantasies, not social realism. In the 1950s, the studios’ hipper soundtrack composers knew a good moment when they saw one. They seized upon the jazz phenomenon, bebop especially. Rippling piano chords registered looming danger. Heart-stopping moments of suspense were followed with lonesome saxophone reveries. Villains' exploits went hand-in-hand with screaming brass as inevitably as dangerous men would just as soon shoot you. Bop was sophisticated and gritty. Bop could be a bit menacing to those only comfortable with Swing-era big bands.

Consider Latin jazz part of the same commercial equation. Sometimes there were mambos done fairly accurately. Henry Mancini’s Touch of Evil was a masterpiece of the crime genre; the Machito Orchestra could have practically played its main theme. More often there were standard crime charts embossed with a spray of rhumba rhythms and Latin percussion. Leith Stevens’ Private Hell 36 had its “Havana Interlude,” Billy May’s Johnny Cool had its “Juan Coolisto,” Warren Barker’s 77 Sunset Strip had its “77 Sunset Strip Cha Cha,” Stanley Wilson’s Music From M Squad had its “Cha-Cha Club” and so forth.

Like bop, Latin jazz was urbane, if not a bit exotic, and Hollywood arrangers and composers plundered the genre and its popular appeal indiscriminately. Tito Puente’s thundering percussion, the cool vibes of Cal Tjader, the after-hours themes of George Shearing: all were colors to paint an impression of the urban jungle. Any time the hero wandered into El Barrio or across the border? Better cue those bongos. It was utter fantasia, of course, the Latin Quarter one more neighborhood in an artfully typecast Gotham.

1. Neil Lewis with his Quintet, Harlem Nocturn (Gee)
The immortal ”Harlem Nocturne” was conceived by Earle Hagen, who, before his prolific Hollywood career, worked as an arranger and trombonist in the big bands of the ‘30s. Hagen was behind loads of memorable soundtracks and television themes - The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy, Gomer Pyle, The Mod Squad, among others - but his ”Harlem Nocturne,” recorded in 1939 during a stint with the Ray Noble Orchestra, is the source of his enduring fame.

“Harlem Nocturne,” big band success and later R&B instrumental staple, was performed most famously in 1959 by New Jersey’s Viscounts (excerpt here), though hundreds of versions would be committed to record whenever high drama was needed. “Harlem Nocturne” is a crime soundtrack gold standard.

Little seems to be known about Neil Lewis, however, or his fine Latin version of the theme. If names are any indication, Lewis, along with Alfred “Alfredito” Levy and the Harlow brothers, was one of a few non-Latino New York City bandleaders to record in more authentic modes. Lewis recorded a total of four 45s, all released in the mid-‘50s for local labels, all excellent jazzy small-group mambos and cha chas. This would be his second of two 45s on the Gee label, both recorded in 1954.

Lewis’s version is where mood music meets the dissipated side of midnight, its most prominent feature the way it alternates the understated theme with a mambo-driven chorus. Kind of like you alternating whiskey with beer last night. Too bad you drank away all of next month’s rent.

2. Curtis Amy, Bongo Blue (Palomar)
“Bongo Blue” is a sexy blues done by West Coast jazzmen. It’s got style, smoke and atmosphere. It’s got desperate characters nourished on liquor and cinematic cliché. “Bongo Blue” conjures the nightclub tableau that every private eye movie aspires to.

Curtis Amy is one of a select coterie of Texas-born musicians - saxophonists, especially - to distinguish themselves in California’s post-War jazz scene. Born in Houston in 1929, Amy was a clarinetist first and later a saxophonist; after earning a music degree, his early career days would be divided amongst the Army, occasional club gigs and a Tennessee teaching job. Relocating to Los Angeles in 1955, Amy would, after the perfunctory years of R&B and jazz supporting roles, record a half-dozen excellent LPs as a bandleader for the Pacific Jazz record label in the early ‘60s.

Amy and other transplanted Texans - among them James Clay, Ornette Coleman, Dewey Redman and the Jazz Crusaders - defied the cliché of post-War California jazz as a refuge of homogeneous cool jazz. He also happened to be very, very good, a musician with an attractively hard tone and a deft way of infusing the blues into sophisticated post-bebop improvisations. In addition to accompanying his wife - singer Merry Clayton - Amy would remain in Los Angeles, teaching music and appearing on pop and rock sessions. His career as a recording bandleader would essentially be finished by the mid-‘60s, however, his six Pacific Jazz LPs forming the bulk of his recorded legacy. And to that end one cliché was upheld: Curtis Amy epitomizes the forgotten jazzman.

“Bongo Blue” is an obscure 45 recorded with some of the then-vanguard of Los Angeles jazz and Latin jazz: Roy Ayers (vibes), Horace Tapscott (piano), John Gray (guitar), Arthur Wright (Fender bass), Henry Franklin (acoustic bass), Moises Obligacion (conga) and Tony Bazley (drums). Curtis Amy also recorded an uninspired album of current pop hits (The Sounds of Broadway, The Sounds of Hollywood) on the obscure Palomar label, but that effort did not include this mid-‘60s gem, which seems only to have seen release on 45 rpm format.

Curtis Amy passed on, sadly, in 2002.

3. The Embers, Peter Gunn Cha Cha (Wynne)
The component parts of crime music - its bombast, jazzy allure and torrid moods - had largely coalesced when Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn Theme” (excerpt here), one of the genre’s signature pieces, blared forth from a nation of tiny television speakers in 1958.

With its instantly identifiable metallic guitar riff and macho swagger, the “Peter Gunn Theme” told us, basically, that justice was something on the move. The Embers’ “Peter Gunn Cha Cha,” from 1959, might have lacked the original’s thrilling audacity, but it told us that justice was not always tireless. Justice liked to take it easy sometimes, too. You know, drop in La Cubana for a plate of ham and cheese croquetas. Emphasis on cheese.

The Embers were a jazzy R&B instrumental group from, I believe, Philadelphia, and released at least one other fine 45 - the exotic “Alexandria” - on Newtime Records. This selection features the redoubtable Candido Camero, a Cuban-born musician whose Latin percussion graced many bop sessions in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

In 1965, Henry Mancini released a Latin-inspired album, The Latin Sound of Henry Mancini, an LP that included his own exoticized take on the theme, "Señor Peter Gunn.”

