Hip-Hug-Her
Feelin' Alright
Mongo Santamaria
Arrangements by Marty Sheller
Produced by Jerry Wexler & Tom Dowd
Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio 3, Los Angeles, California
Recording Engineer: Bill Halverson
Cover Illustration: Izzy Sanabria
Cover Design: Haig Adishian
Atlantic SD 8252
1970
From the back cover: "Skin on skin," Mongo Santamaria once said, is what makes the sound that can move you. Mongo makes that sound every time his tough, but flexible hands hit the skins of the conga drum or the bongos. The sound can move you and thrill you and, when it reaches a particular pitch of excitement, it can spread through your own skin, unseen, heavy with its strength, irresistible in its impact but invisible.
Everything that Mongo does moves. I have sat for hours listening to him back other players, take solos and engage the whole band in a gigantic essay in rhythmic propulsion.
There is no one like him. It's as simple as that. He is king of the conga drum, master of all and a mysterious initiate in the arcane rhythms that begin deep within the Cuban culture from whence he came.
When I first heard him in person, I thought he was an extraordinary drummer but I thought of him as a drummer. Then I heard his first band, almost ten years ago now, and it had a violin in it! At that point I reassessed Mongo immediately and I began to think of him as a musician. His bands have always been marked by two things: the superlative rhythm and the musicianly approach to arrangements, melody and solos. Nothing is careless. Everything is worked out in the natural musical equation proper to the song.
The pop world has heard a good deal of Mongo Santamaria in recent years. He's been up there on the charts. It has brought him to the attention of new audiences. I heard him one weekend at Winterland in San Francisco on a show with the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Both those bands draw dancers and the rock dancers flipped for the sound of Mongo and for the incredible rhythms he produced, for his music above all is dance music. In fact it requires a feat of strength to sit still to it!
Latin rhythms have always had the power to move, as Gene Krupa noted years ago in the preface to his drum book. But Mongo has given the Latin rhythms the real salt and pepper of the native Cuban culture, the close ties to blood, sweat, tears, love, life and nature that mark that exceptional people.
Mongo's drums go back to Africa, too, and in the haunting messages they boom out, you can hear echoes of early slave ships nosing into the Caribbean.
To present Mongo Santamaria in his initial Atlantic album in a program of contemporary pop hits was pure inspiration. All the great songs of today lend themselves to his musical concept immediately. The rhythms of his drums with the feeding chords from the piano play against the brass and the reeds and the soloists as the familiar melodies – by now part of the common heritage of all of us-are lined out.
The adaptability of contemporary music to multiple versions was never better demonstrated than by these performances by Mongo Santamaria. You can hear the voices of the originals in your head, Sam & Dave and Little Willie John and Cream and the rest. Stevie Winwood's Feelin' Alright, which I would never have thought of as lending itself to an instrumental version, comes off beautifully and Sunshine Of Your Love is my personal candidate for instrumental of the year.
Why is this? I think the answer lies in the musical concept of Mongo, which is the prototype musical concept of all true Latin musicians. They believe in melody, even the drums play melody. Mongo has always lined the melody with his rhythmic accents. Stressing the melody and playing the rhythm in a melodic manner gives the music a singing quality often lacking in instrumental performances.
There is another factor. Mongo never lets his soloists play too long, just as Charlie Parker could say it all in three minutes. Mongo's band includes a remarkable tenor saxophonist, Charlie Owens, who has surmounted the temptation to solo endlessly. He says it compactly, with def- inition and with a fine sense of artistic form.
When you have the chance, see this band. Watch Mongo play. When he gets it on, the smile spreads slowly around his face as his great hands rap out the rhythms, skin on skin, and you can watch the warmth seep slowly through the band and out into the audience.
Play this album with that in mind and you can feel it, too. Close your eyes and move to the music and you can hear the instruments singing. That's what the magic of Mongo's music can do. – RALPH J. GLEASON
Everything that Mongo does moves. I have sat for hours listening to him back other players, take solos and engage the whole band in a gigantic essay in rhythmic propulsion.
There is no one like him. It's as simple as that. He is king of the conga drum, master of all and a mysterious initiate in the arcane rhythms that begin deep within the Cuban culture from whence he came.
When I first heard him in person, I thought he was an extraordinary drummer but I thought of him as a drummer. Then I heard his first band, almost ten years ago now, and it had a violin in it! At that point I reassessed Mongo immediately and I began to think of him as a musician. His bands have always been marked by two things: the superlative rhythm and the musicianly approach to arrangements, melody and solos. Nothing is careless. Everything is worked out in the natural musical equation proper to the song.
The pop world has heard a good deal of Mongo Santamaria in recent years. He's been up there on the charts. It has brought him to the attention of new audiences. I heard him one weekend at Winterland in San Francisco on a show with the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Both those bands draw dancers and the rock dancers flipped for the sound of Mongo and for the incredible rhythms he produced, for his music above all is dance music. In fact it requires a feat of strength to sit still to it!
Latin rhythms have always had the power to move, as Gene Krupa noted years ago in the preface to his drum book. But Mongo has given the Latin rhythms the real salt and pepper of the native Cuban culture, the close ties to blood, sweat, tears, love, life and nature that mark that exceptional people.
Mongo's drums go back to Africa, too, and in the haunting messages they boom out, you can hear echoes of early slave ships nosing into the Caribbean.
To present Mongo Santamaria in his initial Atlantic album in a program of contemporary pop hits was pure inspiration. All the great songs of today lend themselves to his musical concept immediately. The rhythms of his drums with the feeding chords from the piano play against the brass and the reeds and the soloists as the familiar melodies – by now part of the common heritage of all of us-are lined out.
The adaptability of contemporary music to multiple versions was never better demonstrated than by these performances by Mongo Santamaria. You can hear the voices of the originals in your head, Sam & Dave and Little Willie John and Cream and the rest. Stevie Winwood's Feelin' Alright, which I would never have thought of as lending itself to an instrumental version, comes off beautifully and Sunshine Of Your Love is my personal candidate for instrumental of the year.
Why is this? I think the answer lies in the musical concept of Mongo, which is the prototype musical concept of all true Latin musicians. They believe in melody, even the drums play melody. Mongo has always lined the melody with his rhythmic accents. Stressing the melody and playing the rhythm in a melodic manner gives the music a singing quality often lacking in instrumental performances.
There is another factor. Mongo never lets his soloists play too long, just as Charlie Parker could say it all in three minutes. Mongo's band includes a remarkable tenor saxophonist, Charlie Owens, who has surmounted the temptation to solo endlessly. He says it compactly, with def- inition and with a fine sense of artistic form.
When you have the chance, see this band. Watch Mongo play. When he gets it on, the smile spreads slowly around his face as his great hands rap out the rhythms, skin on skin, and you can watch the warmth seep slowly through the band and out into the audience.
Play this album with that in mind and you can feel it, too. Close your eyes and move to the music and you can hear the instruments singing. That's what the magic of Mongo's music can do. – RALPH J. GLEASON
Feelin' Alright
Fever
Hip-Hug-Her
Hold On, I'm Comin'
I Can't Get Next To You
Sunshine Of Your Love
Heighty-Hi
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
On Broadway
Tracks Of My Tears
By The Time I Get To Phoenix
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