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LP
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VAMPI 182LP
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"Discos Fuentes featured many great vocalists and composers in the realm of Colombian tropical music during the golden era of the 1960s and 1970s. One of the most talented and perhaps tragic figures of the 1970s salsa and cumbia boom in Colombia associated with Fuentes was Edulfamid Molina Díaz, aka Piper Pimienta, whose life was ended by a bullet from an anonymous assassin in 1998. . . . After coming to the attention of producer José María Fuentes in Medellín in 1970, [El Combo Monterrey ] was boastfully renamed El Gran Combo Los Supremos and signed for a one album deal, recording Atiza Y Ataja ('Push and Pull') in April of 1971. Grounded firmly in the Cuban style of La Sonora Matancera, with a prominent piano and crisp trumpet sound augmented by an additional double sax, Los Supremos were also influenced by the NYC salsa dura and bugalú of Willie Colón, while also managing to include coastal Colombian tropical music like cumbia and currulao, throwing in some improvised descarga jamming as well, making for a varied and hard-edged mix for one of Discos Fuentes' first, and finest, forays into making salsa records. . . . The frenetically paced title opener is a largely improvised descarga guaguancó (jam session in the guaguancó rhythm). . . . The next tunes, a paseaíto (short and fast paseo, akin to a cumbia) and a cumbia proper . . . These are followed by 'El Mico' ('The Monkey'), a great example of Colombian 'salsa dura' . . . The side closes out with another bouncy cumbia with Scoot (Pedro Botina Guevara, aka 'Peter Scoot') on lead vocals and featuring the growling and whinnying equine trumpet of 'Don Fabio' Espinosa. Side two kicks off with the most obvious homage to what was happening at Fania Records in New York City with the cumbelé titled 'Hacha Y Machete'. Next up is the funky Cuban-style guajira (mixed with son montuno) 'Sin Solución', with vocals shared by Pimienta and Scoot . . . That's followed by 'Guaguancó Supremo' in an upbeat descarga style, a party jam that was also popular in the dance halls and radio airwaves of Cali and Buenaventura. . . . The record ends with what is perhaps the most experimental tune in the whole repertoire, mixing funky Latin soul/boogaloo with guaguancó . . . " --Pablo Yglesias, aka DJ Bongohead
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