A stunning collection that sheds light on a pivotal yet totally overlooked area of American music - the influence of Afro-Cuban and Latin rhythms on R&B and Jazz during the mid-20th century. Following up on the success of our Jukebox Jam album of vintage juke joint and bar room sounds, compiler and DJ Liam Large digs even deeper to put together a diverse set of dynamite R&B sides, all built around Afro-Cuban, Latin and Caribbean rhythms. The Blues and it's populist sister Rhythm & Blues have been visited and revisited 100s of times on 1000s of comps, but the 'Spanish Tinge' has been completely overlooked, perhaps even scorned by purists. This album stands out from the rest and the result is a set which sounds stunningly fresh and unique - a remarkable achievement itself given that the actual songs average at around 60 years old. Jukebox Mambo showcases an experimental era which continues to inform today's music, with Afro-Latin rhythms now completely assimilated into modern pop. The overtly sensual, exotic feel of many of these songs also continues to find an echo in modern music, and Jukebox Mambo provides a thrilling, sensual listening experience. Lovingly compiled, expertly annotated, with music as interesting as it is stimulating and arresting, Jukebox Mambo is a new and exciting look at the era and music which changed history!
Jazzman Gerald and compiler Liam Large have produced an absolute corker here. A platter full of slouching honking horns and crazy latin rhythms with mad composite basslines mixed with swing jazz and r&b. What a heady concoction! Taken from the heyday of the genre 1949-1960 this is a comprehensive guide to a magical era in latin music. It's commonly perceived Perez Prado invented it and by the mid-1950's mambo mania had reached fever pitch. In New York the centre for this explosive craze was the Palladium Ballroom, the famous Broadway dance hall. The joint proclaimed itself the "temple of mambo," for the city's best dancers gave mambo demonstrations there and made a reputation for their flailing use of arms, legs, head and hands. There was immense rivalry between bands too. Machito, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez and Jose Curbelo delighted the jazz hierarchy of Duke Ellington, Lena Horne and Dizzy Gillespie - not to mention Afro-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Upper East-Side WASPs and Jews and Italians from Brooklyn. Class and colour melted away in the incandescent rhythm of the music. Yes plenty of jazz musicians such as Erroll Garner, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt fell under the mambo's charm, as can be heard on the many Latin recordings they made in the 1950's. So with an influence far and wide the 50's was the golden age and this beautifully measured album which wracks up the freneticism track by track. A roller-coaster that rears out of control (check mad man Jones's Snake Charmer!), then sweetly drops down to something more sultry such as "A Dream" by Billy 'Red' Love and Faye Adams' "The Hammer Keeps A Knocking." Lots of barely coded sexual innuendo too, with the lascivious Ms Fay Simmons purring about Big Joe and his special attribute! This wonderful album gives rise to much riotous reverie and reaches one hell of a lot of rhythmic rapture. Timeless and classy, it could well make a comeback, bringing once more a glimmer of utopia. Cut some moves today and dance to its magical beat. -Emrys Baird
Jukebox Mambo Vol. 1:
1. Joe Lutcher - Ojai 4:07
2. Mabel Scott - Fool Burro 2:48
3. Red Callendar - Voodoo 2:37
4. Percy Mayfield - Louisiana 2:06
5. Larry Dale - Down To The Bottom 2:21
6. Dave Bartholomew - Shrimp & Gumbo 2:00
7. Danny Cobb - My Isabella 2:52
8. Marvin Phillips - Salty Dog 2:07
9. Fay Simmons - Big Joe Mambo 2:20
10. Gerald Wilson - Mambo Mexicana 4:16
11. Mad Man Jones - Snake Charmer 2:28
12. Lalo Guerrero Y Sus Cinco Lobos - Los Chucos Suaves 3:04
13. Sultans - Boppin' With The Mambo 2:33
14. Alfredito & His Orchestra - Honeydripper Mambo (pt 1) 1:55
15. Gloria Irving - I Need A Man 2:18
16. Annisteen Allen - Take A Chance On Me 2:27
17. Billy 'Red' Love - A Dream 3:25
18. Faye Adams - The Hammer 2:20
19. Elena Madera - Pu-Chun-Ga 2:08
20. Cozy Cole - Cozy N Bossa 2:33
21. Camille Howard - Shrinking Up Fast 2:46
22. Joe Loco - Why Don't You Do Right 2:35
Long awaited follow up to the original game-changing Jukebox Mambo set of sweltering rumba accented Rhythm & Blues. Two years in the making, this sequel ploughs deeper still into the revolutionary '40s and '50s Afro-American musical canon, pulling together another combustible collection of lascivious Latin-edged blues exotica. Issued with extensive biographical notes and exclusive photographs, Jukebox Mambo Vol. 2 is likely to be as influential in setting tastes as its predecessor.
