Our Man in Havana
Our Man in Havanais in fact a compilation of two marvelous albums (Our Man in HavanaandBembe) recorded bycongueroRamon "Mongo" Santamaria in Havana in the early 1960s. By then, Santamaria, who had left Cuba in 1948, had already made his mark with Tito Puente and Cal Tjader and had released his classic piece "Afro-Blue." In the songs from the originalOur Man, Santamaria tinkers with the standard instrumentation of the Cuban conjunto and theorquesta tipicaand revisits classic styles such as cha cha. The second part of the set explores the ritual music of the Orishas (often referred to as Santeria) and traditional rumba. For this project, Santamaria assembled a group that included singers Merceditas Valdes and Carlos Embale and, for good measure, his friend Willie Bobo, the only non-Cuban. The austere recording and crisp playing bring out the beauty and power of this music, at once deeply spiritual and earthy. Mongo Santamaria went on to make his name in Latin jazz history with his playing, his bands, and his writing. But this album, showing his more traditional side, is a classic.--Fernando Gonzalez