Following my post yesterday on salsa and Joe Bataan's Ghetto Records, many readers emailed me about Joe Bataan and boogaloo. As I posted yesterday, boogaloo was a funky Latin-soul hybrid geared to expressive freestyle dancers. The boogaloo began in New York, primarily in the Latin dance clubs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Among the first boogaloo hits was Mongo Santamaria's recording of Watermelon Man in 1962.
Over time, the music evolved from infectious rhythm-fueled riffs built on catchy pop phrases like Bang Bang and I Like It Like That to deeply personal statements and observations about romance and inner-city life. In this regard, the music developed much like rock and soul, beginning as singles-driven and winding up as album concepts.
A member of an East Harlem street gang, Bataan was incarcerated for a brief time for auto theft. When he was released in 1965, Bataan began exploring music as a career. His first album, Gypsy Woman, was recorded in 1966 and released in 1967. Bataan advanced the boogaloo by adding the feel of R&B vocal harmony groups and gave songs a personal spin with lyrics that were more autobiographical. Though the album's title track was a cover of the beautiful Curtis Mayfield ballad for the Impressions in 1961, Bataan added a dramatically new flavor and feel that was less romantic and more urgent. [Photo above of Joe Bataan
Gypsy Woman was originally released on Fania Records as a house-party record but has just been re-issued by Concord's Craft Records on 180-gram vinyl. It's terrific that the label is taking this music seriously and treating Gypsy Woman as the classic it has become. The sound is fantastic and way more dimensional than the original vinyl LP, allowing Bataan's crooning style to soar and the instrumentation and percussion to spread out.
Following the title track, the album proceeds with So Fine, a love song that continues the groove of Gypsy Woman beneath Bataan's powerful vocal. In keeping with the boogaloo's crossover style, several songs are sung in English, including Too Much Lovin', Figaro and the album's closer and other big hit, the romantic ballad Ordinary Guy.
Joe Bataan would go on to record more than 20 albums, many of them outrageously great. If you want to begin collecting or listening, try Singin' Some Soul (1970), Salsoul (1973) and Call My Name (2005) next.
JazzWax tracks: Here's Gypsy Woman...
Here's So Fine...
Here's Crystal Blue Persuasion from Singin' Some Soul...
Here's Mi Nube from Salsoul...
And here's Call My Name...
Bonus: Here's a segment from NBC News on the boogaloo documentary We Like It Like That (you'll find the documentary at Amazon Prime)...
Over time, the music evolved from infectious rhythm-fueled riffs built on catchy pop phrases like Bang Bang and I Like It Like That to deeply personal statements and observations about romance and inner-city life. In this regard, the music developed much like rock and soul, beginning as singles-driven and winding up as album concepts.
A member of an East Harlem street gang, Bataan was incarcerated for a brief time for auto theft. When he was released in 1965, Bataan began exploring music as a career. His first album, Gypsy Woman, was recorded in 1966 and released in 1967. Bataan advanced the boogaloo by adding the feel of R&B vocal harmony groups and gave songs a personal spin with lyrics that were more autobiographical. Though the album's title track was a cover of the beautiful Curtis Mayfield ballad for the Impressions in 1961, Bataan added a dramatically new flavor and feel that was less romantic and more urgent. [Photo above of Joe Bataan
Gypsy Woman was originally released on Fania Records as a house-party record but has just been re-issued by Concord's Craft Records on 180-gram vinyl. It's terrific that the label is taking this music seriously and treating Gypsy Woman as the classic it has become. The sound is fantastic and way more dimensional than the original vinyl LP, allowing Bataan's crooning style to soar and the instrumentation and percussion to spread out.
Following the title track, the album proceeds with So Fine, a love song that continues the groove of Gypsy Woman beneath Bataan's powerful vocal. In keeping with the boogaloo's crossover style, several songs are sung in English, including Too Much Lovin', Figaro and the album's closer and other big hit, the romantic ballad Ordinary Guy.
Joe Bataan would go on to record more than 20 albums, many of them outrageously great. If you want to begin collecting or listening, try Singin' Some Soul (1970), Salsoul (1973) and Call My Name (2005) next.
JazzWax tracks: Here's Gypsy Woman...
Here's So Fine...
Here's Crystal Blue Persuasion from Singin' Some Soul...
Here's Mi Nube from Salsoul...
And here's Call My Name...
Bonus: Here's a segment from NBC News on the boogaloo documentary We Like It Like That (you'll find the documentary at Amazon Prime)...
This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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