WATERMELON MAN

Cuban conga legend Mongo Santamaria passed away last Saturday at the age of 85. For those who are unfamiliar with Mongo, he was a formidable presence in both the Latin and Jazz scenes from the 1950s through the 1970s. Early in his career he played with Latino legends like Perez Prado and Tito Puente, but Santamaria carved out his niche in the Latin Jazz idom with men like vibraphonist, Cal Tjader, and Mr. Willie Bobo, who played the timbales. Mongo also played with Chick Corea, Ray Vega, and Hubert Laws, but he’s perhaps most famous for gigging with Herbie Hancock.

According to Ben Ratliff’s obit in the New York Times:

…In late 1962 he wandered back toward New York and the jazz side of the fence, convening a band led by a trumpet and two saxophones.

One night when Herbie Hancock substituted for his regular pianist at a Bronx nightclub, the group worked out a Latin groove underneath Mr. Hancock’s new composition “Watermelon Man”; Mr. Santamaria quickly took it to the studio, and the song became the only time that Riverside, the distinguished jazz label, had a song on the top-10 pop charts.

That marked the beginning of the Latin-soul sound, popular through the 1960’s. Mr. Santamaria signed with Columbia and made 10 records in a similar vein, Latinizing jazz tunes or R & B vocal numbers; when he was signed to Atlantic in 1971, he was so inured to the process that he left the decisions about the songs entirely to his musical director, Marty Sheller.

Here is a decent web site for those of you who are interested in checking out Mongo’s music..

“Watermelon Man” (Fantasy) is a great place to start. “Soy Yo” (Concord) is a terrific record too, and “Sabroso” (Fantasy) is probably my favorite. The compositions on “Sabroso” feature the interesting additions of a fiddle and a flute. How anyone can make a flute sound masculine is beyond me, but the Latino’s rock it lovely, indeed.