West Coast boogaloo, part two

(Ed. Note: More this week on West Coast versions of the quintessential ‘60s Spanish Harlem musical phenomenon, the boogaloo, that fusion of black R&B aesthetic with Latin rhythms and orchestration. Broadly speaking, the boogaloo's West Coast cousins tended to be a lot jazzier and more relaxed, a Pacific balm to El Barrio's Nuyorian grit.

The first post on California boogaloo can be found here. Other Office Naps posts about West Coast Latin music can be found here and here, with, finally, an introductory post about the boogaloo here.)

1. Ricardo Luna and The Latin Jazz Quintet, Strolling the Cha Cha (Blue-Rubi)
The chugging Afro-Latin rhythms, the R&B sensibilities, the dancefloor mojo: don’t let the title’s “cha cha” reference throw you, this is pure boogaloo. This is pure boogaloo with, of course, that infusion of jazziness so prevalent among the West Coast Latin groups. More time is given over to instrumental solos, more time to general breeziness. Even that rarest of exotic Pacific birds, the jazz flute, gets some precious seconds here.

This, I believe, is Ricardo Luna of los Hermanos Luna, an obscure and jazzy Los Angeles-based Latin combo that pianist Ricardo led with his brother. Along with a few 45s on Revolvo Records, the brothers Luna issued one LP (Bailando a lo Latino) on Discos Corona Records in the ‘60s.

The vocal chorus of “Strolling the Cha Cha” refers obliquely to the Diamonds’ “The Stroll.” No one knew that a cha cha could be strolled until this 45. As “Strolling the Cha Cha” probably sold in exclusive - that is to say, negligible - quantity, no one would really think much of that possibility after this 45, either.

“Strolling the Cha Cha” was likely recorded around 1967.

2. Harold Johnson Sextet, Sorry ‘Bout That - Part I (HME)
Probably the best known of this week’s artists - which really isn’t saying that much - the Harold Johnson Sextet was a young Los Angeles combo that existed for three albums of hip, late ‘60s instrumental soul jazz and Latin modes. Harold Johnson, a pianist who grew up playing in his father’s church, first formed his sextet in the mid-‘60s; the Sextet's first record, this selection, would be released while Johnson was still a senior at Los Angeles’s Washington High School in 1967. Succeeding full-length releases would feature an ever-shifting roster, always revolving, however, around Harold Johnson.

By the early ‘70s the popular vogue for modish combo jazz had basically dissolved, and so had the Harold Johnson Sextet. A series of unsubstantiated connections suggests that this is the same Harold Johnson who later played keyboards on, among other mainstream R&B sessions, numerous Motown recordings during the label’s ‘70s Los Angeles years. These connections suggest, too, that this is the same Harold Johnson who has recently played organ behind expatriate black gospel diva Liz McComb.

Lo, from a primordial soup of emails, inference and unsubstantiated speculation an Office Naps post is born.

3. Harold Johnson Sextet, Sorry ‘Bout That - Part II (HME)
Addressing the boogaloo fad, the Harold Johnson Sextet’s “Sorry ‘Bout That” is a revealing demonstration, West Coast-style, of the whole phenomenon. “Sorry ‘Bout That” is an understated instrumental, more Latin jazz than torrid El Barrio fare, more polyglot stew of jazz musicians and Latin percussionists than Puerto Rican anthem. It doesn’t so much invite one to dance as it invites one to have a seat, relax.

Run by local record impresario Harry Mitchell, HME Records was a tiny label that was home to a few interesting Latin-ish releases, including Reggie Andrews and the Fellowship’s Mystic Beauty and Harold Johnson’s first full-length, House on Elm Street.

The musicians of “Sorry ‘Bout That” (a song which only appeared on 45) probably reflect, in some form, the personnel of House on Elm Street: David Crawford (flute), Billy Jackson (conga), Jimmy Nash (bass), Mike Shaw (tenor sax), Alfred Patterson (alto sax), Eddie Synigal (alto sax), Ronald Rutledge (drums) and Harold Johnson (piano).

4. Tony Done’s Hollywood Quintet, Micaela (Vance)
Recorded around 1967, Tony Done’s “Micaela” is a spare reading of a minor Latin hit for New York City bandleader Pete Rodriguez.

The mysterious Tony Done's Hollywood Quintet’s repertoire, if this EP is any indication, was based in guaguanco, bolero, mambo, son montuno and boogaloo - styles familiar to any late ‘60s working New York Latin combo, styles which would have made his combo both curious anomaly and perfect fit in Hollywood's after-hours club playgrounds.

“Micaela” is not only the most obscure of three obscure selections this week, it’s also the most representative of Spanish Harlem-born boogaloo. What else can one say, though? The legacy of Tony Done’s Hollywood Quintet leaves us with precious little save a four-song EP and that familiar, gnawing sense of Office Naps mystery.

Bossa America, part two

(Ed. Note: This is essentially a continuation of an earlier Office Naps installment on American versions of the Bossa Nova. That first post can be found here.)

It’d started in the mid-‘50s with sophisticated young Rio musicians hooked on American jazz and pop, a new music that translated Brazil’s samba rhythms to guitars and trap drum sets with native African and Portuguese elements swirled all into the mix. In due time, American jazz musicians would be drawn to it, musical collaborations and overseas tours would ensue, and, next thing you know, strains of “Girl From Ipanema” wafted from your downstairs neighbor’s cocktail parties.

Like the mambo craze a decade earlier, the Bossa Nova was an “exotic” musical import to this country that was endlessly copied and endlessly bastardized. Blame can be fixed on America’s mostly appalling, occasionally endearing, habit of unapologetic indifference to the finer points and sensitivities of other cultures.

But, by some point in the ‘60s, everybody, and I do mean everybody, was having a go at the Bossa Nova. It could be a token version of “Corcovado” enlivening a lounge singer’s musty live repertoire. It could be whole albums of interpretations and original material by a Frank Sinatra or a Lionel Hampton. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But for every sour hornful of “Girl From Ipanema” that the aging Louis Armstrong blew forth, there was the thumping “Bossa Nova Blues” by Doris Troy or Nancy Ames’s sparkling, vibraphone-laden version of “Mas Que Nada.” Like this week’s selections, the Bossa Nova proved more a matter of attitude than authenticity.

