Okay, I want you to do something for me. Just
for a second. Close your eyes. Picture it. You're
walking into a record store, but not, you know,
a playlist on a screen. Right. A real one. A
real one. It's 1959. You're flipping through
the cardboard sleeves. You can smell the vinyl,
the dust, and then something just visually shouts
at you from the bin. It's an experience before
you even hear a single note. Exactly. The cover
art is just... It's screaming. And the title
isn't just words, it's a command. We're talking
about Arriba, La Pachanga. And you can't talk
about that title without talking about the punctuation.
Oh, I was about to get obsessive about it because
it was the first thing that really hooked me.
It's not just an exclamation point at the end.
It has the inverted one at the beginning, the
proper Spanish opener, and then the standard
one at the end, just slamming the door. It feels
like... Like visual brackets of pure energy,
it's noise. And the punctuation is percussion,
really. It's telling you exactly how you're supposed
to read that word. You don't just say arriba.
You shout it. You have to shout it. But, you
know, looking past just the graphic design, that
title is doing a ton of work for the consumer,
for the person flipping through that bin in 1959.
How so? What's it signaling? Well, think about
where it sits on the shelf. This is a Mongo Santa
Maria record, right? But the title isn't Mongo's
Moods or An Evening with Santa Maria. Right.
It's not a quiet jazz title. Not at all. It's
Arriba, La Pachanga. It is explicitly promising
you high energy. It's promising a party. And
today, our whole deep dive is about tearing apart
this specific party. Track by track, musician
by musician. We're getting into Mongo Santamaria's
1959 studio album released by Fantasy Records.
It's funny you bring up the party aspect because
when I first saw the title, I thought, OK, cool,
a dance record. But then I looked at the personnel
list. I looked at the history and I realized
this isn't just a dance record. This is a document.
It's a document of a supergroup at this this
really pivotal moment in time. Pivotal is absolutely
the right word. We're talking about May of 1959.
Which is a heavy. Heavy date. Incredibly so.
I mean, musically, people always cite 1959 as
maybe the greatest single year in jazz history.
Yeah. You've got Miles Davis releasing Kind of
Blue. Dave Brubeck's Time Out. Exactly. Ornette
Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come. It's this
moment of massive innovation. But then you look
at the geopolitics. Oh, yeah. The Cuban Revolution
had just concluded in January of 1959. The entire
relationship between the United States and Cuba
is changing. I mean, literally day by day. And
right in the middle of all that tension, you
have this album recorded in the U .S. celebrating
this hyper -specific, joyful Cuban sound. It
feels like a cultural time capsule almost. It
is. And that's our mission today, you know, to
carefully unpack that capsule. We need to figure
out how this record sits right at the intersection
of three very different but related things. Pachanga,
which was the dance craze. The pop music of the
day. Right. Then you have Cuban jazz, the musical
tradition. And finally, this raw, gritty, urban
Afro -Cuban sound that Mongo specifically was
perfecting. And we are absolutely going to play
detective with these liner notes, because honestly,
when you look at the names on this jacket, it's
just ridiculous. This isn't just a band. This
is a lineup of future legends before they were
all legends. It's basically a graduate school
for Latin jazz, and they're all in the same room.
So let's start with the context. We've got the
album in our hands, Ariba, La Pachanga, May 1959.
But this wasn't an isolated project, was it?
This wasn't the only thing Mongo was working
on. Oh, far from it. If you actually look at
the chronology provided in the source material,
the work ethic here is, it's kind of terrifying.
Terrifying how? Like creatively? It's the sheer
volume of output. Look at the release schedule.
In 1958, so the year right before this, he releases
Yambu. Which is a monster of a record in its
own right. A classic. A total classic. Then in
May of 1959, he drops this album, Ariba. Okay.
And then later in the same year, 1959, he releases
another full album, simply titled Mongo. Wait,
wait. So that's three full studio albums in what?
Maybe 18 months, give or take? At most. And you
have to remember, this isn't today. Recording
in 1959 wasn't... you know, fixing everything
on a laptop, you have to book expensive studio
time, get the whole band in the room at the same
time, and play it live to tape. There's no undo
button. So to release three high -quality, complex
jazz albums in that short a window, it means
you are basically living in the studio. You're
living there. It implies a few things. One, the
band was hot. Hot in the sense that they were
popular. Hot in every sense. Yeah. Popular, yes.
