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Title: Virile fusions
Review: Before Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley songwriters picked up on Cuban and Puerto Rican styles in the pursuit of disposable novelty hits, these styles were being honestly fused with the emerging modern jazz of bebop and cool. Of course, this took place in New York City, as Machito and other emigres were welcomed by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, and by dancers who no doubt wanted something hotter than intellectual bebop. The result is in these raw recordings, which are compositionally astute, blending Ellingtonian orchestrations with bop heads and the clave, while retaining and even magnifying the rhythmic intensity. Such a virile fusion of Latin and New York styles would not be heard again until the Nu Yorican movement of the 1970s.
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