The End On Bongos! - Jack Burger

 

Negre Setin

The End In Bongos

Jack (Bongo) Burger

HIFI Records R 804

1957

Jack Burger - Bongos, Drums, Effects

Buddy Collette - Flute, Saxophone

Bobby Gil - Piano

Ray Blagof - Trumpet

Don Tosti - Electric Bass

Tito Rivera - Congo, Drums

Elmer Schmidt - Marimba, Piano Tumba, Llamador

From the back cover: The End On Bongos features the sharpest skin slapper of them all – Jack (Bongo) Burger!

When we asked Jack to do this album he almost leaped into our laps. So great was his enthusiasm, we had to listen to a two-hour discourse on Cuban and African rhythms, the sounds of the Orient, modern jazz, and something concerning an Aborigine tribe bouncing huge logs on a cement slab to produce music.

The talk came fast and furious, but not until the actual session did we fully appreciate the excitingly different and unusual sound of this swinging group. Comparatively little written music was used, although a few actual arrangements were. Most of the arrangements were spontaneous, from sketches. The musicians used from the date were hand-picked, and carefully selected for ingenuity in their particular field. They understood what Jack was striving for, the enthusiastically delineated the very essence of the Bongo-Cuban-Latin-Mambo feeling. The sensitivity of the group help create the mood that is so difficult to get on paper. Some of the tracks sound like an African, Cuban, Oriental bop type of Mambo, and the rest runs the gamut of Cuban music.

In this album is as complete a variety of percussive sounds as can be imagined. Among the many unusual instruments are a Japanese koto harp used in "China Night Mambo," along with gongs, temple blocks, tsunami drums, etc. Connoisseurs of the most advanced and exotic percussive subtleties will dig Jack Burger's expert use of clackers, tweeters, boings, scratchers, boomers, a going(!), and the jawbone of a donkey!

From Billboard - November 25, 1957: "Hi-Fi," in the real sense of the word, best defines the basic appeal of this set. Variety of percussion sounds, which dominate and ring true, should be strongly appealing to hi-fi addicts. All of the material is treated in Latin vein and is compelling for its authenticity, often for its danceability. Combination of appeals – to hi-fi buyer and Latin buyer – could make this an excellent seller.

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

China Nights Mambo

Miserly

Jordu

Noche En Descalvado

Mambo Burger

A Yiddisha Mambo

Negre Setin

Conversar En La Noche

Blue Prelude

Chiu Chiu