Yeah. Fantasy Records. which, by the way, was
based in San Francisco, not New York, they clearly
knew they had a gold mine on their hands. You
don't burn that much studio budget on an artist
unless the records are just flying off the shelves.
Right. But it also tells us something crucial
about the band's chemistry. That they were just
incredibly tight. Beyond tight. Yeah. You can't
just churn out that much complex rhythmic music
if you're only rehearsing once a week. These
guys were almost certainly playing gigs every
single night, probably finishing a set at two
in the morning and then dragging themselves into
the studio the next day to record. They were
a well -oiled machine. I want to pause on that
fantasy records connection you just made. San
Francisco. Because that's important, isn't it?
When we think about this era of Latin jazz, the
conversation is always dominated by New York
City. The Palladium Ballroom, the Bronx. But
this is a West Coast record. Does that change
the sound? It's a crucial distinction, yeah.
The West Coast Latin jazz scene, especially the
one centered around the Bay Area, had a slightly
different flavor. It was often mixed in with
the cool jazz scene. You know, the beatnik culture
was happening right there. So a little more...
Intellectual, maybe. A little more intellectual,
but still deeply visceral. And Mongo was right
at the heart of that scene. It wasn't quite the
same pressure cooker as New York, which maybe
allowed for a different kind of experimentation.
And releasing Uriba, which means up or hooray
in May. That feels like a very deliberate, calculated
move. Do you think it's about the timing? I do.
May is the gateway to summer. You release a record
with a giant exclamation point and the word pachanga
right when the weather starts to break. That
feels like marketing 101 for 1959. You want this
record spinning at every barbecue and block party
from June to August. That's a great point. It's
a seasonal, aggressive push. And it aligns perfectly
with what our source material calls the genre
soup. Let's get into that soup, because the source
lists four distinct genres. Pechanga, Cuban jazz,
Latin jazz, and Afro -Cuban jazz. Now, to the
average listener, those might all sound, you
know, pretty much like the same thing. But they
are not, are they? No, not at all. They are very
distinct ingredients in this recipe. Let's start
with the one in the title. Pachanga. The headline
genre. Exactly. Pachanga wasn't just a vibe.
It was a specific named dance craze. It was huge
at the time. It's fast. It's highly syncopated.
You can feel almost frantic. It was the pop music
of the Latin sector. So by slapping that word
right on the cover, they are telling the buyer,
this is modern. This is what you dance to. This
is the hot new thing. So it's like putting disco
or EDM on a record cover in a later era. It's
a market signal. In a way, yes. But then you
have a tag like Afro -Cuban jazz. Now, that tag
is doing some very heavy lifting, too. Okay.
Unpack that one. When you see Afro attached to
Cuban jazz, especially on a Mongo Santa Maria
record, it's a direct signal about the drums.
Because Mongo is a drummer. He's not just a drummer.
He's a rumbero. He comes from the streets of
Havana, from the solar, the courtyards. Afro
-Cuban implies that the music deeply respects
the religious and folkloric roots of the rhythm.
We're talking about beta drumming, about rumba,
about the Abakua secret societies. It's telling
the serious listener, sure, you can dance to
this on the surface, but the engine driving this
party is ancient and powerful. So it's popular
packaging with this incredibly deep traditional
core. Precisely. It's designed to satisfy the
casual dancer who just bought it for the title
and the serious jazz head who bought it for the
name Mongo Santa Maria. It works on both levels.
Okay, so we've established the when, this incredibly
fertile moment in 1959, and the what, this genre
soup. Now I want to get into the who, because
as I said, when I looked at the personnel list
you sent over, my jaw, just, it hit the floor.
This is not just a backing band. No, this is
a lineup that today you probably couldn't afford
to get in the same room. Let's start with the
engine room, the rhythm section, because On any
Afro -Cuban record, if the drums aren't right,
nothing else matters. The whole building collapses.
That's absolutely correct. And here, the drums
are everything. You have Mongo Santa Maria as
the leader. Which is already rare, isn't it?
