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The first cut on this album, appropriately entitled "The Opener," establishes
some of the most fierce, in-your-face percussion soloing to be found on the
entire catalog of LP's re-releases of late seventies material. Perhaps we should
attribute this to the union of the great Tito Puente with Carlos "Patato" Valdez and Johnny Rodriguez, Jr. Whatever the reason: the song is one long vamp of loud, proud, tight percussion.
This contrasts with the second song, "Baila, Guajira," a strolling Cha-Cha featuring vocalists Nancy O'Neill and Jeanette Rodriguez. This song is instructive of how percussion can predominate and then, in a single breath, sit back and quietly propel a song. Incidentally, here Tito Puente doubles on vibraphone.
"Martinez Blues" takes us out of the walking four-to-the-bar mode to a jazz/African 6/8 groove. As in the preceding two songs, this one is not complex in structure and relies instead for effect on insistent percussion and Eddie Martinez's gentle, bouncing piano lines. This pace continues in "Afro Mood," an even more emphatically old-country groove that has LP cowbells of various sizes marking the traditional rhythm in alternating low and high pitches. The percussion is strident. Bassist Sal Cuevas is the other key ingredient in the mix: he seems to be playing a "baby bass" - a cutaway upright common in salsa, or perhaps a fretless electric. At any rate, his intonation and his keen sense of note value are critical in keeping the groove alive.
The title of the next song, "Talking Skins," is far from arbitrary. The congas virtually sing out to you, tuned to the melody. This device seems to be disappearing in modern, heavily amplified settings, this embodiment of the ideal of keeping drums musical. Although the congas may stray from the melodic line, they suggest it throughout. Tito Puente's timbale solo is exciting and playful; "Patato" Valdez's is delightfully quirky as usual. And here's a "listener challenge": Since it's going to be a tall order for one of the session musicians to look back twenty-one years and identify the LP instrument that makes that brilliant, sustaining bell sound at the 4:20 mark - you guess!
The Lieber/Stoller composition "Bernie's Tune" is slightly more complex than its predecessors, with a sixteen-bar theme and eight-bar chorus, all ignited by the pulsing cascara rhythm. Rodriguez shines with the others when he takes a bongo solo on the chorus. Finally we have "Tito and Patato" in a free-form intro that melds into a frantic groove at quick tempo. It's not so much a song as a forum for soloing. The approach is bombastic, until suddenly, around the two-minute mark, the dynamics fall to a hush and then build to a crescendo again. Tito leaves his signature at the end, conversing with "Patato" in a final free-form segment.
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