Mongo Santamaria: Sofrito [CRAFT]

Why you'll love it

Craft's first vinyl reissue of Sofrito is mastered and cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed on 180g vinyl. It rolls through "Iberia," "Cruzan" and the title track with the ease of a bandleader two decades into the job.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio
• Lacquers cut by Kevin Gray

About the album

In a Caribbean kitchen, sofrito is the base that everything else gets built on. Mongo Santamaria knew a thing or two about foundations. Born in Havana in 1917, he learned rumba drumming in the streets, played conga for Tito Puente and Cal Tjader in New York, led his own charanga and pioneered boogaloo, scoring his biggest hit with Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man," later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. His records also introduced a whole generation of listeners to great Cuban rumberos like Armando Peraza and Francisco Aguabella.

By the 70s he was recording mainly salsa and Latin jazz, and Sofrito is that sound in full flavour. Side one opens with "Iberia" and "Cruzan" and lands on the title track, while side two runs from "O Mi Shango," a nod to the Afro-Cuban religious music he recorded early in his career, through "Five on the Color Side" and "Secret Admirer" to "Princess."

He went on to join the Fania All-Stars, trading conga solos with Ray Barretto, and kept recording into the 1990s. The recipe calls for a decent turntable and a bit of floor space; we can't help with the floor space.

Also at Kops: more Mongo Santamaria on vinyl · browse World

Tracklist

Listen

On Fania / Craft, a reissue of the 1976 album.