What is Boogaloo?
EFriedman
Howard Peirce
> I think I know it when I hear it, but how would you describe it?
Shuffle-based funk characterized by a leaping bassline with lots of
16th-note syncopation?
HP
William R. Barner
theme?
Robert Aries
sab...@mindspring.com
>I think I know it when I hear it, but how would you describe it?
===============================
Interesting footnote here...
The god or spirit "Bou Gelou" (spelled any number of different
ways) exists in many North African non-Muslim (essentially
pre-Islamic) groups. (May actually co-exist w/Islam, much as the
pre-Christian South African religions co-exist w/Christianity in both
Africa and in the Caribbean/S.American/New Orleans Santeria/Voudon
style blends.)
Bou Gelou is a Pan-like or Dionysian figure, a dancer, a lover and
laugher...goatish, complete w/flutes or double reed instruments and
drums.
"Boogaloo" is a style of dance music originally from the black
southern blues/jazz/party dance tradition. It may also have something
to do w/Bogalusa, Louisiana, because the first person I EVER heard say
(or play) it was the drummer Herschel Dwellingham III (that was...and
is...his name), who hailed from Bogalusa. Also called it "fatback".
As far as "what" it is...fats Waller said it best.
"If you don't know...I can't tell you."
(Or was it Socrates ? Oh well, I'm sure SOMEBODY said it...)
Later...
S.
bonk...@my-deja.com
efri...@aol.com (EFriedman) wrote:
> I think I know it when I hear it, but how would you describe it?
>
Yes it is a swinging r+b style.
It may have also been a dance (like the Watusi and other popular dances
in the '60's) but I'm not 100% sure on this.
But also boogaloo or bugalu was also a precursor to NY salsa, in the
mid-60's.
There was a lot of musical interaction between African Americans in the
r+b scene and Latinos in the Afro-Cuban music or Salsa in Harlem (going
way back), but it came to a head in the early 60's, when Latin youth
who loved their Latin music but also loved the soul and r+b they grew
up with, started asking for bugalu, which at the time was
(For example, the Cheetah, which was a popular club for r+b and funk,
also was one of the birthplaces of NY salsa. See the book "Salsiology",
edited by Vernon Boggs for more on this.)
Anyways, it was Afro-Cuban with an overlay of r+b, rock or soul.
Examples:
Bang Bang - Joe Cuba Sextette (covered in the early 90s by Dave Sanborn)
Mambo Twist - Eddie Palmieri
Spanish Grease- Willie Bobo
I like it like that - original 60's version by
Many of the working Latin jazz artists of the time hated it or resented
that they had to put out a bugalu record. [Of course, the same thing
was happening with jazz artists of the 40's and 50's generation,
looking to appeal to new audiences or maintain audiences (Count Basie's
Beatles album, for example.)]
Machito, the great Afro-Cuban band leader, even had a record called
"The Soul of Machito". Actually it is pretty enjoyable.
But bugalu signalled the end of the Mambo era (when the scene was
dominated by bands like Tito Rodriguez and Machito) and marks the
transition into the Salsa era.
(Of course, Tito Puente just keep going on with his thing, like the
Energizer bunny...)
Bugalu was pretty popular in NY and it in some ways, it proved that
there was a vibrant (commercially viable) Latin music scene there.
Since political and cultural relations between the US and Cuba (the
source of AfroCuban music) had been cut off, New York city became the
new center of the music. A few years later, salsa (a mixture of Afro-
Cuban and other Afro-Caribbean traditions with little r+b and jazz
influence thrown in) with a little would emerge.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Marc Lormans
and you understand what Boogaloo is about.
bonk...@my-deja.com
It's Latin Soul:
Soul-influenced Latin dance (Afro-Cuban or salsa), with lyrics often in
Spanish and English, played by Latin bands in NY in the 1960's that was
a precursor to the salsa movement which arrived in the late 60's.
Arrangements were influenced by the twist, r+b and funky sounds, but
the instrumentation remained "conjunto tipico": piano, baby bass,
conga, timbales, horns.
