Jazz Latin Jazz: Ray Barretto and New World Spirit

I heard Ray Barretto and New World Spirit quite a few years ago at the Kennedy Center, who at that time included Joe Magnarelli and Myron Walden—not too shabby. On Contact!, The front line is Michael Philip Mossman on trumpet (and trombone on one track) and Adam Kolker on tenor and soprano. I wasn’t familiar with Kolker, and he’s excellent. As form Mossman, I really enjoyed his concert on the Latin side of Jelly Roll Morton at the Kennedy Center a few years ago, including Paquito de Rivera and a flamenco dancer—a fine trumpeter both in and out of Latin jazz.

As the liner notes say, this album is not “Latin jazz,” but rather jazz with Latin overtones. Barretto straddled both worlds, but I suspect he leaned a bit more toward the jazzier end of the spectrum.  More up-tempo tracks like Moss Code, Liberated Spirit, and Sister Sadie are really excellent, and the band is good enough to make me like their version of Michel Legrand’s The Summer Knows—and don't miss their arrangement of Caravan.Strong work from pianist John Di Martino, Jairo Moreno and Hans Glawishnig on bass, Vince Cherico on drums, Ray Vega on percussion, and, of course, Barretto on congas, makes this a go-to  recording in the vein of Conrad Herwig’s Latin takes on Miles, Coltrane, and others.

Here's Caravan and Point of Contact.

Hearken, Hearken to the Reed! – Jalal al-Din Rumi

Poor Herbie Mann doesn’t get much respect from the critics or the cranky old guys who post on the jazz boards. Admittedly, Herbie never seemed to meet a musical fad he didn’t like (disco!), but he did make what I think is a substantial contribution to integrating African and Middle Eastern music into jazz. The first Herbie Mann track I ever listened to was Baghdad/Asia Minor from The Common Ground: The Herbie Mann Afro-Jazz Sextet + Four Trumpets.  That album featured Nabil “Knobby” Totah, a Palestinian, on bass, and my all-time favorite Babatunde Olatunji on African percussion, along with Ray Barretto on bongos and Ray Mantilla on congas.

My favorite, though, is The Wailing Dervishes, a 1967 live date with a coterie of Middle Eastern-derived musicians like oudist Chick Ganimian, dümbek player Moulay “Ali” Hafid, and clarinetist Hacheg T. Kazarian. In addition to featuring the unique Rufus Harley, the premier jazz bagpiper, on one track, it includes an absolutely mesmerizing version of Norwegian Wood. This piece really reaches out in an almost ecstatic, Sufi-like way, trying to fulfill the verse of Rumi on the back of the LP: “Hearken to this reed forlorn/Breathing ever since ‘twas torn/From its rush bed, a strain/Of impassioned love and pain.” Mann, Roy Ayers on vibes, and Reggie Workman on bass all seem to catch the spirit on this one.  I wish we had more recordings like this one and fewer like Push Push, but give Herbie Mann full credit for pushing forward a world music ethos in jazz when it was much more uncommon than it is now.

Here's Norwegian Wood.