BAILE INoLVIDABLE: 5 Songs To Nurse That Bad Bunny Hangover
This week's songs are from Miguelito Valdés, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Barretto, Kito Vélez & Company, and Eddie Palmieri
I hadn’t been this excited for a halftime performer since Prince, and Bad Bunny delivered on all fronts. He walked us back in time through Latin/Afro-Caribbean musical history song by song, emphasized unity and positivity, and used the set and costumes to tell a story—and yet it seemed like one big party.
RIP Fred Smith - Television - “Guiding Light”
Originally a bassist with what became Blondie, Fred Smith replaced Richard Hell in Television. As a member of Television, Smith would play on what is a Desert Island Top 10 Album of mine: Marquee Moon. A lot of attention gets paid to Television’s spiraling, angular and spindly guitar work. The rhythm section holding it all together—Billy Ficca and Fred Smith—should be equally lauded for doing their jobs (keeping time; setting a foundation), in parts that are adventurous, smooth, and extremely melodic. Much of the album sounds like it’s shooting off in four different directions, but Ficca and Smith manage to stay close together while Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd go out looking for one another in the dark. It’s nearly impossible to pick just one song from this album, but Smith’s playing on “Guiding Light,” in particular has the same melodic bounce and optimistic feel as anything Rick Danko ever did. Smith died over the weekend. He was 77.
RIP Greg Brown - Cake - “Race Car Ya-Yas”
I haven’t kept up with them in recent years, so I’ll use the past tense: Cake was a fun band. Tongue-in-cheek, full-on satire, serious musicians who make music that seems unserious. Of course they would have some “novelty hits” along the way, but their longevity has proven that they’re anything but a novelty act. To do it once is luck, to do it for 30+ years is an exception to the rule. Guitarist and songwriter Greg Brown, who died last week, left the band in 1997, but not before writing the Certified All-Timer™ “The Distance.” I like the edge Brown played with, which you can hear on “The Distance,” but also “Race Car Ya-Yas.”
I gained a very casual affinity for Afro-Caribbean music through jazz (Dizzy Gillespie’s Afro, specifically), and rock (the polyrhythms of the Talking Heads and David Byrne’s solo work). But Joe Boyd’s exhaustive and thorough And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, which I’m slowly working my way through, that’s given me a deeper way in. Some chapters (like Bulgarian throat singing) I haven’t given much time to, but the Afro-Caribbean chapters are what I keep coming back to. Boyd weaves a golden thread through the music’s history and connection with the regions history: slavery, colonialism, political and social uprisings, and also America’s periodic flirtations with the music.
When I was a kid, one of the few albums I remember my mom having was (three-time Super Bowl Halftime performer) Gloria Estefan’s Coming Out of the Dark, about her recovery from a car accident that nearly killed her. I remember little of the music aside from the title track, but it was boring adult pop as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t until I saw her Behind the Music episode that I knew anything of her past in Miami Sound Machine. In middle school, (Halftime Show Special Guest) Ricky Martin swung into popularity, Santana’s Supernatural made waves, and my friend’s mother was Colombian, so she was way ahead of anyone on Shakira. For most of these artists, they brought elements of their identity and culture into what is mostly Anglicized contemporary pop—sanitized, reduced to ‘Latin’ rather than anything regionally or culturally specific, and (Shakira excepted) frequently sung in English. It’s taking elements and making them palatable and acceptable to a wider (American mainstream) audience, mainly by watering them down.
This makes what Bad Bunny has done so interesting—not compromising to the assumed expectations, bringing pop music to his origins; making exciting cross-genre music, steeped in traditional sounds, in idiomatic Spanish, and singing about that connection to history (and also, sex). It’s the opposite of the typical formula. Like a powerful person whispering quietly so people lean in and listen more closely. He’s inviting anyone willing to open their ears a little more can learn about the struggles, joy, challenges, and pride of his people, while simultaneously leaving a soft barrier that keeps away a certain kind of reactionary idiot.
Here are 5 songs from Afro-Caribbean musicians for those looking to dig a little deeper into what Bad Bunny was serving up.
“It should be made known … that what is now presented to the jaded European taste, avid for new stimuli as something new, capable of providing new thrills, is not something which has been improvised as a tourist attraction, but a spiritual achievement of a people that has struggled during four centuries to find a medium of expression.” -Emilio Grenet
Miguelito Valdés - “Bruca Manigua”
Miguelito Valdés was a Cuban jazz singer whose popularity would overtake that of his bandleader Xavier Cugat. His recordings for Casino de Playa would serve as a foundational source of inspiration for some of the most well-known Afro-Caribbean performers such as Tito Puente, Hector Lavoe, and Celia Cruz. Valdés gained popularity with “Babalu,” ultimately adopting the nickname “Mr. Babalu.” Fellow Cuban Desi Arnaz—already established in the United States—then took the song and nickname for himself. Arnaz would go on to make “Babalu” Ricky Ricardo’s signature song on I Love Lucy. Valdés would go on to appear in Hollywood movies, and was among the original acts to establish Las Vegas as a destination. He even briefly married Virginia Hill, Bugsy Siegel’s longtime girlfriend, and a mob figure of her own right.
“Bruca Manigua” is a song seeking freedom from slavery and colonialism—something Bad Bunny sings about throughout DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (especially on “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii)”. The song found new life to American audiences in the 90s, as Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer sang it in Bueno Vista Social Club. Ferrer’s version is slower and softer, while Valdés’ version is bright and celebratory. When the chorus sings along with him, it sounds like a Trini Lopez party record.
Dizzy Gillespie - “Manteca”
When I first watched Ken Burns’ Jazz, “Manteca” was the first song featured that I didn’t already know to really jump out at me. At the time, my assumption as to what jazz is was the cliched idea that first comes to mind—basically just bebop. But “Manteca” stood out; the bass groove gave it enough of the dark, smokey room coolness of bebop, but there was a new flavor in it, courtesy of Chano Pozo’s congas. In my memory, the song serves as that inflection point in my understanding; that jazz isn’t a genre, but a collection of them, and that it’s adaptive and evolving, and more like a conversation amongst a group of artists. It sounds like an obvious observation, but regardless of how mundane the realization, the satisfaction A-ha! Moments™ is everlasting. Nonetheless, identifying that conversation in other genres became easier after finding it in jazz.
Among the early practitioners of bebop, Dizzy Gillespie knows a thing or two about setting aside the expectations of the mainstream, and what’s palatable. Bebop was a deliberate step out of the limitations big band era—no more band leader bosses or paying any mind to the expectations of the audience. On the latter aspect Gillespie was different from other bebop players—he cared about the connection to the audience and the dancing. As it became clearer bebop offered its own limitations, Gillespie sought new avenues to take his music, and found inspiration in the the Afro-Caribbean rhythms he’d learned from former bandmate Mario Bauzá, who recommended Gillespie connect with Chano Pozo, a conguero who had just moved to the US.
Pozo and Gillespie wrote “Manteca” together, but Pozo gave the track its name after catching on to Harlem slang in greetings among jazz musicians (“give me some grease”). A year after Manteca’s release, Pozo was killed by a drug dealer, with whom he’d argued with about the quality of his product a day prior. The last thing Pozo did before he was shot was drop a coin into a juke box to play “Manteca.”
Ray Barretto - “Acid”
Conguero Ray Barretto’s credits include playing with Charlie Parker, Herbie Mann, and as a member of Tito Puente’s band. His performance at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival is shown in Summer of Soul. But if you haven’t heard his name, you’ve heard his playing—that’s him on “Sympathy for the Devil.”
In Salsa, “montunos” are sections of a song where an instrument—typically the piano—plays a repetitive, rhythmic chord progression to let the band stretch out, build momentum, and keep people dancing. It got the name montuno from the Cuban word for rural/mountains—where musicians didn’t play danzón, instead favoring a looser, more improvisatory form of dancing and music; the type European Cuban elites found too suggestive. Over time, “montuno” came to describe the extended section—where musicians could stretch out, create excitement, and keep the dance floor moving.
On “Acid,” the bass is holding down an absolutely killer groove that functions like a montuno, allowing each player in the band to sound off for a few bars at a time. That said, a piano comes in with a real montuno in the last minute or so of the song, driving the jam into a higher gear. Altogether, the track sounds like an awesome party in somebody’s basement, complete with the sounds of the musicians egging each other on, feeling the groove, and having a blast. I’ll take as much of this as I can get.
Kito Vélez, Lito Peña, Willy Matos, Héctor Santos & Mario Román - “Telaraña”
I’ve mentioned a Desert Island Top 10 Album above, and I would easily place Boogie Nights in my Desert Island Top 10 Movies. The movie really announces itself as a Great Movie with an extended pool sequence that’s really two scenes that reflect two sides of the world we’ve entered: Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) being introduced to Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) and his chosen family with Three Dog Night’s “Momma Told Me Not to Come” lingering in the background; the second scene is the arrival of the Colonel and his drug-hungry companion, which shows the insidious and dark side, which has Eric Burdon & War’s “Spill the Wine.”
“Telaraña” sounds a lot like “Spill the Wine”—the rhythm and chord progression, the whole feel. So I was preternaturally primed to love “Telaraña” before I even heard it. And if you enjoy “Spill the Wine” as much as I do, then you will too.
Eddie Palmieri - “Azúcar”
Salsa pioneer Willie Colón gets a shoutout on Bad Bunny’s “NUEVAYoL” and is sampled on “PIToRRO DE COCO.” Colón’s primary influence was Eddie Palmieri, who added brass on top of Cuban rhythms. Palmieri himself was influenced by Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and McCoy Tyner. (As a brief aside: calling back to the tribute to Bob Weir a few weeks ago: it’s amazing that two people in entirely different musical worlds can find inspiration in the same player [Tyner];the magic of music, especially the subjectivity of it shaping the lineage of ideas is amazing to me).
Palmieri’s melding of brassy jazz with a percussive piano style against Afro-Caribbean rhythms are on full display in the driving “Azúcar.” It takes a breather in the middle section to dabble in the same pace and coolness of “Manteca,” but it’s the final third where it really shines.
Thanks for reading. Enjoy listening.
Full playlists of songs featured in 5 Songs: