Jazz Articles about Mongo Santamaria

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Jazz Continuum Latin Edition

by David Brown
April 1, 2025

This week, we're featuring the Jazz Continuum Latin Edition. Let's dive into some Latin sounds from NYC, starting with Pete Rodriguez's “I Like It (I Like It Like That)," followed by the Joe Cuba Sextet and Nuyorican percussionist Ray Barretto. We'll also spotlight two albums from this weekend in history: Kenny Dorham's Afro-Cuban (1955) and McCoy Tyner's Sama Yayuca (1974). The program continues with works by Eddie Harris, The Lewis Express, Ramsey Lewis, Tito Puente, Orquesta Akokán, Hilton Ruiz, Mongo ...

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Mongo Santamaria: El Bravo

by C. Andrew Hovan
October 14, 2003

As one of the premier ambassadors of Latin music, conguero and bandleader Mongo Santamaria melded styles to arrive at an infectious fusion of hot rhythms with the improvisational energy of jazz. Although his series of albums in the '50s for Fantasy and the early '60s for Riverside established his integrity as a major artist, it would be a contract with Columbia Records in the mid '60s that brought his music to a whole new audience, thanks to the publicity engine ...

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Mongo Santamaria: Montreux Heat!

by Chris M. Slawecki
October 7, 2003

Even if not quite essential, this new release is drawn from the same 1980 Montreux Jazz Festival performance from which Santamaria’s live recording Summertime was previously released (Pablo, 1981) – including all three encores – and so helps to complete a more well-rounded portrait of the legendary Afro-Cuban conguero/bonguero as the 1970s transitioned to the ‘80s. It’s Afro- Cuban jazz from someone who helped forge the mold.

More warm than hot, this is one more fitting coda to ...

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Cal Tjader: Plays Harold Arlen and West Side Story

by David Rickert
September 13, 2002

Like the recently reissued Our Blues, this double CD presents Cal Tjader before he seriously delved into the Latin tunes that made his name in jazz circles. Unlike the previous album, which presented the vibraphonist as a serious improviser, Tjader is content to let the songs take the center stage; about three-fourths of this CD features a string section in the background. The strategy works well. Tjader cuts loose on a few Arlen standards before settling into melodic passages on ...

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Mongo Santamaria: Skin On Skin: The Mongo Santamaria Anthology (1958-1995)

by Mark Corroto
May 1, 1999

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1922, Ramon Santamaria, lovingly known as Mongo was to Afro-Cuban music what Ted Williams was to baseball. Fans loved his playing and fellow musicians studied his bongo and conga technique. He traveled to New York in 1948 to find beboppers like Dizzy Gillespie incorporating Chano Pozo's Cuban folk music and bandleaders Mario Bauza and Machito presenting popular Cuban music to eager listeners. Rhino records collection of Mongo Santamaria's music from 1958-1995 is an overflowing two-disc ...

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Mongo Santamaria: Afro Blue: The Picante Collection

by Robert Spencer
November 1, 1997

Mon Dieu! Mondo Mongo is a great place! Mongo Santamaria is the man who gave the world “Afro Blue," a song that caught the ears of John Coltrane and many others for its soaring and dignified spirituality -- a songmadefor Trane. That the composer himself, meanwhile, is no one-hit wonder is abundantly proven by this Concord Picante collection, aptly titled Afro Blue: The Picante Collection.

There's a hybrid spirit of melancholy and resolution to many of these tracks, a spirit ...