MONGO SANTAMARIA — Stone Soul (review)

MONGO SANTAMARIA — Stone Soul album cover Album · 1968 · Latin Rock/Soul Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
js
There’s nothing too subtle or complicated going on here, ‘Stone Soul’ is just one great party dance record played by some of the best musicians in the business. A lot of aficionados of Afro-Cuban music get down on Mongo for his RnB and pop recordings, but any fan of RnB-jazz will affirm that nothing makes these old soul tunes rock like a three piece Latin percussion section. To pull off his jazz-Cuban-RnB hybrid, Santamaria pulls in some of the best musicians from all three of those musical worlds. Bernard Purdie has always been one of the most in demand RnB drummers of all time, Sonny Fortune and Hadley Callinan are top notch hard bop horn players, and Mongo himself is tops in the world of Afro-Cuban percussion.

The album cover features a classic southern US soul food meal of pork ribs, black-eyed peas, rice and cornbread that lets you know what this music is all about. This is old school blues based southern soul music with a honking sax on the lead melody and always a good jazzy solo or two on each cut. Most of the tunes are medium tempo groove except for two that pick up the pace. ‘The Now Generation’ is one of those early 70s euphoric jazz-pop rockers that has a new uplifting hook every couple of bars and ‘Cloud Nine’ is a high energy soul-jazz reworking of the Temptations psychedelic classic.

Acid jazz and rare groove DJs will kill to get their hands on this sort of groovy semi-kitsch old school funk. Southern soul meets Afro-Cuban groove, it’s a match made in funky heaven.

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

REQUESTS - Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio LIVE vol.1 Post Bop
TSUYOSHI YAMAMOTO 山本剛
Buy this album from MMA partners
REQUESTS - Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio LIVE - Vol.2 Post Bop
TSUYOSHI YAMAMOTO 山本剛
Buy this album from MMA partners
Mars Williams, Vasco Trilla : Awakening Nature From Her Dream Avant-Garde Jazz
MARS WILLIAMS
Buy this album from MMA partners
Preservation Brass : For Fat Man Original New Orleans Jazz
PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND
Buy this album from MMA partners
Borderless Hard Bop
BRIAN CHARETTE
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

That Dada Strain
PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND
js· 7 hours ago
Kinetic
BLACK FLOWER
js· 1 day ago
Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra feat. Scarlett Johansson - The Best is Yet To Come
JEFF GOLDBLUM
snobb· 2 days ago
I'm Just Say'n
JOE MCPHEE
snobb· 2 days ago
Cymande - Chasing An Empty Dream (Official Visualiser)
CYMANDE
snobb· 3 days ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed