News & Updates — give the drummer some

The great Cuban conguero and bandleader Mongo Santamaría brought some spice to the American popular music scene. He had been bandleader for the prestigious Tropicana house band in Havana in the '40s before coming to NYC in 1950. He was the composer of "Afro Blue" and had a huge hit with Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man". In addition to his own groovy ensembles, he played with Cal Tjader, Tito Puente, Perez Prado, Fania All Stars, Willie Bobo, Dizzy Gillespie and others. It's always a pleasure to hear his Afro-Cuban arrangements of popular soul tunes, as well as his Orisha-guided rumbas. He...

Here's some birthday recognition to one the most prolific and unsung musicians on the groovy music landscape, master percussionist Ralph MacDonald! Harlem-raised, his father was a musician from Trinidad & Tobago and the calypso and steelpan have always been with him. He played with Harry Belafonte from 17 until his mid 20s (including being the major artistic force behind Belafonte's 1971 Calypso Carnival album). That year he started his own publishing company and hit the big-time the next year with his composition "Where Is The Love" (recorded by Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, with Ralph on percussion). It was non-stop...

One of the key figures in bridging the Afro-Cuban/mambo worlds with pop & soul, Willie Bobo was a major player long before he made records under his own name. He played congas, timbales, drum kit and was a charming singer and born performer. His '50s success with the likes of George Shearing, Tito Puente and Cal Tjader led to visibility for his own groups in the '60s. Those bands often featured electric guitar instead of piano, a sound that could range from bang-heavy descargas to sweet schmaltz, ultimately creating the template for boogaloo and Latin jazz to come. William Correa grew...

When a pre-fame Fela Kuti took his Koola Lobitos band to the USA in 1969, they ended up stranded in Los Angeles, working nightclubs into 1970. There they took in the Black Power movement, and the politicized perspective being away from home helped radicalize Fela, who was just another black nobody in L.A. dealing with the struggle but trying to keep moving forward. But his drummer and future musical director, Tony Allen (the man who would co-create the Afrobeat sound), took even more back to Nigeria with him. He learned how to play with looser wrists, more touching than hitting...

Review by DJ Bongohead There’s a lot of pretenders out there when it comes to contemporary instrumental Afro-funk and Afro-Latin inspired music, but when a band knows their stuff, well, as Fela Kuti used to say, “Who no know go know,” and one thing I know: Jungle Fire is 100% legit, pura candela, mofongo funk. If the percussion section can’t turn on a dime or do tight breaks, if the brass is limp or out of tune, if the bass has no tumbao, if the players don’t know their roots or let the orishas take them, well then don’t bother...