Mongo Santamaría

A Mongo Santamaría concert was a mesmerizing show, not only in musical aspects but also visually and even at age 70 this apparently ageless Cuban percussionist/band leader could excite and energize huge stadiums such as the Hollywood Bowl.

A master conguero, Santamaría created that enchanting show with roots in religious Cuban rituals. In his congas and solos he would play and completely dominate the rhythmic spaces between beats while his band was playing (a powerful example on record is the hypnotic "Mazacote"). He has been enormously influential as a leader, leading bands that lasted for considerable periods of time and combined the traditional charanga with jazz style solos for wind instruments and the piano, in which musicians such as Chick Corea and Hubert Laws stand out. He also touched on rhythm & blues, rock and electrical jazz at some point in his long career.

Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría originally played the violin until he switched to the drums before leaving school to be a professional musician. Playing gigs at the Tropicana Club in Havana, Mongo traveled to Mexico with a dance conjunto in 1948 and then moved to New York in 1950, where he made his American debut with Pérez Prado, played with Tito Puente and performed and recorded with Cal Tjader (1957-60).

Mongo’s first significant recordings in the U.S. were made in 1958 for Fantasy; his second album with that label, "Mongo" (1959) contained a composition named "Afro-Blue", which rapidly turned into a Latin jazz standard, adopted by John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and others.

Santamaría’s introduction into the mass market can be considered a direct result of a bad night at a night club in the Bronx in 1962. According to the story, there were only three people in the audience, so the musicians decided to show some of their new compositions. Pianist Herbie Hancock performed his new blues song "Watermelon Man". Gradually it all became part of Mongo’s repertoire and when producer Orrin Keepnewz heard it, he took the band to a recording studio and recorded a single that climbed to tenth position on the 1963 pop charts.

The success resulting from Santamaría’s cross between jazz, R&B, and Latin music in "Watermelon Man" as well as from a series of Battle and Riverside records led to his signing a high profile contract with Columbia which in turn led to a string of hot dance records between 1965 and 1970. With a more brilliant brass sound made by trumpeter Marty Sheller, generally playing versions of hits of the time, Santamaría’s band perfectly reflected the go-go style of the sixties and Mongo continued to mix genres in the seventies.

Since then, Santamaría has returned to his Afro-Cuban roots, recording for Vaya in the early seventies, forming a band with Gillespie and Toots Thielemans for a live concert in Montreaux for Pablo in 1980, and recording various records for Condord Picante (1987-1990), one work for Chesky in 1993 and a return to Fantasy through his subsidiary Milestone in 1995. He died on February 1, 2003 in Miami’s Baptist Hospital due to a stroke.

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