The Band Shell at Central Park 1972
Eddie Palmieri
There are lots of Latin rhythms during this intriguing film
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Pianist-keyboardist Eddie Palmieri has been leading major Latin jazz and salsa bands since the early 1960s.
This 21-minute film clip is very much of the era, documenting part of a concert in Central Park that took place in 1972.
While the camerawork is by an amateur, one gets the opportunity to fully experience the music with plenty of shots of the ecstatic audience.
Palmieri, playing an electric keyboard that sounds a bit like an organ, leads his group through a pair of one-chord vamps called Muñeca” and “Vamonos Pal Monte” which are separated by a brief interlude from a poet.
The percussionists are stirring, Palmieri has nearly as good a time as the audience, and it is very much a party, somehow seeming contemporary even though it took place over 45 years ago.
– Scott Yanow