1. Eddie Russ Trio, Natasha (Cascades Sound)
A jazz pianist and keyboard player who preferred to work from the ‘60s onward in his adopted state of Michigan - and one of innumerable talents struggling to stay relevant in the years of mainstream jazz’s declining popularity - it was perhaps always Russ’s lot to remain underappreciated.

Still, Russ would manage some notable, if obscure, recording dates, especially in the ‘70s. From straight ahead collaborations with aging bebopper Sonny Stitt to funkier releases with Detroit jazz combo the Mixed Bag, Eddie Russ proved himself adroit, certainly, a musician capable of keeping up with the times, even if later ‘70s releases like See the Light meant synthesizers, 4/4 beats and various disco accoutrement.

Likely recorded around 1974 or ‘75, “Natasha” was clearly an excerpt from a much longer jam session, the kind that ends when three not-too-stoned jazz musicians are reminded that the tape ran out forty minutes earlier. “Natasha” also observes one of those precepts of jazz, immutable no matter the decade: compositions named for females sound more convincing with a Bossa Nova rhythm.

It is Russ himself on the wonderfully atmospheric Fender Rhodes electric piano here. The other personnel on “Natasha” remain a mystery, but conceivably included Dan Spencer (drums) and Rob Brooks (bass), then members of Russ’s working group the Mixed Bag. Cascades Sound was a short-lived label that belonged to another familiar name in Michigan jazz circles, tenor saxophonist Benny Poole.

Eddie Russ continued playing and teaching music until his death in 1996.

2. Chris Connor, I Concentrate on You (FM)
Born Mary Loutsenhizer, the fabulous Chris Connor grew up in Missouri and sang in her late teens with various college ensembles in the Columbus and Kansas City area. In 1948, she left for New York, finding vocal work shortly thereafter with the Claude Thornhill orchestra, then - with Gil Evans’s and Gerry Mulligan’s modern boppish arrangements - in its modernist incarnation. After an early ‘50s residency with Stan Kenton’s progressive jazz orchestra in Los Angeles, Connors embarked on a solo career which, in the half-century since, has generated one of jazz’s sterling vocal discographies.

Stylistically, there’s little difference among early masterpieces like 1954’s Chris Connor sings Lullabys of Birdland or 1958’s Chris Craft, mid-‘80s rarities like New Again or even Connors’s recent Everything I Love. This is all part of the hip charm of Chris Connor. If Connor’s recording career never regained its momentum of the ‘50s, when she was one of jazz’s top-selling vocalists, it doesn’t seem to have bothered her. Despite popular music’s seismic shifts in the last five decades, the small jazz combo remains her favored setting while her demeanor remains implacably cool, coaxing every last syllable of meaning from endlessly fertile sources like the Gerswhin and Porter songbooks. Diamonds and sapphires have nothing on Chris Connor. Clear winter moonlight has nothing on her, either; she stays fixed like a cool blue star in the jazz cosmos, a paradox of simultaneous swing and restraint.

This Bossa Nova-tinged version of Cole Porter’s “I Concentrate on You” was recorded at New York City’s Village Gate jazz club in 1963. It originally appeared on Chris Connor at the Village Gate, an album released on the brief-lived FM Records label run by Connor’s manager Monte Kay. In addition to Connor, the personnel on this selection include Mundell Lowe (guitar), Ronnie Ball (piano), Richard Davis (bass) and Ed Shaughnessy (drums).

Chris Connor still sings and tours today.

3. “Charlie,” “Charlie’s Tune” (A Charlie Record)
This record was made as a promotional tie-in for Revlon’s 1974 introduction of its Charlie fragrance. Charlie was marketed as the perfume of the modern working woman - the perfume of plaid pants suits, company fast tracks and steady samba beats.

1974. The year that Richard Nixon resigned as president. It was also, promised the record’s label, the “Year of Charlie.” Kinda young! Kinda now! Kinda free! Kinda WOW! So sang early television campaigns cheerfully of the scent. What better than the Bossa Nova, the elegant and breezy Bossa Nova, to reinforce all of this? And what better than a little dab of perfume to make the Bossa Nova, easily over a decade old by that point, feel “floral and fresh,” feel, well, pretty again? The Charlie fragrance itself? It was an instant, smashing success. 1974 was a great year all around.

“Charlie’s Tune” was produced by “Charlie’s Way,” released as “A Charlie Record,” and distributed, lest we forget, by “The Charlie People.” Which is another way of saying that a group of studio musicians were wholly responsible for this classy little Bossa Nova-lite. This anonymous crew was also responsible for the record’s A-side (hear excerpt here), a spirited vocal sketch of “Charlie,” that girl whom summertime, turned heads and a newfound sense of confidence seem to follow around, Ipanema-style.

The Charlie fragrance was relaunched fairly recently, if anyone’s curious about what 1974 smelled like.

Cinema funky

Just as its antecedents in the mid-‘60s had their sitar interludes and fuzztone atmospherics, the hipper cinema of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s oozed with wah-wah guitars, jazz basslines and funky backbeats. And why not? Whatever Tinseltown's machinations, film had long been a dramatic and stylish medium, and its soundtrack composers were some of the coolest talents around. Movie and television scores afforded lucrative opportunities for a Lalo Schifrin or Henry Mancini to satisfy some serious interests in jazz and composition, if not to experiment with riffs from psychedelic rock or dark rhythms from funk.

Before funk became an obligatory element of every post-Shaft blaxploitation picture, though, before it became a cliché on primetime television fare like CHiPs, there were this week’s selections. Some of these were written for movies. Some of them weren’t written for the screen but wound up there. Some of these were versions of soundtrack themes that exceeded the original. At one end of town, circa 1970, there were serious young men with serious pedigrees from music conservatories sitting in studios with handfuls of annotated charts. At the other end of town, the poorer part of town, churning funk music spun out in endless iterations. And, in that planetary stretch in between, these selections happened.

1. Roy Budd, Carter (DJM)
Roy Budd was a British musical prodigy who began his professional career as a jazz pianist at the tender age of sixteen. It would be his later soundtrack work for movies like Kidnapped (1971) and The Wild Geese (1978), however, for which Budd would find his lasting fame.

Budd imparted a chilly minimalism to “Carter,” his theme for 1971’s Get Carter, a British thriller starring Michael Caine. One can run down the possibilities all day and still never account for how Budd managed, with only a motley ensemble of bass, Indian tablas, and electric harpsichord and piano, to create a tableau so perfectly redolent of both the stark landscape of northern England and of the gangsters who went shooting about there with characteristic disregard.