I mean, usually the guy with his name on the
cover is playing the trumpet or the saxophone
or the piano. It was very rare in 1959. Having
a conguero... A conga player, as the marquee
artist, was a powerful statement. It immediately
shifts the center of gravity of the music. The
melody is important, sure, but the rhythm is
the absolute dictator here. Okay, so Mongo's
on congas and bongos, but look who's sitting
right next to him. Willy Bobo. Willy Bobo, just
saying the name. It has a rhythm. Willy Bobo
is a titan of this music. At this point in 59,
he's still young, he's incredibly hungry, and
he's listed as playing timbales and bongos. Now,
for any listener who might not know, Willy Bobo
was born William Correa. He grew up in Spanish
Harlem, and he was, for all intents and purposes,
Mongo's protege. So you have the master, Mongo,
and his top student, Willy, in the same percussion
section. And they were said to be telepathic.
When you listen to their recordings together,
they don't step on each other's toes. They wheeze.
They interlock their patterns. But wait, it gets
even crazier. There's more. There's Cuco Martinez.
Also on timbales and percussion. Okay, so let's
do the math here. You've got Mongo listed on
congas and bongos. You have Willy Bobo listed
on timbales and bongos. And you have Cuco Martinez
listed on timbales and percussion. So you have
two people who can play bongos and two people
who can play timbales. That is a ridiculous amount
of high -frequency percussion. It's what we call
a wall of drums. But think specifically about
the Timbalese for a second. Those are the high
-pitched metal -shelled drums that sound like
gunshots when you hit the rim, the cascara. Right.
To have two timbaleros in the same band, that
is an incredibly aggressive sound. It creates
this constant shimmering metallic wash of rhythm
that just cuts through absolutely everything.
It must have been deafening in the studio. I
imagine it was. It was controlled chaos. And
then the man with the hardest job in the world
holding all of this down. Victor Venegas on bass.
Oh man, God bless the bass player in a band like
this. You have to feel for him. His job is to
be the anchor, while three of the greatest percussionists
on the planet are basically setting off fireworks
around his head. If he rushes a beat, the whole
thing falls apart. If he drags, the energy dies
instantly. Victor Venegas is the unsung hero
of this entire record. So that's the rhythm,
that's the earth. But then, this is where I got
confused. I looked at the melodic instruments,
you know, the people playing the actual notes
of the song, and I was expecting a big brass
section. Like a mambo orchestra? Exactly. Trumpets,
trombones, that huge roaring Mambo King sound
that was so popular. And instead, what did you
find? Instead, we get Rolando Lozano on flute
and Felix Pupi LaGretta on violin. Just flute
and violin leading the charge. That seems, I
don't know, quiet, delicate. How can a flute
and a violin compete with that wall of drums
we just talked about? It seems completely counterintuitive,
doesn't it? But this is where the genius of the
arrangement lies. This specific instrumentation,
flute, violin, and a heavy rhythm section is
the absolute blueprint of a style called Taranga.
Taranga. Okay, walk me through that style. So
Taranga has these elegant roots going back to
the turn of the century in Cuba. It was influenced
by French Denzon orchestras that played for the
upper class. It was originally considered parlor
music. Very polite. Lots of violins, flutes.
So like high society tea party music. Originally,
yes. But what Mongo and his band are doing here
is revolutionary. They take that sweet or polite
instrumentation, the airy soaring flute and the
crying lyrical violin, and they bolt it onto
the chassis of that aggressive, street -level
Afro -Cuban drumming we just described. It's
a complete mashup of high and low culture. It's
a sonic trick. See, a trumpet or a trombone?
They operate in the mid -range frequencies. They
take up a lot of sonic space. If you had a loud
trumpet section, it would be fighting for attention
with the complex overtones of the congas and
the timbales. It would get muddy. But a flute,
a flute sits way, way up high in the frequency
spectrum. It floats above everything. So the
flute can just soar over the top of the drum
battle without getting lost in the mix? Precisely.
And the violin can play these incredibly fast,
intricate, almost percussive runs. Pizzicato
plucking are these searing bowed lines that actually
mimic the rhythm. It creates a sound that is
lighter, breezier, but still unbelievably fast
and intense. It's like, it's aerodynamic jazz.
I love that phrase. Aerodynamic jazz. It's the
difference between a big heavy tank and a speedboat.
This band is a speedboat. And sort of bridging
the gap, we have Jose Chombo Silva on saxophone.
Chombo is the crucial bridge. He adds that smoky
jazz texture. He's the one guy who can sound
like he's in a classic bebop club in New York,
but he knows how to lock into the Cuban clave
rhythm perfectly. He connects the two worlds.
And on piano, Juan Donato. Donato is a fascinating
choice because he's actually Brazilian, not Cuban.
He brings a slightly different harmonic sensibility,
a touch of bossa nova maybe, but in this context,
his main job is to play the montuno. The montuno.
I see that word a lot in liner notes for this
kind of music. Describe that for me. What is
the piano doing? So in a lot of straight -ahead
jazz, the pianist is playing chords, they're
comping, they're reacting to the soloist. In
this music, the piano is essentially a tuned
drum. The montuno is that repetitive, hypnotic,
rhythmic, melodic vamp. You know the sound. Right,
it just loops. It loops. It doesn't change much.
Its job is to lock the bass and the percussion
together. It's the spine of the track. It's the
part of the song that puts you in a trance. Okay,
that makes sense. And finally, rounding out this
killer lineup, we have one vocal credit. Rudy
Calzado. Listed simply as voice. Which is funny
because you have this army of eight instrumentalists
and then just voice. He feels like the odd man
out. But he's absolutely essential. In this style
of music, the voice isn't always singing a traditional
verse chorus pop song. The vocalist is often
the inspirador. He's improvising chants. He's
doing call and response with the rest of the
band who act as a chorus. He's the hype man,
and the storyteller all rolled into one. He's
urging the band on. So he's another rhythmic
instrument in a way. 100%. Okay, so we have this
incredible cast of characters, and I want to
go back to their names for a second because the
credits don't just say Felix Legareta. They say
Felix Pupi, Legareta, and Jose Trombosilva. The
nicknames are so important. They feel incredibly
intimate. I mean, Pupi. Poopy sounds like a name
your grandma calls you when you're a little kid.
And it signals to the listener that this is a
family. In the Latin jazz world, especially in
this era, these nicknames were badges of honor.
Chumbo, Poopy, Mongo itself is a nickname. His
real name was Ramon. It tells you that this isn't
some stiff, formal orchestra where everyone just
shakes hands and goes home at the end of the
night. Right. These guys lived together. They
traveled on the same bus. They ate together.
They argued together. It was brotherhood. And
what's amazing is that brotherhood actually shows
up in the songwriting credits. This was my favorite
part of digging into the source material for
this deep dive. Mine too. The track list is basically
a map of their friendship. It is. Okay, lay it
out for us. So look at track A4 on the first
side of the record. The song is titled Chumbo
Chivada. Okay. And who's the saxophone player
in the band? Jose Chumbo Silva. And who wrote
the song? Mongo Santa Maria. So, just stop and
think about that for a second. The leader of
the band, the guy whose name is on the cover,
sits down and writes a whole composition specifically
dedicated to his saxophone player. He literally
names it after him. It's a musical shout out.
It's so much more than that, though. It implies
that he wrote the melody to fit Chombo's specific
style of playing. He knows Chombo's tone. He
knows his favorite phrases, his improvisational
tics. So he builds a musical playground just
for him to play in. That's a level of generosity
and respect you don't always see from band. leaders.
It's not just, here's a song, play my notes.
It's, here, I made this for you. Exactly. And
it doesn't stop there. It happens again on side
B. Oh, side B is absolutely the pupae show. It
really is. Look at track B1, Antonio Y. Pedro,
written by Felix Legareta. Then you go down to
track B4, Loco Porti, who wrote that one. So
Pupi, the violin player, isn't just some session
musician hired for the date. He's a key composer.
He's contributing a third of the music for the
entire second side of the album. It completely
changes how you listen to it. Knowing that the
guy playing that searing violin solo actually
wrote the tune, you can just hear the ownership
in the performance. There's a different level
of pride there. Absolutely. Okay, I want to go
even deeper into this track list now because
there are some... Real mysteries here that the
source material hints at but doesn't fully solve.
I love a good liner note mystery. Let's look
at side A again. We establish Mongo wrote four
of the six tracks, Quindimbia, Sobroso, Chumbo
Chivada, A Ti No Mas. He is clearly the creative
director of this session. He's setting the tone.
And a title like Sobroso is a perfect descriptor
for the whole album. It means tasty or flavorful.
It's basically him saying, this track has sauce.
But then we get to track A6, a beautiful tune
called Minovia. Which means my girlfriend. Right.
And it's written by... Alicia Correa. Now that's
a name that jumps right out at you. It does,
because I scoured the musician list. There is
no Alicia Correa playing an instrument on this
record. There is no Alicia Correa in the production
credits. She's a ghost. Who is she? This is where
we have to put on our detective hats and do a
bit of speculation based on jazz history. Let's
go back to Willie Bobo. The Timbales player,
Mongo's protege. What was his real given name?
William Correa. William Correa. Oh, wait a second.
So, Alicia Correa is... Almost certainly related
to Willie Bobo. Is it his wife? His sister? In
the 1950s, publishing rights were a really messy
business. Sometimes musicians were under an exclusive
contract to one publisher and couldn't legally
write songs for another record label. So what
did they do? A common trick was to put the song
in their wife's name or their mother's name.
The old ghostwriter wife trick? It's a classic
move in the music business. Or, you know, maybe
it's something more romantic. Maybe Willie wrote
a song called My Girlfriend, and he literally
gave the songwriting credit, and more importantly
the royalty checks, to his actual girlfriend,
Alicia. That is either incredibly savvy or incredibly
sweet. Or both. It connects the dots, though.
It makes the song Minovia feel like this very
personal artifact, from the drummer to his partner,
hidden in plain sight on his mentor's album.
I love that theory. It just makes the whole record
feel so much more human. It does. Okay, let's
flip the record over to Side B. We've talked
about Pupi's compositions, but I want to stop
and hover over track B2 for a minute. Guajira
at the Blackhawk. This title is doing a lot of
geographic work. The Blackhawk. I mean, that
sounds like a place where you'd either get stabbed
or you'd buy a really good drink. Maybe both.
You're not far off on either count. The Blackhawk
was a legendary, and I mean legendary, jazz club
in San Francisco. It was on the corner of Turk
and Hyde Streets in the Tenderloin District.
The Tenderloin. Okay, so a gritty neighborhood.
Very gritty. But it was the spot. Miles Davis
recorded a famous live album there. Thelonious
Monk played there. Jerry Mulligan. Everybody.
It was this long, narrow, smoke -filled room
with a weird wire mesh fence separating the underage
section from the bar. And Mongo titles a track
Guajira at the Blackhawk. Which is a beautiful
paradox. Why is it a paradox? Because a guajira
is Cuban country music. It's the music of the
guajiros, the farmers and peasants out in the
Cuban countryside. It's traditionally very acoustic,
very laid back, very rural. So he's taking this
rural farm music and he's planting it right in
the middle of a grimy urban American jazz club.
Exactly. He's taking the countryside to the tenderloin.
The title itself encapsulates the entire experience
of the immigrant musician, doesn't it? You bring
your roots, your home music, and you perform
it in this high pressure foreign environment.
Do you think this was a song they actually played
live at the Blackhawk? Oh, almost certainly.
This was probably a staple of their live set.
Naming it this way is likely a nod to the venue
that was paying their rent that month. What a
great story. Then right after that, we get Come
Candela. Which translates to Eat Fire. Eat fire.
I mean, come on. That has to be one of the most
metal titles for a jazz song I've ever heard
in my life. It's a challenge, isn't it? It's
the band saying to the listener, can you handle
this heat? Can you keep up? But then, just as
you're catching your breath, the mood shifts
dramatically. Track B3, Palomeombe. Written by
Rudy Calzado, the vocalist. This one feels different.
The title sounds heavy. It is extremely heavy.
Palomeombe isn't a dance style. It's a religion.
It's a syncretic religion practiced in Cuba with
roots that trace back to the Congo Basin in Africa.
It's often considered the darker, more intense,
more mysterious cousin of Santeria. It deals
with spirits of the dead, with the power of nature,
with wooden sticks or palos. So in the middle
of this high energy pachanga party album, they
just drop a track that directly references a
very serious, very deep Afro -Cuban spiritual
practice. It's a reminder. It's the band reminding
the listener that this music at its core isn't
just entertainment. The rhythms they are playing
on the congas and the bada drums, they aren't
just beats, they're prayers, they're invocations.
Even when it's packaged as a pop dance record,
the spiritual DNA of the music is still right
there under the surface. It grounds the whole
project. It gives it a kind of gravitas you wouldn't
expect. It does. And then just as things get
really heavy and spiritual, they pull you right
back out. Track B6, The Closer, Olga Pechanga.
Written by a Nicholas Martinez. Who I am guessing
is probably related to Cuco Martinez, the Tim
Bowles player. That would be a very safe bet.
Another family connection woven into the record.
And the title? Olga Pechanga. We end exactly
where we started. With the Pechanga. It bookends
the entire album perfectly. You open with the
visual and sonic scream of Ariba, and you leave
with the name of the dance on your lips. It's
a perfect, satisfying exit. It's such a tight,
brilliant package. Twelve tracks, absolutely
no filler. Just straight, uncut energy. It's
a real statement of intent. So we've dissected
the music, we've gone through the band, the history,
but I have to ask the big, so what? Question.
Did it matter? Did anyone actually care about
this record in 1959 or did it just kind of disappear
into the bargain bin over time? No, it definitely
mattered. And we know this because of the legacy
data that the source material points to. The
ratings. The ratings, right. The source specifically
points to ratings from the Penguin Guide to Jazz
Recordings and from the website AllMusic. Now,
I've heard of the Penguin Guide. That's that
massive book. It looks like a phone book or a
dictionary, right? It is the Bible of modern
jazz criticism. For decades, it was the essential
reference book. And the fact that Ariba La Pachanga
is listed and rated in the ninth edition, which
was published in 2008, that's hugely significant.
That's almost 50 years after the record was released.
Exactly. Most pop records, most dance fads are
completely forgotten in five years, let alone
50. If you are still being cataloged and critically
assessed to the Penguin Guide half a century
later, you are considered canon. You've transcended
being just a pop record, and you are now considered
essential art. It validates the quality. It's
the critical world saying, no, this wasn't just
some kitschy dance music. This is serious, important
music. And the all music rating, which was checked
as recently as 2017, shows that even in the digital
streaming age, people are still discovering this
album. They're still listening to it and they're
still rating it. It has incredible longevity.
There was one little detail in the source material
about its digital footprint that made me laugh,
though. The visual description part. Yeah. The
metadata tag that says album articles lacking
alt text for covers. The irony of the modern
age, right? It's hilarious. We have all this
incredibly detailed information about. The personnel,
the release date, the genres, the songwriters.
But the computer doesn't know what the cover
looks like. It's a digital blind spot. But, you
know, based on the music we've been talking about,
I think we can generate our own alt text for
it. I like it. Go for it. What do you see when
you hear this music? I see red. just bright fire
engine red i see bold yellow block letters and
i see motion blur maybe it's a dancer skirt spinning
so fast it's just a streak of color or maybe
it's hands hitting a conga drum so hard they
look like ghosts pure energy I think you're spot
on. The music is recorded in Technicolor, so
the cover has to match that energy. So to bring
this all home, we've spent this whole deep dive
breaking down Arriba La Pachanga. We've looked
at the history, the wall of drums, that unique
flute and violin combination. What's the big
single takeaway for you? What's the lesson of
this album? For me, the biggest takeaway is about
the blurred line between a solo artist and a
true collective. How do you mean? Well, the cover
of the album says Mongo Santamaria. He's the
star. He's the brand. But when you actually dig
into the liner notes, when you see Pupi writing
these beautiful love songs and Rudy writing the
deep spiritual chants and Willy Bobo or his family
contributing their own tracks, you realize this
wasn't a dictatorship. It was a village. It was
a village. Mongo was a chief, no doubt about
it. But he was a wise chief who allowed his people
to shine. He created a platform where a brilliant
violinist. Could also be a respected composer,
where a young kid from Spanish Harlem like Willie
Bobo could become a percussion god right alongside
his mentor. It's a lesson in leadership, really.
It is. Great music, truly great music, doesn't
happen in a vacuum. It happens when you gather
the best possible people, you give them a cool
nickname, and you trust them enough to let them
write what they feel. And you let them play loud.
Exceptionally loud. So my final thought for everyone
listening is this. The next time you pick up
a jazz record, especially from this era, don't
just look at the front cover. Flip it over. Read
the names in the tiny print. See who actually
wrote the songs. Because you might find a Pupi
or a Chumbo or a Secret Alicia hiding in there
waiting to tell you the real story behind the
music. And that's our provocative thought for
you to chew on. The artist is listed as Mungo
Santa Maria and his band. Oh. But after looking
at these writing credits where the violinist
and the flutist and the vocalist are all writing
their own features, where do you draw the line
between a solo artist and a collective? Is this
a Mongo album or is it a document of a community?
A question to think about next time you listen.
And if you ever see an inverted exclamation point
on a record cover, just buy it. Always buy the
inverted exclamation point. That's the rule.
Thanks for taking this deep dive with us. Keep
digging deep.