Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » HAR-YOU Percussion Group: Sounds of Youth
HAR-YOU Percussion Group: Sounds of Youth
ByThe band is not, strictly speaking, a percussion group, but more a large Afro-Cuban ensemble, brought together by "Montego Joe," a percussionist who taught the group and was also its music director. There is an earnestness and authenticity that is absent from many recordings of that era. In fact, this recording will rank with Alan Douglas' Last Poets recording This Is Madness (Metrotone, 1971), albeit using a different, instrumental idiomatic formatAfro-Cuban to be exact. Tracks such as "Feed Me Good" and "Barretts Bag" only serve to provide a tantalizing taste of the rhythmic excursion that follows. The real stuff comes shortly thereafter; in the energetic bursts of polyrhythmic invention on "Ngoma" and "Oua-Train" are the iconic musical excursions of a generation that first discovered its Afrocentricity, but with guileless transparency and ingenuity.
The instrumentalism is dazzling. Saxophonist Nelson Sanamiago (on "Oua-Train") and bassist John Moody are memorable for their ideas and virtuosity. The percussionists themselvesMyles Mathews, Billy King, Sam Turner, Gordon Jones and Joseph Jimenez, are exquisite on "Ngoma" and "Welcome To The Party". It may have been an act of government to create the HAR-YOU Project, but it was certainly an inspired act of determination and belief that enabled Roger "Montego Joe" Sanders to bring this project to ESP-Disk and Bernard Stollman, who would release it in 1967. Now the record appears once again from the ESP Archives, and it sounds as fresh and musically relevant as the day it was produced.
Track Listing
Feed Me Good; Barretts Bag; Ngoma; Oua-Train; Welcome To The Party; Santa Cruz; Tico; HAR-YOU Theme; Montego Joe's HAR-YOU Postscript.
Personnel
Roger "Montego Joe" Sanders: leader; Nick Kirksey: piano; Ray Allen: flute; Nelson Sanamiago: alto saxophone; Dennis Taitt: guitar; Joffre Marchand, Stafford Osborne: trumpets; John Moody: bass; Myles Matthews: timbales, bongos; Billy King: congas; Gordon 'Spider' Jones: timbales; Antonio Santa Cruz: cowbell, vocals; Sam Turner: timbales, congas; David 'Mousie' Edmead: piano (2); Joseph Jimenez: claves (2, 7).
Album information
Title: Sounds of Youth | Year Released: 2009 | Record Label: ESP Disk