Influences ranged equally from Herbie Hancock's early Blue Note records
to James Brown.
The original version of I Like it Like That (boogaloo song recently
covered by Tito Nieves and used on a Burger King commercial) is by Pete
Rodriguez and was recorded in 1967.
More on Latin Soul/boogaloo is available at:
http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db/scan/mp=lsoul_classic?cBYbT6bT;;173
RobinsonCHAZZ
Ed Rhodes, Jr.
> "Boogaloo" is a style of dance music originally from the black
>southern blues/jazz/party dance tradition.
I'm not entirely sure it originated in the South, though it's
possible. It was popular throughout black america in the mid-60's.
There were plenty of boogaloo records but there was one simply called
"Boogaloo" which defined the rhythm for the dance. I forget who did
it.
>...the first person I EVER heard say
>(or play) it was the drummer Herschel Dwellingham III
Herschel did a lot of the drumming on Weather Report's "Sweetnighter"
album.
Interesting.
bonk...@my-deja.com wrote:
>It may have also been a dance...
No mabe about it. It was, circa '65-'66.
>But also boogaloo or bugalu was also a precursor to NY salsa, in the
>mid-60's.
This is an interesting description but I remember it a bit
differently. Like "boogaloo", it depends on who you ask.
In NYC, the term "salsa" was well established and well defined on it's
own terms, quite independently from the Latin/Boogaloo phenomenon.
The Puerto Ricans I knew used the term to describe their music,
period. I think some of the discursive politics surrounding the use
of the term has to do not so much with the cross polination of Puerto
Rican and African-American culture in the mid-60's as it does with the
disappearance of the older line Cuban musicians from active performing
in the New York scene around the same time and the emerging dominance
of Puerto Rican musicians such as Eddie Palmieri, Ray Baretto and
Johnny Pacheco. I sense some hostility on the part of partisans of
the older scene, with it's fundamentally Cuban orientation, to the
Puerto Rican dominated scene of the 1960's.
Latin/Boogaloo, OTOH, was, indeed, a product of the impact of r&b on
the war baby generation of Puerto Ricans. But it was also a product
of the impact of "latin" (later known as "salsa") on the war baby
generation of African-Americans, some of whom were partying at the
Palladium in the early 60's before anyone ever heard of "boogaloo",
latin or otherwise.
I was at the Cheetah and I wouldn't characterize it as the birthplace
of anything, though I had a lot of fun there. It was just a new jack
latin club which did r&b on some nights and which was populated by war
babies from both communities. African-Americans were there on the
latin nights and Puerto Ricans were there on the "soul" nights.
Also, I would dispute that latin/boogaloo signaled the end of the
mambo era. That's only true if one understands mambo solely in terms
of its Cuban roots and, at the same time, dismisses the "salsa" of the
early 70's as not "authentic" mambo. As far as I can tell, the
rhythm, the drive and the steps were the same, despite the sneers of
the Cuban chauvinists. Puerto Ricans, and many African-Americans,
mamboed through the salsa era when latin/boogaloo was just another
party memory. The decline of mambo came much later, much more
recently, with the rise of latin crossover among gen x Puerto Ricans,
and the dramatically increased presence of non-Puerto Rican hispanics
in NYC.
An aside, for the connoisseur...
"Fun City Shingaling", by Joe Quijano.
Ed Rhodes
Marc Lormans
undestand what Boogaloo is about.
Right on !
bonk...@my-deja.com
Ed:
Thanks for backing up my posts that boogaloo also has a Latin-NY side
to it. This definitely belongs in the conversation about Boogaloo.
I think a lot of people probably didn't know this. I spend most of my
time over at rec.music.afro-latin so this kind of topic comes up often.
Also thanks for clarifying some points: I wasn't back in NY in the
1960's and sounds like you were. I appreciate your perspective.
>
> In NYC, the term "salsa" was well established and well defined on it's
> own terms, quite independently from the Latin/Boogaloo phenomenon.