Budd passed on in 1993. He was forty-six.

2. Julio Gutierrez, Last Tango in Paris (Vico)
The great Julio Gutierrez emigrated from his native Cuba in the late ‘50s, pursuing his calling in both Miami and New York City with freelance stints as a composer, session pianist and musical director. Despite two very hip ‘60s Latin jazz LPs, Progressive Latin and Havana B.C., Gutierrez would never regain the stature he’d enjoyed in Cuba, where, in addition to leading the legendary Cuban Jam Sessions series, he’d been among his country’s best known modern bandleaders and composers.

1972 would perhaps represent the crowning year for the pornographic movie in its brief-lived moment of mainstream chic, and few soundtrack themes would better encapsulate its adults-only art-house cachet than Argentinean saxophonist Gato Barbieri’s “Last Tango in Paris.” 1972 would also mark one of the final years of Gutierrez’s recording career, but if his would hereafter be one of diminishing visibility, it wasn’t for lack of audacity. Other Latin bandleaders like Mongo Santamaria, Willie Rosario and Tito Puente would tackle Barbieri’s continental boudoir anthem, but no one else would inject it with the same groovily psychedelic flair.

Gutierrez died in New York City in 1990.

3. The Johnny Harris Orchestra, Footprints On the Moon (Warner Brothers)
British-born Johnny Harris first made a name for himself in the mid-‘60s writing arrangements for pop singers like Petula Clark and Jackie Trent. Later in the decade, Harris would produce and arrange sessions for Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdink, Shirley Bassey and other pop acts including the Flirtations. His career arc would also include turns in the late ‘60s touring with Tom Jones and serving as musical director for British singer Lulu’s brief-lived variety show Happening For Lulu.

We are not discussing a serious jazzbo or renegade experimentalist here. Harris’s, rather, was a professional kind of hip, a kind that distinguished itself as a turtleneck-and-beads-wearing young talent in the somewhat staid end of the British pop studio system.

While an ear attuned to the latest in the pop charts meant getting served with unenviable tasks like resuscitating Paul Anka’s career, it also afforded its share of fringe benefits. Like John Schroeder, Harris would release a handful of LPs and 45s under his own name. Albums like 1970’s Movements were uneven affairs, certainly, with polite, state-of-the-art covers of “Light My Fire” and “Give Peace a Chance” along with some more adventurous moments like the funky “Fragments of Fear,” “Stepping Stones” and this selection.

Inspired by the Apollo moon landings and subsequently used for the British ITV Network coverage of NASA’s lunar missions, “Footprints on the Moon” follows in the great tradition of Les Baxter’s Space Escapade or Dick Hyman and Mary Mayo’s Moon Gas, albums where the moon’s surface was imagined more as luminescent lovers’ playground than science's new frontier. Each reverberating piano note of “Footprints on the Moon” seems to bring the listener one gravity-defying step closer to their astrological love destiny. Careful, Libra, your love investments will soon pay off, but watch for a calculating Capricorn to step across your earth shadow.

Since 1972 Johnny Harris has lived in Los Angeles, working mostly in television composition, most famously for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Wonder Woman.

(Thanks go to this site for much of the information on Johnny Harris.)

Roscoe Weathers, pt. 2

(Ed. note: This is part two of a post about the great ‘60s West Coast jazz and Latin jazz musician Roscoe Weathers. Weathers is a recurring source of fascination for me.

Various bits, sub-factoids and dead end details have trickled in since first posting about Weathers in June of 2006, and I’ve worked them into the original post accordingly. The introduction from that post is quoted below. This week’s musical selections themselves are all new for Office Naps, however.

- Little Danny)

From Office Naps, June 5, 2006:

Part of it is the mystery. As far as I can tell, West Coast jazz musician Roscoe Weathers’s entire output consisted of ten 45 rpm records. Several online references place Weathers in the post-War nightclubs of the Pacific Northwest where, as a saxophonist and bandleader, he’d play with Bobby Bradford, Floyd Standifer, Warren Bracken and other young Portland and Seattle beboppers. At some point in the late 1950s, however, Weathers relocated to California. There he’d contribute to the 1958 album Stringin’ Along, an obscure West Coast jazz session led by Bob Keene. More significantly, Weathers would release a series of 45s on tiny Los Angeles labels, becoming something of a regular in the bohemian clubs and Coffeehouse of the Venice Beach scene of the ‘60s.

Then there's the music. Hip and atmospheric, the records feature Weathers's talents on flute along with his crack jazz combo. They’re great examples of the Latin jazz that flourished on the West Coast among West Coast jazzbos like Cal Tjader, Eddie Cano and Bobby Montez, a form that favored hip exoticism over the hotter, brassier style of New York musicians like Machito, Dizzy Gillespie or Tito Puente.

It’s both the obscurity and the quality of these 45s, three of them featured this week, which have spawned something akin to fascination on my part. It all leads, finally, to the question: just who exactly was Roscoe Weathers?

1. Roscoe Weathers Quintet, Root Flute (Cornuto)
This is Roscoe Weathers in his most straightforward jazz groove. “Root Flute” is still plenty atmospheric, though, with its walking bassline and Weathers’s trademark trilled flute creeping around in the space between jazz noir and wayward Kerouacian fantasy. In any other life this would have been the nightclub scene in Peter Gunn.

“Root Flute” was, I’d guess, recorded around 1962 or ’63.

2. Roscoe Weathers Orchestra, The Bob White Bird (Etulf)
“The Bob White Bird” could almost pass for a record from Spanish Harlem, its energetic Latin piano chording and tempo reminiscent of mid-‘60s maestros like Hector Rivera and Eddie Palmieri. As with all of Weathers’s material, though, there’s always that unusual kink. The piano descarga vamping may be the spirit of Nuyorica, but the whistling and birdcall flute instantly pinpoint Weathers in the Pacific Rim of Martin Denny, Les Baxter and other patron saints of exotica.