She Wants to Mambo: Jukebox Mambo is a Lovingly Curated Compilation of a Frequently Forgotten Scene
The overall morbidity of the music industry in the digital age makes it easy to assume no one is buying anything physical anymore, but one of the less talked about “boom” areas in music is the obscure reissue game, where labels like Numero Group and Light in the Attic have built off the precedent set by Rhino Records and continuously release lovingly arranged and designed reissues of records that also happen to sell for high prices. Numero and LitA are two of the more visible practitioners of this craft, but crate diggers looking for better releases of the scratched up vinyl they’ve secretly loved for years aren’t hurting for options, and the UK’s Jazzman Records has a pretty typical origin story for the field, beginning with an obsession with John Peel’s show that led to getting into the import business and eventually deciding that releasing some of the rarer cuts in more fairly priced collections wouldn’t just be lucrative, it would be a service to people who want to hear great finds but can’t afford collector prices. Jukebox Mambo Vol. 2 is Jazzman’s latest collection, but it’s a great entry point for both the label and the mambo genre, handily proving Jazzman has a knack for curation to rival Numero Group and also showcasing why these releases continue to build new audiences as other labels struggle to net sales.
Jukebox Mambo makes its genre focus clear with its title, but it’s the kind of compilation that tells a story, with Jazzman DJ Liam Large’s choices detailing the cross-cultural pollination that made Afro-American music so exciting in the ’40s and ’50s. The music on Jukebox Mambo is definitively mambo, but where contemporary thoughts of what that means are based on watered down novelty tracks, this is mambo as a mixing pot blending strands of jazz, swing, big band music and R&B and the only real constant is the music’s demand for you to dance. That’s detectable early on, with Christine Chatman and the Peppy Prince Orchestra’s “Run Gal Run” setting an early experimental tone, as the song’s structure and melody is in line with jukehouse R&B while the rhythm and percussion are more Latin-infused. The Latin percussion gets even more of the spotlight on Johnny Oliver’s “All I Have is You,” where his rich, full voice is backed by an irresistible, click-clack beat punctuated by bluesy guitar riffs.
The simpler, more dance-oriented tracks are arguably the compilation’s most enjoyable moments, though. The Chanters’ “She Wants to Mambo” is a personal favorite, taking a playful, chimey piano line and a big boxy beat and joining it with an addictive, simple call and response vocal that mostly repeats the title. The verses are mostly speak-singing, detailing a narrative of a dance crazed woman a la Harry Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line,” while the chorus has the backing band declaring “She wants to mambo!” as our mambo lady agrees and makes passionate moans and hollers to emphasize that need. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking songs from this era were sterile and polite, but “She Wants to Mambo” is wonderfully dirty, making it abundantly clear that mambo isn’t a dance for puritans.
That carnal tone is also clear on Camille Howard’s “Within This Heart of Mine,” with its lyrical focus on a “Happy yearning/That’s constantly burning/Within this heart of mine.” Howard’s delivery is more brassy than the Chanters, and the rhythm is more tango-leaning, resulting in a track that gives a glimpse at what an update of Carmen may have sounded like in Harlem in the ’40s. On the flip side, Freddie Mitchell and His Orchestra explore some of the drawbacks of being in love with a woman who is constantly on the move in “Later Gator,” his deep, yearning baritone sounding suitably disappointed that his love has flaked on him while his incredible horn section seems to suggest he wash away his sorrows in a dance hall.
Even more yearning is John McKinney & the Premiers’ “Gee I Love You,” one of the rare guitar-driven tracks on the compilation, where the snakey, trebly guitar licks weave in and out of McKinney’s soulful vocal delivery and the bassy piano. “Gee I Love You” has the haunting moroseness of a post-punk song, but the Latin guitar brings to mind early Santana, making for an intriguing juxtaposition of dark tones and hip swaying rhythm. By the ’60s, elements of this music were getting filtered into the mainstream through cross-genre hitmakers like Santana, and it can be a little jarring to hear the roots here, particularly with songs like Four Blazes’ “All Night Long,” which sounds like a more vocally driven take on The Champs’ “Tequila” until you realize it predates that song by nearly a decade.
That’s a big part of the fun of these kinds of compilations, though, as they show off musical scenes that may never have gotten their due but still had a profound influence on people in the know. The physical release of Jukebox Mambo Vol. 2 more than makes its price and import status justified with the inclusion of full biographical liner notes and photographs that reveal even more about the mambo scene. Jazzman has done a great service bringing this music to contemporary audiences and their careful curation and passionate crate digging should lead even more listeners to do some exploring of their own. -Nick Hanover
Jukebox Mambo Vol. 2:
1. Lincoln Chase - I Love Your many Ways 2:22
2. Christine Chatman with Peppy Prince Orchestra - Run Gal Run 2:59
3. Chris Powell & His Five Blue Flames - I Come From Jamaica 2:38
4. Zilla Mays - Calypso Blues 2:51
5. Johnny Oliver - All I Have Is You 2:41
6. Chuck Edwards & The Jos Scott Singers - Morning Train 2:22
7. Oscar Saldana - Mambo Hop 2:13
8. Jimmy Nolen - Jimmy’s Jive 3:08
9. Four Blazes - All Night Long 2:45
10. Chanters - She wants To Mambo 2:49
11. Jeanne DeMetz with Johnny Alston Orchestra - Calypso Daddy 3:16
12. Camille Howard - Within This Heart Of Mine 2:12
13. Ashton Savoy - Denga Denga 2:15
14. Freddie Mitchell & His Orchestra - Later Gator 3:13
15. Note & Toe & The Grenadiers - I Got A Cold - Calypso 2:48
16. John McKinney & The Premiers - Gee I Love You 2:11
17. T-Bone Walker - Plain Old Down Home Blues 3:06
18. Ron Rico with Sax Kari Orchestra - Chano 3:07
19. Don Tosti y su Conjunto - Mambo Del Pachuco 2:54
20. Billy 'The Kid' Emerson - Satisfied 2:20
21. Frank ''Dual Trumpet'' Motley - Wanda Landa Landa 2:40
22. Red Saunders & His Orchestra - Summertime 2:33
Since the release of their first Jukebox Mambo compilation album in 2012, Jazzman Records, with the curatorial expertise of DJ Liam Large, have been opening ears and minds to the delights of Latin-tinged Rhythm & Blues. This, the third release in the series, sticks squarely to the tried and tested formula of its predecessors; combining a crate-digger's passion for the obscure with an ear for instant dancefloor crowd pleasers. In a congested field of R&B comps, Jukebox Mambo stands out uniquely in shedding light on the era of Latin American and Caribbean influence, a sensual rhythmic shift which continues to be felt in modern music today. Opener, The Emperor's 'Tough De Times (Things Getting Tough)' is a classic example of Large and Jazzman's idiosyncratic capacity to bring striking singularities to light, a beguiling and seductive blend of jazz, blues and Trinidadian calypso. Other highlights include the slinky rumba-blues of Percy Mayfield's lustful 'Loose Lips', the only known recording by female blues shouter Ethel Boswell on the track 'No More For You', and Chuz Alfred's powerful rendition of the Duke Ellington standard 'Caravan'. Elsewhere, Jukebox Mambo 3 is dominated by virtuosic performances, from the smooth tenor vocals of Roy Gaines to the polyrhythmic swing of the Monogram Caribbean Orchestra, and the Syrian-American jazz stylings of Eddie Kochak. The compilation comes with in-depth track notes and photographs, is available as a deluxe double vinyl tip on gatefold as well as a super limited edition vintage style 6 x 10 book set - with unique artwork and four exclusive bonus tracks. Lovingly compiled, artfully arranged and expertly annotated, Jukebox Mambo Volume 3 is another immersive gaze into an era of musical history that still carries a unique influence today. This one is for the crate diggers and music lovers alike!
Maybe the rootsiest set so far in this excellent series – and one that almost seems to go back and look a bit at the evolution of the genre. As you probably know from our notes on the previous collections, the term "jukebox mambo" is here used to refer to postwar R&B that's heavy on influences from Latin music – sometimes in the rhythms or percussion, sometimes in other elements as well. About half the tracks here would be right at home on some Ace Records collection of material from labels like King Records, Specialty, or Atlantic – and many have a tripling rhythmic groove that's part New Orleans soul, part romping jazzy percussion. But others seem to borrow maybe a bit more from the Caribbean, too – some of the leaner tracks that echo the coolest styles of the islands, especially in the vocals, percussion, and use of guitar. The choice of cuts is wonderful – a huge array of sounds that you would not expect to come together this beautifully.
Jukebox Mambo Vol. 3:
1. The Emperor - Tough De Times (Things Getting Tough) 2:42
2. Preacher Stephens With The Foree Wells Combo - Mary 2:43
3. Percy Mayfield - Loose Lips 1:56
4. Ethel Boswell - No More For You 2:01
5. Camille Howard - Hurry Back Baby 2:35
6. Chuz Alfred & His Combo - Caravan 3:17
7. Roy Gaines - Alabama Sue 2:22
8. Paul Boyers Band feat. Pattie Parish - Mambo Mambo Baby 3:13
9. Monogram Caribbean Orchestra - Calypso Cha Cha For Spooks 2:30
10. Clarence Garlow - New Bon Ton Roulay 2:50
11. Maurice King & His Wolverines - Bermuda 2:53
12. Floyd Dixon - Please Don't Go 3:31
13. Aggie Dukes - Swing Low Sweet Cadillac 4:54
14. Otis Blackwell - My Josephine 2:18
15. Duke Groner - Oppin' For Later 2:24
16. Big Bertha - Little Daddy 2:26
17. Linton Garner & All Stars - Double ‘’A'' Mambo 2:32
18. The Ontarios With Frank Motley & His Crew - Lovers Mambo 1:43
19. Toni Jordan - The Bend 2:44
20. Eddie Kochak - Mambo Arriba 2:35
21. Christine Kittrell - I Ain't Nothing But A Fool 2:02
22. Harmonica 'Blues King' Harris - Blues King Mango 2:26
23. Donald Woods & The Vel-Aires - My Very Own 2:25
24. Sax Mallard - The Mojo 2:52
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