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TIMELESS RECORDING SOCIETY'S MEMORIBILIA ARCHIVE NO BULL, HE'S FOR REAL I have just heard the first tapes of an album that has totally blown my mind, and the incredible thing about it is that it's predominant mood is Latin. Is that what's next? Listen to Sandy Bull's "Demolition Derby," due in the stores in mid-February, and make up your own mind. I know what it did to me--made me want to run out at once and pick up on Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheco, Pete Rodriguez, Celia Cruz, Eddie Palmeri and El Gran Combo. Latin Music has come a long, long way since Xavier Cugat. I don't know how many of you are already into Sandy Bull who since 1963 has been playing unique music that is both spacey and intellectual, disciplined and romantic, and so ahead of its time that his "Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo," his "Inventions" for guitar, banjo, bass and oud (ranging from Bach to Chuck Berry) still come through as sounds of the future. All I can tell you is that the world is finally ready for "Demolition Derby" and for what those electronic combinations of Indian and Latin sounds do to your head, body and entire skin surface. Here's what Sandy plays on this astonishing album all at once--guitars, spare change, bass, cowbell, oud (a traditional middle eastern instrument), three lots of steel drums all overdubbed, not to mention several voices, all his. If you didn't know any better, your first reaction would be: "Wow! What a great band!" But apart from Dennis Charles, who plays hand-drums on two selections, Sandy is that band. And unlike, say, Paul McCartney on his first solo one-man album, he is totally together. So what brings a musician who until now has been completely preoccupied with Indian music, Bach and blues on electric guitar to Latin music? I am always irritated with those who say huffily their music speaks for itself, but in this case, the answer is in the album and its effortless transition from one kind of music to another so that you hear, most dramatically, how close the rhythms of Latin music are to the Indian, how lonely and mystical, as well as physical, the Latin sounds can be. Sandy says he's been spending a lot of time at places like the St.George Hotel in Brooklyn, and the Village Gate downstairs on Monday nights and the Cheetah on Thursdays, where you get to hear the best Latin bands in New York. He talks a lot about the rhythmic piano, the bass that is always deliberately just off the beat, and the bongo player who doubles on cowbell, the timbales, the horn sections that (I use his own word here) "shimmer." Each instrument in the rhythm section of a Latin band has it's own definate thing to do; there is a completely different emphasis on the beat from the one you hear in rock and roll. One of the most rhythmic effects Sandy gets is with sand-paper. If you picked up on the more cerebral implications of the sound of Santana and the music made by Malo, the new band started by his younger brother Jorges, you'll find yourself totally enslaved by Sandy's album with it's blood-pulse and strange jungle cries. At the same time, and I want to make this more than perfectly clear, the head trips are nothing compared to the body trips. You want to dance every minute that it's on, even when he suddenly bursts into the most unexpected country version of "Tennessee Waltz" and you find your feet changing to the one-two-three tempo before your brain has grasped what's happening. Like all of Sandy's albums (and I recommend his previous three to anyone willing to open up to them), "Demolition Derby" is a highly important album, whether it ever makes the charts or not, because it crystallizes the new growing Latin mood in music, just as his earlier albums gave us a foretaste of the Indian, classical, electronic and even country pop influences which would eventually come to dominate rock. The levels at which this album can be appreciated are far too many for me to go into here. Let's just say that some records you merely enjoy, while others you only tolerate. Only a few become your friends, lining your head with velvet, filling it with feelings you never dreamed existed. I can't imagine "Demolition Derby" doing less then that for anyone willing to let it happen. |