Weathers is joined here by the young Alfred “Fred” Ramirez, a pianist and vibraphonist who is still very much a torchbearer for West Coast Latin jazz. (Ramirez’s more recent recordings, if you can find them, are highly recommended)

3. Joe Wilson with Roscoe Weathers Quintet, Lady Is a Tramp (Cornuto)
Born in Oklahoma, the baritone jazz vocalist Joe Lee Wilson was a committed musician from the very start, building a career in Los Angeles, Mexico, New York and, later, Europe and Japan. The ‘70s would be Wilson’s most high-profile decade, recording with avant-garde jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp (on 1971’s “Money Blues,” most famously), releasing a few well-regarded albums like Livin’ High Off Nickels and Dimes and Secrets From the Sun and singing with jazz luminaries like Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis along the way. Wilson was also a notable pillar of New York City’s loft jazz scene of the ‘70s, founding the infamous Ladies’ Fort near the East Village in 1973.

Before the dashikis and Afrocentric ferment of ‘70s New York City, Joe Lee Wilson would simply be known as Joe Wilson, though, an aspiring young jazz vocalist working the jazz clubs of Los Angeles and cutting obscure records. Here he invests this Rodgers and Hart warhorse with the mellow balm intrinsic to so much post-War California bop.

Joe Wilson’s stint with Weathers would be more than a one-off occasion. The two released another record, “Whistle Song” (on Protone Records, a sister label of Cornuto), and would often perform together at the Gas House in Venice Beach in the early ‘60s. (Thanks to Shanna Baldwin-Moore for that information.) In Lionelle Hamanaka’s 2001 interview with Joe Wilson, Wilson provides a few more valuable details about Weathers as well, recalling of Weathers that he was, surprisingly, a jewelry maker and that he’d previously spent time playing in Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra (which would have been around 1943, when Henderson was cutting some sessions on the West Coast).

Latin funk

Funk and salsa, as musical forms, were both ascendant in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. They were forms, too, that were nourished within culturally aware, politically mobilized communities. And so, according to the tradition that America will always co-opt its most disenfranchised, it follows that for a few years in the ‘70s you couldn’t throw a brick at our popular music without hitting a syncopated bassline or a conga drum. Things got ever weirder as the decade went on and R&B and salsa’s musical components were further unhinged from their message. Easy-listening maestros Percy Faith and Ferrante & Teicher made funk records. Nashville’s timbaleros were booked for six months solid, I’ve heard.

It was inevitable that Latin music and funk would have converged, and without that much commercial debasement, at some point. And so they did. Latin funk was a diffuse phenomenon, though, less an extension of an earlier counterpart boogaloo (with its composite of vamping Afro-Latin rhythms and R&B attitude) than a part of the overall psychedelic cultural swirl that made crossover experiments so much fun in 1970. Ray Barretto and Joe Bataan - artists identified with the boogaloo - made popular Latin funk records. Tejano artists like Augustine Ramirez and Tortilla Factory made them, as did Los Angeles' El Chicano and Oakland's Azteca. So, too, did black artists like Jimmy Castor and War.

‘70s Latin funk can be a real mixed bag, however. Tracks like Ray Barretto’s “Together” and Ocho’s “Hot Pants Road” hold up extremely well today, pulsing with wild, psychedelized energy while similar experiments by Harlem River Drive and Malo seem dated and overly self-conscious. All, including this week’s geographically disparate artifacts, partook of the same spirit, though, diving headlong into that cauldron where Hammond organs, vibraphones and conga drums swirled in equal measure.

1. Johnny Zamot, Spaced Out (Gema)
Among New York City’s post-War Latin musicians you’ll find the occasional Tito Puente or Eddie Palmieri, that bandleader whose visibility extended beyond just the Nuyorican community. No less vital - and certainly a more representative remainder of their cohort - are names like Hector Rivera, Bobby Valentin and Louie Ramirez, talented musicians, bandleaders, arrangers and producers with long legacies largely circumscribed by the Five Boroughs.

Born in Puerto Rico, Johnny “Ray” Zamot is a versatile percussionist and bandleader and one of the more daring of the younger generation that forged their musical skills in the orquestas and combos of New York City’s fertile ‘60s Latin scene. Unlike their mentors (who generally disavowed the style), Zamot’s was a generation that was comfortably committed to the youthful, brash style of the boogaloo, though.

Zamot is today still an active part of New York City salsa, but it’s his run of hard-to-find releases of the late ‘60s through the mid-‘70s for which he’s more widely remembered. 1968’s The Latin Soul of Johnny Zamot or 1970’s Boogaloo Frog represent a typical, if not exemplary, late ‘60s blend of boogaloo, Latin jazz, mambo, cha-cha and guaguanco - son-based Latin styles that would soon all be formalized under the salsa rubric.

Even by Zamot’s fairly adventurous standards, though, “Spaced Out” is a strange one. If its snappy horn lines and pop sensibilities seem to place it somewhere in the previous decade, then that inverted bassline and echo-drenched waaah-chuck-chuck-chuck chorus seem to point to some indeterminate, loopy year in the future.

"Spaced Out" would also appear that same year on Zamot's self-titled album on the veteran New York City Latin label Gema.

2. Lou Garno Trio, Muy Sabroso (Very Tasty) (Giovanni)
“Muy Sabroso (Very Tasty),” as the story goes, was released as a promotional tie-in with Giovanni’s Italian restaurant/lounge in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s an unusual, though mutually remunerative, way to make a record, and the arrangement probably made Giovanni Furcini feel pretty good about himself in 1972. Not as good as the record collectors who keep coming across unopened boxes of this 45 some thirty-plus years later, of course - but still, pretty good.

Lou Garno, along with the trio’s organist (Larry Crinklaw) and drummer (Jim Golini), are all still active in Arizona jazz circles. It’s not entirely clear what role Garno played in this groovy bit of Latin-fired jazz, though, as he was and is a saxophonist and flautist. “Muy Sabroso (Very Tasty)” is not live, either, of course, despite the better efforts of our wonderfully canned emcee and audience. Nor is this actually a trio. Check your coats, slide into those garnet-colored leather banquette tables and order your drinks. It's just best to let Furcini deal with such trivialities.

A plumbing tool specialist now sits at the former site of Giovanni’s.

3. Tempo 70, El Galleton (Mericana)
Tempo 70 were a brief-lived group led by Argentinean-born Bebu Silvetti, a pianist and arranger whose career peregrinations took him to Spain, Mexico and Miami as a sort of international contractor in the world of Latin music. The early ‘70s found Silvetti in Puerto Rico, where he convened Tempo 70 for a few albums of polished salsa and Latin pop.

