Salsa and Afro-Cuban jazz can sometimes sound like a cliché of themselves. This is probably less the fault of the music itself than of its context of use. After all, it is often used in films for bar scenes or similar moments in which Latin American looseness is required. And there’s nothing at all wrong with that, as long as you don’t have a medically certified hip-swinging intolerance. There is nothing at all wrong with Roberto Vázquez alias Tata Vasquez, who moved from Cuba to the USA in New York in the 1960s. His album »Ecstasy« from 1979 with the not very subtle cover is above any suspicion of cheating. The percussion flows, the bass sails along with it, the brass sections on top are rubbed with dirty machine oil, so that they sound fat and abrasive-resistant at the same time. Tata Vasquez thus whisks different aggregate states into a mixture that is impossible to reject. Funk is in there just as much as jazz in the form of catchy flute and sax solos. And his »Suite Guaracho« is pure Latin proto-house. Another musician who makes us wonder why he doesn’t seem to have made more records. But you can be very happy with this one.
C.A.R.
Valonia
Bimba