Machito:
Kenya: Afro-Cuban Jazz
Machito's big band was one of the first and best exponents of Afro-Cuban jazz as we know it today. This 1957 effort focuses more on the African side of the Afro-Cuban equation; the album title/concept was chosen because Kenya represented the "New Africa" at the time, which dovetailed nicely with the new sounds Machito and company were laying down. The set opens with the heady rush of "Wild Jungle," a frenetic rumba with staccato horn punctuation cutting up the time atop a bed of fierce polyrhythmic percussion. The substantially more sedate title cut pursues a more conventional jazz melodic line until the coda, where a frantic rumba is again introduced to crank the tension level back up. "Oyeme" is a lesson in the possibilities of Afro-Cuban modality, as the rhythm and melodic variations are all wrung over a static, one-chord harmonic framework. The appropriately titled "Frenzy" makes good use of Machito's percussion section, pitting brass interjections over some unfettered percussive fury. Kenya's contrast between Machito's Afro-Cuban soundscapes and the solos of legendary U.S. jazzmen Cannonball Adderly and Doc Cheatham makes for a swirling stew of jazz con clave that no aficionado should be without. Jim Allen