1972’s “El Galleton,” Tempo 70’s highpoint, somehow successfully steers between cuatro- and percussion-driven Afro-Latin rhythms, Hammond-fueled funk and jazzy piano runs - each with a section to itself: “El Galleton”’s charts could have been a disaster in less skillful hands. It must have been a technical bonanza for the band, of course, but hell for anyone on the dancefloor, as every premonitory surge of organ seemed to bring “El Galleton” into a drastic new decade.

This selection was taken from Tempo 70’s debut album (entitled El Primer LP), which also happened to the first full-length release of Mericana Records, the New York City Latin label operated (along with Caytronics Records, a Mexican pop clearinghouse) by the Cayre Brothers before they went on to found disco giant Salsoul Records.

Office Naps Middle Eastern Mix

The third installment of the Office Naps mix, and it’s all over the place. From Turkish wah-wah guitars and ’60s garage ragas to Yusef Lateef’s Mecca-wise wail, it’s Middle Eastern only in the loosest possible sense of the term. If there ever there was a darbuka to be struck or an argol to be wrangled, however, it’s probably in there. Enjoy.

-DJ Little Danny

Office Naps Middle Eastern Mix

Rosko With The John Berberian Ensemble, Perfection (Music and Gibran: A Contemporary Interpretation Of the Author Of The Prophet, Verve Forecast)
Charles Kynard & Buddy Collette, Blue Sands (Warm Winds, World-Pacific)
The Freak Scene, Grok! (Psychedelic Psoul, Columbia)
Elias Rahbani, Dance of Maria (Mosaic of the Orient, EMI)
Fifty Foot Hose, Opus 777 (Cauldron, Limelight)
Mohamed "Mike" Hegazi and His Golden Guitar, Nouni (Belly Dance With Zeina, Emi)
The Off-Set, Xanthia (Lisa) (7”, Jubilee)
Lloyd Miller with the Press Keys Quartet, Gol-E Gandom (Oriental Jazz, East-West)
Fairuz, Yalla Tenam Rima (Bint El-Harass, soundtrack, Parlophone)
Istanbul Calgicilari, Sax Gazel (Disco Fasil I, Bip!)
T. Swift & The Electric Bag, Free Form In 6 (Are You Experienced, Custom)
1st Century, Looking Down (7”, Capitol)
Don Randi Trio, Tomorrow Never Knows (Revolver Jazz, Reprise)
The Kaleidoscope, Pulsating Dream (Side Trips, Epic)
Omar Khorshid and His Guitar, Guitar El Chark (Rhythms From the Orient, Voice of Lebanon)
Ozel Turkbas, Bovzovkia Solo (Dance Into Your Sultan's Heart, Elay)
The Devil's Anvil, Hala Laya (7”, Columbia)
Ganimian & His Oriental Music, Swingin' The Blues (Come With Me To the Casbah, Atco)
Okay Temiz, East Breeze (Drummer of Two Worlds, Finnadar)
Clyde Borly & His Percussions, Afromania (Music In 5 Dimensions, Atco)
Sabah with Chahine's International Orchestra, Hully Gully (Halli Galli Dabka) (Music From a Millionaire's Playground, Parlophone)
Yusef Lateef, Sister Mamie (Live at Pep's, Impulse!)
The Rotary Connection, I Took A Ride (Caravan) (Rotary Connection, Cadet Concept)
Dorothy Ashby, Soul Vibrations (Afro-Harping, Cadet)
Herbie Mann, Incense (Impressions of the Middle East, Atlantic)
Lalo Schifrin, The Snake's Dance (Lalo = Brilliance: The Piano of Lalo Schifrin, Roulette)
Tony Martinez and His Mambo Combo, Pharoah's Curse (7”, GNP)
Johnny Lewis Trio and Millie, Snake Hips (7”, Coral)
Sonny Lester & His Orchestra, Song of India (Little Egypt Presents More How To Belly-Dance For Your Husband, Roulette)

"Watermelon Man" & derivations

A young Herbie Hancock - all of twenty-two years old and fresh from Takin’ Off, his debut album on Blue Note Records - introduced his “Watermelon Man” (hear excerpt here) to the Cuban-born conguero and bandleader Mongo Santamaria one slow, fateful night in 1962. The story goes that Hancock was onstage to fill in for Santamaria’s usual working pianist (the even younger Chick Corea) for what was otherwise a routine New York City gig. Santamaria was taken with the funky, Latin-flavored riff that Hancock was stretching out on, and thusly a jazz legend was born. Not long thereafter, Santamaria’s 45 release of the number on Battle Records would reach number ten on the pop charts, it would launch what would be a very commercially successful decade for Santamaria, thine Earthly Kingdom was secured, etc.

Whether all this is anything more than apocrypha is inconsequential. Under Santamaria’s stewardship, “Watermelon Man” (hear excerpt here) took the elegantly vamping rhythm of Hancock’s Latin blues and beat it into something that would soon formalize as Nuyorican boogaloo. Though it was composed by a conservatory-trained jazz pianist, and rendered by a master Cuban percussionist a generation older than the upstart Nuyoricans who would champion the style, "Watermelon Man"'s jazzy horn riffs, celebratory atmosphere, and catchy polyrhythms were definitive boogaloo.

Perhaps more than any other boogaloo, Santamaria’s “Watermelon Man” spawned endless permutations of itself. There were R&B vocal versions of it. Surf and heartland instrumental guitar groups slid it to their repertoires. Jazz combos everywhere played it. Like the token Brazilian Bossa Nova “Girl From Ipanema,” it became the de facto choice amongst gigging ‘60s combo for that moment when they needed a Latin number. It united jazz idioms with the exotic rhythms of American’s Afro-Latin communities and, along with hits like “The In Crowd” (which followed it), the broader idea of "funkiness." It was friendly to the alcohol binges of the average American’s weekend lifestyle. It represented, in other words, the best that jazz had to offer the popular tastes of the ‘60s.

1. Wendell Holmes & His Heavy Weights, Goodie Good, part 1 (Cunity)
“Goodie Good,” like all of this week’s selections, is a thinly veiled version of “Watermelon Man.” It’s also instructive of one of the qualities that makes the “Watermelon Man” riff so brilliant: its durability.

