Cuban Fantasy – Early 1960s
Machito
A stirring Afro-Cuban jazz number
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Machito (1909-84) led a pioneering band that combined together Cuban music and rhythms with jazz.
His Afro-Cubans by 1945 were adapting to bebop while performing rhythmically exciting music.
While his sessions with jazz guests are generally well known, Machito’s own recordings and performances with his big band were sometimes overlooked in jazz circles despite being quite stimulating.
This instrumental performance from a tour of Japan in the early 1960s features baritone and tenor solos plus spots for several trumpeters including one (using a plunger mute) who might be Doc Cheatham.
-Scott Yanow
Stan Getz