Mongo Santamaria - Live At Jazz Alley (2003) SACD

Live At Jazz Alley album for sale by Mongo Santamaria was released Aug 26, 2003 on the Concord Picante label. This is as close to Latin purist Mongo as we have heard in recent years, an eight-piece salsa band -- including several members of the 1997 Tito Puente ensemble, like trumpeter Ray Vega, altoist Bobby Porcelli and tenorman Mitch Frohman -- playing a brace of Mongo classics and Latin jazz pieces live before a hushed crowd in Seattle's Jazz Alley. Live At Jazz Alley buy CD music There are no pop covers, one electric instrument (a bass), lots of extended jazz solos (Porcelli and Frohman really burn on the pioneering Afro-Cuban classic "Manteca"), and an unusual (for Mongo) emphasis on the timbales on many tracks, which shoves the rhythms closer to the salsified Puente manner. Live At Jazz Alley CD music contains a single disc with 10 songs.

However, tracks like "Juan Jose," "Home" and "Bonita" do have the smooth Mongo cha-cha and guajira grooves, and elsewhere, Mongo lifts himself out of the background often enough to deliver some stirring polyrhythmic conga salvos. Live At Jazz Alley album for sale For a specific jolt from Mongo's own past, there is "Para Ti" and 10 1/2 stimulating minutes of "Afro Blue." Live At Jazz Alley CD music Though the general electricity level of the gig could be higher, Mongo's ageless spirit triumphs again. Live At Jazz Alley buy CD music ~ Richard S. Live At Jazz Alley songs Ginell