There’s little connection between the ending of “Goodie Good,” part one, and the beginning of “Goodie Good,” part two. Like Lee Morgan’s “Sidewinder,” Horace Silver’s “Song For My Father,” or Nat Adderley’s “Jive Samba,” this reading of “Watermelon Man” very much possessed its own internal momentum.

2. Wendell Holmes & His Heavy Weights, Goodie Good, part 2 (Cunity)
A guitarist might go out for a sandwich and a cold one at Kate’s Luncheonette and, twenty minutes later, fall back into place for the “Watermelon Man” refrain without anyone really taking much notice.

As far as I can tell, this is the same Wendell Holmes who, along with his bassist brother Sherman, worked New York City’s ‘60s clubs as a backing guitarist for touring R&B, soul, and blues artists - and who, decades later, finally found some enduring success up as part of the rootsy Southern blues and gospel harmonizers The Holmes Brothers.

I’d also guess that this nugget was recorded around 1968 or ’69.

3. Chelo Vasquez, The Preacher (GC)
A Tejano unknown, Chelo Vasquez recorded “The Preacher” for the legendary San Antonio producer Manny Guerra’s GC Productions, a label which, in addition to releasing some rare and funky soul sides by Mickey & the Soul Generation, Tortilla Factory, and the Latin Breed, hosted some of the big Tejano names of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

The razor-sharp horn charts on this version of “Watermelon Man” are characteristic of Tejano music. The unstoppable boogaloo rhythms here are, of course, transcendent. As transcendent as you can get with a pair of a tinny speakers and your car’s AM radio in 1969, that is.

4. The Miles Grayson Trio, Sweet Bread (Hill)
Though Los Angeles’s Miles Grayson served as a session pianist on a few of Blue Note Records’ (somewhat ill-fated) West Coast excursions of the late ‘60s, it’s his role as a session arranger and producer for which he’s probably best remembered today. Grayson’s studio time included work with West Coast R&B and soul musicians like Little Joe Blue, Brenda George, Little Johnny Taylor, Sonny Green and, most of all, the Texas-born, LA-based blues stylist and guitarist Z.Z. Hill.

Grayson would release a handful of obscure instrumental 45s in his spare moments as a bandleader as well. Whether or not the title here is a reference to everybody’s favorite glandular delicacy, Grayson, like so many R&B and jazz artists, made the connection between savory food and funkiness.

Hill Records was a label that belonged to Z.Z.’s brother Matt Hill, who was that most recherché breed of record industry specialists: the independent label man.

West Coast boogaloo

More this week on the Latin music scene of post-War California, a scene that I find endlessly fascinating and frustratingly undocumented.

Boogaloo was a mid-‘60s phenomenon original to New York City’s Spanish Harlem, a juiced-up mash of popular Latin dance styles like mambo and guajira, infused with R&B and a bilingual Nuyorican identity. It was ephemeral, but as a style it attained a degree of national popularity beyond the Five Boroughs; Joe Cuba (“Bang Bang”) and Ray Barretto (“El Watusi”) sold hundreds of thousands of records.

The boogaloo’s popularity, in addition to its Latin roots and bilinguality, caught the attention of young musicians, Puerto Rican or otherwise, in Spanish-speaking communities beyond New York City, though. There are ‘60s boogaloo records from Miami. There are '60s boogaloo records, albeit more infrequent, from Chicago, Albuquerque, Tucson and various cities in Texas, too. These were records made by local Latino groups who seized on the then-hip boogaloo, adding it to their live repertoires and stamping it in the process with a distinct musical and cultural pedigree. (The fairly rare boogaloos from the Southwest often have identifiable Tejano-sounding horn lines, for instance.)

Fed by the African- and Mexican-American communities of Los Angeles, as well as the loose-knit world of California Latin and Latin jazz, the boogaloo acquired its own polyglot tang after arriving on the West Coast. You could dance to it, but it was jazzy, too - and more relaxed than its hot-headed older brother from New York City. West Coast boogaloo was a profoundly Pacific creature.

1. Brown Sugar, Batakum (Mares)
That itchy-twitchy feeling in your toes. “Batakum” starts by beckoning us to the dance floor, thus observing one of the boogaloo’s guiding edicts.

Brown Sugar never quite unleash it all, however, the way their New York City counterparts might have done with their blaring trombone lines and crashing, percussive piano chords. Brown Sugar are Los Angeles instead. They’re air-conditioned. They’re Bob Barker. Unflappable, good with the ladies.

The tiny Mares label seems to have been a side project for the obscure Los Angeles-based pianist Vladimir Vassilieff - or someone fanatically devoted to his compositions. Both “Batakum” and the other record on Mares Records that I know of (Ray Medina and the New Latin Breed’s “Head’s Head”) are compositions by Vassilieff. Vassilieff was the Belgian-borne mastermind behind the Aquarians, who in turn released Jungle Grass, one of the definitive albums of ‘60s West Coast Latin jazz.

I’d guess “Batakum” was released around 1968. The group’s name and this selection’s flipside - the brown-eyed soul “In a Moment” - suggest that Brown Sugar hailed from the Mexican-American neighborhoods of East Los Angeles.

2. Hayward Lee and the Marauders, Oogaloo (The Scamm Sound)
“Oogaloo” follows the spirit of Latin boogaloo more than its letter. The basic vamping rhythm is there, but there’s no actual Latin percussion on this, no timbales or conga drums.

And, sure, it may have been rehearsed and recorded in two takes. Sure, it almost stalls under the weight of its own tastefulness. But “Oogaloo” was the B-side of the record, so give it a break. It makes sense, actually: the B-side was your wildcard, a place, say, to knock out your jazzy interpretation of some new Latin dance you’d heard across town. A place to channel your inner Spanish Harlem without losing that sense of West Coast composure.

The A-side of this record is a funky discotheque soul version of Billy Mayhew’s “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie,” with R&B singer Hayward Lee assuming a more direct role in the proceedings. This 45, released around 1967, was one of only a few records on Hollywood’s brief-lived Scamm Sound label.

3. Chuy Castro and His Orchestra, Swahili Baby (Baronet)
More unknown Los Angelinos, Chuy Castro and co. go native in their own way on “Swahili Baby.” Which is not an apology, just an explanation: contending with the boogaloo means contending with a novelty factor inherent to the era’s long lineage of disposable dance crazes and disposable lyrics.

