Havana (1990)

"Angie" is a song by the rock band The Rolling Stones, featured on their 1973 album Goats Head Soup…

Ralph Sharon - Around The World In Jazz (1957) {Fresh Sound Records FSRCD114 rel 1990}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 143 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 86 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 19 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1957, 1990 Rama Records / Fresh Sound Records | FSR-CD 114
Jazz / West Coast Jazz / Cool / Piano

I really enjoy this cd. Sharon is known for his arrangements usually with strings for many vocalists (from Cole to Nancy Wilson, Whiting to Bennett) So I was surprised to hear his septet which sounds like any West Coast combo with Jack Sheldon, Shorty, Shelly, and Florence among others. The tunes are nice; each very different from each other with subtle colors. I passed over it twice until I realized the label FRESH SOUND imports never disappoint me.

Mongo at the Village Gate finds Mongo Santamaria entering the boogaloo era with a variety of funky pieces that show the influence of R&B and soul-jazz without losing the group's roots in Cuban music. The infectious live set teams the conguero with trumpeter Marty Sheller, the reeds of Pat Patrick and Bobby Capers, pianist Rodgers Grant, bassist Victor Venegas, drummer Frank Hernandez, and the percussion of Chihuahua Martinez and Julian Cabrera. Such tunes as "Fatback," "Mongo's Groove," and "Creole" have happy, soulful, and simple melodies. This is one of Marty Sheller's best dates on trumpet, while Santamaria takes "My Sound" as a colorful unaccompanied solo. A remake of "Para Ti" is a welcome addition.

It's a Dizzy Gillespie in flower-patterned Bermuda shorts that this CD gives us, a Dizzy playing the trumpet and singing in the shade of the plams growing on the beach of one's dreams. the same Diz who, in the film "A Night in Havana", proclaimed his faith in the future of a music gathering all the Afro-American currents together, and who practiced what he preached as early as 1948: fronting his legendary Big Band, whose echo can be heard here during "Whisper Not", Dizzy imposed Cu-Bop, a happy marriage of Jazz and Cuban rhythms that was celebrated in the enthusiasm and rage of youth. Since then, Dizzy has never given up his quest for the slightest sound to come from the guardian-mother Africa…