About

‘Afro’ is one of Gillespie’s most swaggering indulgences into the Afro-Cuban genre. It’s there in the title: not Afro-Cuban jazz, just ‘Afro,’ a genre refined. Rarely again would American jazz and Afro-Cuban music be amalgamated so gloriously as on ‘Afro.’ It’s the offspring of multiple geniuses and their love of collaboration. A sharp piece of legacy-building that examined how deep a single great composition can go. Drop the needle today and it feels lasting and timeless. A musical revolution.

Dizzy Gillespie loved to tell an anecdote about Chano Pozo, the great Cuban conguero brought to him by destiny to help forge modern Afro-Cuban jazz. It went like this: since Pozo spoke no English and the trumpeter spoke no Spanish, the two collaborators were asked how they communicated with one another. Echoing Pozo’s response, Gillespie would do an impression of his friend’s broken English. “Dizzy no speak Spanish, me no speak English,” he’d imitate, but here was the kicker: “Both speak African.”

Along with Dizzy and Strings and Roy and Diz, a full collaboration with his idol Roy Eldridge, Afro was one of three LPs recorded by Gillespie in 1954, reflecting the wingspan of his musical interests. He never grew tired of Afro-Cuban jazz, though. It’s correct to call him the most influential artist who worked the form with no links to the island. In 2011, conga player Poncho Sanchez and jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard released an album titled Chano y Dizzy!, formally bending the knee to the duo and their work together.

Rarely again would American jazz and Afro-Cuban music be amalgamated so gloriously as on Afro. It’s the offspring of multiple geniuses and their love of collaboration. A sharp piece of legacy-building that examined how deep a single great composition can go. Drop the needle today and it feels lasting and timeless. A musical revolution. — (via Vinyl Me Please)

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Label: Norgran Records
Series: Vinyl Me, Please. Classics
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Club Edition, Reissue, Remastered, Mono, 180g
Country: US
Reissued: Sep 2022 / Original Release: 1954
Genre: Jazz
Style: Afro-Cuban Jazz
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File under: Jazz / Trumpet