> The Puerto Ricans I knew used the term to describe their music,
> period. I think some of the discursive politics surrounding the use
> of the term has to do not so much with the cross polination of Puerto
> Rican and African-American culture in the mid-60's as it does with the
> disappearance of the older line Cuban musicians from active performing
> in the New York scene around the same time and the emerging dominance
> of Puerto Rican musicians such as Eddie Palmieri, Ray Baretto and
> Johnny Pacheco. I sense some hostility on the part of partisans of
> the older scene, with it's fundamentally Cuban orientation, to the
> Puerto Rican dominated scene of the 1960's.
I know what you mean and it still exists to this day. If you listen to
records like "Pasaporte" by Cuban percussionists Tata and Anga with
Frank Emilio and others playing along, (came out a couple years back)
you will see this rivalry is still going on. THe last song on the album
basically says, "Cuba was the first". It may be true, but the
bitterness and the unwillingness to see salsa/Cuban music as the same
reflects not only the hostility created after the Cuban revolution and
the lost cultural interchange, but a different sensibility as to how
the music should be played. We could write a book on the topic.
>
> Latin/Boogaloo, OTOH, was, indeed, a product of the impact of r&b on
> the war baby generation of Puerto Ricans. But it was also a product
> of the impact of "latin" (later known as "salsa") on the war baby
> generation of African-Americans, some of whom were partying at the
> Palladium in the early 60's before anyone ever heard of "boogaloo",
> latin or otherwise.
>
Great post. People who are outside of the scene sometimes forget the
close interaction between the African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and
Jewish crowds up in Spanish Harlem back in the day.
> I was at the Cheetah and I wouldn't characterize it as the birthplace
> of anything, though I had a lot of fun there. It was just a new jack
> latin club which did r&b on some nights and which was populated by war
> babies from both communities. African-Americans were there on the
> latin nights and Puerto Ricans were there on the "soul" nights.
I guess I meant that Cheetah was known to be one of the focal points of
the two communities, and that some important cultural interchange
happened, which is basically what you said too.
>
> Also, I would dispute that latin/boogaloo signaled the end of the
> mambo era. That's only true if one understands mambo solely in terms
> of its Cuban roots and, at the same time, dismisses the "salsa" of the
> early 70's as not "authentic" mambo. As far as I can tell, the
> rhythm, the drive and the steps were the same, despite the sneers of
> the Cuban chauvinists. Puerto Ricans, and many African-Americans,
> mamboed through the salsa era when latin/boogaloo was just another
> party memory. The decline of mambo came much later, much more
> recently, with the rise of latin crossover among gen x Puerto Ricans,
> and the dramatically increased presence of non-Puerto Rican hispanics
> in NYC.
You're right to most of us it is the same. However, when Machito put
out Soul of Machito, Arsenio Rodriguez moved to L.A. to gig at Mexican
restaraunts and groups like Joe Cube Sextette had a new swing, a lot of
people recognized the changing of the guard. Of course, Machito kept
going and so did Tito Puente (in fact TP got better in some ways), but
I meant the end of the mambo era really more in a generational way. I
really see the late 1960's as a transitional period in Latin music.
> An aside, for the connoisseur...
>
> "Fun City Shingaling", by Joe Quijano.
>
> Ed Rhodes
>
I'll check it out. Come and visit us over in rec.music.afro-latin for
more discussions like this.
Steve Bosarge
music, boogaloo was known along the Mississippi Gulf Coast (and presumably
also in New Orleans) in the early 1950's if not earlier.
Steve Bosarge
Yaps
Donaldson, Lonnie Smith, and Rueben Wilson were recording/playing from
around 1966-71. It's still all over the place today, though most call
it jazz-funk. I think of it as jazz-funk, with a definite emphasis on
the jazz portion, almost always with a Hammond player in the band. The
drummer is usually playing swing patterns with a back beat, so the
groove is usually a swingin' funk kind of feel (Idris Muhammad, Bernard
Purdie). Lou Donaldson's Hot Dog and Rueben Wilson's Lady Bug are
great examples, and phenomenal albums.
In article <19991201113220...@ng-fi1.aol.com>,
efri...@aol.com (EFriedman) wrote:
> I think I know it when I hear it, but how would you describe it?
>