It’s jazzy, and again there’s that vague sense of nonchalance. Of this week’s selections, though, “Swahili Baby” bears the most resemblance to the classic New York City boogaloo sound. Like Eddie Palmieri (“African Twist”), Orquesta Olivieri (“African Guajira”), Joey Pastrana (“Afro Azul”), or the Latinaires (“Afro-Shingaling”), Castro makes that hip connection between the boogaloo and Africa, too. Castro succeeds where his Nuyorican contemporaries don’t, however, with the rarest of all trifectas: a surfing reference. Helloooo, California.

“Swahili Baby” was likely recorded around ’65 or ’66. Baronet was a Los Angeles label known for its ‘60s R&B and soul releases.

West Coast Latin jazz

Latin jazz on the West Coast was something different than it was on the East Coast. It was something that percolated its way down through California's diffuse network of musicians, attracting its advocates from the Mexican-American and African-American communities, the scattering of Cuban and Puerto Rican percussionists who’d made their way to the Bay Area and Los Angeles for work, and the jazz musicians who'd already established themselves there. Cooler-toned, more studied, and more exotic, it was, very broadly, the art of jazz musicians playing in a Latin style, and sort of the inverse of what'd developed organically in the Puerto Rican neighorhoods of New York City, where musicians like Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri might play Latin jazz without it ever dominating their broader repertoires of mambos, boleros, cha cha’s, etc.

Three choice examples of the West Coast variety of Latin jazz this week, lined up for you like Venice Beach head shops. See also these previous posts on Roscoe Weathers and Latin jazz vibes.

1. Carmello Garcia, Trane (R.A.H.M.P.)
Carmelo Garcia, often cited for his ‘60s work with Mongo Santamaria, played the loud, compact Latin drums known as timbales, and enjoyed a long career as a freelance session percussionist. His name deserves mention amongst the greats of West Coast Latin percussion, but 1971’s “Trane” seems to have been his only release as a bandleader.

This is Garcia’s tribute to John Coltrane (before the Coltrane tribute became an annoying cliché), though much of the credit on “Trane” must be given to the excellent Latin jazz pianist Mark Levine, who composed and arranged it. That’s Levine’s piano we hear, and, of course, Garcia on percussion, and they're joined here by Luis Gasca on trumpet and Pete Christlieb on saxophone. (Thanks to Mark Levine himself for that information!)

Producers Don Christlieb (brother of Pete) and Julian Spear, renowned bassoonist and bass clarinetist respectively (and themselves seasoned studio musicians), do not play on this, however. You can strain all you want but you’ll never hear a precious peep from a bassoon. Believe me, I've tried; it's maybe the only thing that keeps this from being the perfect record.

This was the first release on what seems to have been Don Christlieb's pet label project, and boy do I love the R.A.H.M.P. astrological insignia. There are other R.A.H.M.P. releases, actually, including 1972’s Jazz City LP by Christlieb’s son Pete (R.A.H.M.P. Series 2), and, more recently, bassoon recordings by Frederick Moritz (R.A.H.M.P., Series 3, a reissue), and Don Christlieb himself, (R.A.H.M.P. Series 3A).

2. Les McCann, McCanna (World-Pacific)
His recording career culminated commercially with 1969’s funky “Compared to What,” a genuine jazz hit, but “McCanna” better captures the great Les McCann, a Los Angeles-based jazz pianist capable of more complexity and sophistication than he’s sometimes given credit for.

Do you hear it? It’s the sound of a winner. It’s all the excitement of the third race at Santa Anita, and none of the heartbreak. It pulses with dark, lovely energy, and, propelled by an extra bit of the Brazilian batucada-style percussive flair, "McCanna," like California's best Latin jazz, builds up a roiling boil without ever losing its cool. Recorded in 1964, “McCanna” is the title track from the first of two Latin albums McCann recorded in the ‘60s (the second, Bucket O’ Grease, had a boogaloo theme). This version of “McCanna” was edited down for 45 rpm release from what was originally the 4:32 LP version.

In addition to McCann on piano, this selection featured Victor Gaskin (bass), Paul Humphries (drums), and Willie Correa (Latin percussion).

Les McCann’s releases tapered off somewhat in the ‘70s, but he is still active today.

3. Plas Johnson Quartet, Caravan (Tampa)
Composed by Juan Tizol, a trombonist for the Duke Ellington orchestra, “Caravan” rarely fails to bring out the demoniac energy of those who perform it, and this version, a barely restrained flurry of jarring piano chords and runaway percussion, is no exception.

Tampa was an obscure West Coast jazz label that existed for a few blips in the ‘50s. As a label they must have sensed their own impermanence - this same recording of “Caravan” was hustled out at least three other times: on Latin percussionist Mike Pacheco’s Bongo Session (on Tampa records), on the album Hot Skins: The Jazz Afro-Cuban Beat (essentially a repackaging on Interlude records of Bongo Session), and on drummer George Jenkins’ Drum Stuff album (also on Tampa). “Caravan” seemed to appear everywhere, that is, except on an album called Drum Stuff by the Plas Johnson Quartet. More confusingly, this version never in any capacity features Plas Johnson, who was otherwise a popular Los Angeles studio jazz saxophonist (known especially for his work on Henry Mancini’s "The Pink Panther Theme").

Either way, this was recorded in the late ‘50s. In reality, it featured Mike Pacheco (bongos), Shelly Manne (drums), Carlos Vidal (conga), Robert Gil (piano), Julio Ayala (bass), and Frank Guerroro (percussion).

The Naked City

The late 1950s through the mid-1970s: they were golden years for television, Hollywood and the crime jazz soundtrack, years when staccato piano chords lurked around every dark corner, and every chase scene was heralded with a steady gallop of bongos. This was a stylized version of jazz - and sometimes Latin jazz - and it was used to indicate all the grit, glamour and underworld drama of the big city.

There was the music heard in film and television scores, and there was music which sounded like it should have been in such scores, and that’s what our sights are set upon this week.

1. Harvey Anderson - Modern Jazz Quartet, Monday Night At 8 P.M. (Bayou)
Harvey Anderson played saxophone and flute and led small jazz combos in the Dallas of the 1950s and '60s. He also showed that Texas - with or without skyscrapers, wharfs, fogs and other pulp earmarks - sustained its own undercurrent of suspense and stylish skulduggery. You can tell by the walking bass line and flute - universal cues for “danger” and “speakeasy tete a tete.” The title sou