Blog, Cuba, Latin Jazz, Video and audio
You can find Casa Amadeo at:
86 Prospect Ave,
Bronx, NY 10455
(718) 328-6896
Subway, two ways:
6 Train to Longwood Avenue (6 blocks from Southern Boulveard)
or
2 to 5 to Jackson Avenue (north on Westchester Avenue)
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
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Go to Cuba with Jazz on the Tube as your guide:
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Afro-Cuban culture, Blog, Cuba, Latin Jazz, Puerto Rico, The Cuba-US connection, Video and audio
A Bronx Tale…
A Nuyorican, Ray Santos grew up next to a synagogue where he marveled at the sounds of the cantor, listened to Machito on the kitchen radio, and was bowled over the first time he heard Coleman Hawkins’ “Body and Soul” on a friend’s record player.
Meet the man who put the big band sound in Afro-Cuban music.
The arranger for Machito, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez and many others and the composer/arranger of the sound track for “The Mambo Kings.”
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
Go to Cuba with Jazz on the Tube as your guide:
Click here for details
Afro-Cuban culture, Blog, Cuba, Cuban Jazz, The Cuba-US connection, Video and audio
The influence of Cuba on American music has been pretty steady ever since there was an America to influence (Cuba is a longer European settled place than anywhere in North America.)
That said, 1930 was an especially important year. That was when “The Peanut Vendor” became a super hit in the US.
The original title of the song is “El Manisero.” It’s based on the call of the peanut vendors (“Mah-NEEEEEEEEE!”), folks you can still see – and hear – in Hanava’s Parque Central.
In 1930, Don Azpiazú and his Havana Casino Orchestra in New York recorded it for Victor Records. Sales records are spotty, but it was most likely the first million-selling record of Cuban (or even Latin) music in history.
The band included a number of star musicians including Julio Cueva (trumpet) and Mario Bauza (saxophone); Antonio Machín was the singer.
The song was such a hit that even Louis Armstrong took a crack at it, changing “Mani” to “Marie” and scatting (or proto-rapping?) on the melody.
Stan Kenton gave the piece another boost with an all instrumental version he recorded in 1947. The version here was recorded in 1972 in London.
I like this version by the Cuban group Quinteto Son de la Loma
Beloved Cuban pianist and singer Bola de Nieve (“Snowball”) offer his classic version.
To round things out, how about a version by the Skatalites of Jamaica.
The song, composed by the Cuban Moises Simons, has been recorded over 160 times and is so important to American music that it was added to the United States National Recording Registry by the National Recording Preservation Board in 2005.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
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Go to Cuba with Jazz on the Tube as your guide:
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Blog
A brief excerpt of a documentary on this subject
Here’s our interview with Milcho Leviev which includes his experiences as a jazz musician in the Eastern Bloc.
The text of the article I read for this video is here.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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Afro-Cuban culture, Blog, Cuba, Video and audio
Palo is one of the spiritual streams, along with Santeria (“The Way of the Saints”), that developed in Cuba and the Western Hemisphere. It’s also known as Las Reglas de Congo. Palo was developed by enslaved people taken from the Congo basin.
Palo is known as a syncretic religion, meaning it blends two or more elements together. You can see references to the Catholic elements in this film excerpt.
Congo culture contributed the inspiration for two musical instruments invented in Cuba that are now found around the globe: the open-bottomed conga drum (“tumbadora”) and the bongó.
According to musician, scholar and old Cuba hand Ned Sublette author of “Cuba and Its Music”:
The Congo was the first layer of direct-from-Africa tradition to appear in Cuban music…You can detect its influence in all the important genres of Afro-Cuban dance music, from creolized contradanza to the rumba to the son to the street dance called the conga.
Arsenio Rodríguez’s grandfather was Congo and Benny Moré as a boy was welcomed into his local Congo organization, where his great-great-grandfather had been king of the cabildo.
We’ve been showing a lot of films from the early 60s in Cuba because they occupy a sweet spot in time. “Old” Cuba was still alive and well and there was a golden age of film documentation during this period.
This clip comes from a short film called “En Un Barrio Viejo” by Nicolás Guillén Landrián which was released in 1963.
Landrián was born in 1938 in Camaguey, Cuba. He made thirteen films, all worth watching. Here’s the full version of “En Un Barrio Viejo.”
This talk by Robert Farris Thomspon is a good place to go to start to get some understanding of the Palo religion.
Robert Farris Thompson on the art of Palero (practitioner of Palo) José Bedia
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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Go to Cuba with Jazz on the Tube as your guide:
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Artist-Educators, Blog, Jazz on the Tube Interview, People, Podcasts
Interview
Download the mp3 here
Singer, writer, and educator Tom Cunniffe was part of the legendary and unfortunately now-defunct Jazz.com.
He’s captured the spirit of that site and put his own unique twist on it with a unique approach to reviewing the music and shining a light on some of the great music of the past that deserves a second look – or maybe even a first look for some of us. Highly recommended.
Details: JazzHistoryOnline.com
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks
