11. Sabu — Palo Congo (1957)

1. This is a fun one. Here we have our first latin artist, our first single-name artist, and our first drummer-as-artist. These are all things I appreciate in general.
2. Listening to this record feels like walking around Little Havana or Spanish Harlem in the late 50’s. The album came out in 1957, which is incidentally the year West Side Story debuted on Broadway. Listening to this feels like entering the actual world inhabited by the Sharks (not the idealized Broadway one), though this is afro-cuban music rather than Puerto Rican specifically. It’s got energy, it’s hot, it makes you want to sweat and dance and move.
3. It feels like a little miracle that a conguero (new word I learned here, means congo player) could release an album under his own name but Sabu earns it. His fingerprints are, quite literally, all over every track. Could that sort of thing happen today? Could a drummer be notable enough to release his own album and reach the pop sphere? It’d have to be a Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, or Godspeed! You Black Emperor type artist, but those thrive on the collective. Cheers to you, Sabu Rodriguez. Relatedly: I also want to figure out who else is in this band. I really dig this.
4. It’s been a dream of mine for awhile to take my father to Cuba. I grew up with him dreaming of Castro falling out of power there, going to see a country (relatively) untouched by time, without supporting a bad regime. My take is: it’s possible to travel and support the people there without supporting the regime, and possibly learn a thing or two in the process. Listening to this gets me re-energized to figure that trip out.
5. Latin Jazz: what a blind spot. I hope this list exposes me to more over time.

One Essential Song:

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