Semi-African Tuesday With the Fania All-Stars
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I was going to post this track last night, but technical problems....
Let me begin with a digressive "confession" that will no doubt strike a sympathetic chord with many of you. I detest the New York Yankees. I mean, really detest them. I grew up as a Baltimore Orioles fan in the early and mid-Sixties, when the kid who lived two doors down from me, Bob Ford, was a major Yankees fan. It seemed in those days that those great O's teams fininshed just a game or two behind the Yankees every bloody year. And Bob Ford never let me forget it. The humilation was made even more galling to me by the suspicion that the winning was the only thing that made him a fan. His loyalty was to the result, not the people who made up the team, not their spirit, not their dedication to playing the game as it should be played. He is probably a very good corporate manager now....
So I nurtured a loathing of the Yankees that could never be transferred to, say, the Red Sox, who are dully efficient but not truly hateable. When I moved to Manhattan in the early Eighties, my Scottish friend Robin and I would go to Yankees games to revel in what was, at the time, their awfulness. This was during the Barry Foote-John Mayberry era, and it was great. I haven't been back to Yankee Stadium in at least 20 years.
So I am delighted that the old Yankee Stadium is coming down after this season, and even more delighted that there will be no post-season play to prolong its miserable life. I am capable of acknowledging only with the greatest reluctance that Yankee Stadium has been midwife to anything that adds to the richness of life (other than that game I saw them lose to the Orioles in '76).
But then I discovered this. I was in New York last Friday on business, and on my way back home I stuck my head in the door of that big, nasty Virgin store on Times Square - where I discovered a display filled with Fania reissues going for ten bucks a pop. (Fania, for the uninitiated, was sort of the Stax of salsa during the Seventies.) One was the CD from which this cut is taken, a Fania All-Stars album called "Latin-Soul-Rock." Little did I realize until I got it home and ripped off the shrink wrap that it was recorded live at Yankee Stadium in '73. Live albums and Yankee Stadium - two strikes against it, as it were. But then I listened.....
Good Lord! For the first four or five cuts, this is one of the great live albums ever. It is the proverbial juggernaut, blasting along on a magical groove momentum that never lets up. Toward the end, it gets a little sloppy and slack, but it had to - there was no way of keeping up this level of intensity. The guitar solo (Jorge Santana) is especially toothsome. These guys are totally locked in.
So, when the wrecking ball comes to the Bronx, I will be just a bit regretful. And I'll bet the surviving All-Stars will be, too....
Locating MOG account...
Comments (9)
good to know there's just a touch of you that will be sad to see that stadium go - I know I will be - not as sad as I am that we Philly folks are losing the Spectrum - but that was my first show ever & the Yankees are my Da's team - not mine :)
Great track !!!
Henceforth I shall address all of my employment woes to:
Great info. about the label and track.
I was just playing Malo today, never heard this one but am glad you set this out. I have no love for the yankee's having grown up in Detroit and going to Brick Stadium was an experience I'll never forget but these old institutions must come down and I do like the tigers new place probably just as much.
I hate the Yankees, love the tune, love Fania, and thought Yankee stadium was just fine. It wasn't as cool as old Yankee stadium with the monuments in center field, but it was still pretty cool. I saw one of my first baseball games ever there with my grandfather. I love the Mets, but I'm glad they are getting a new stadium, Shea is a dump.
In the past few years they tore down the New Haven Colisseum, where I saw my first big rock shows. It was pre-fab dump like Shea, but seeing it come down was a little sad.
On a tangentially related note:I dunno if you've read it already, but you gotta check out Ned Sublette's Music of Cuba book..incredible stuff.
Jorge Santana's solo is toothsome! Great choice of track from a kind of music I remember in my 1980s NYC days as brass blaring obnoxiously too often from passing cars, but here it is put together just right. Good thing Rob Ford didn't have this track playing loudly out his window every time he raved to you about the Yankees, and ruin it for you.
Lizzie, my feelings about the Spectrum are mixed - many memories, but some of them have to do with abysmal sound....
Belle, I will be glad to forward all letters to that address....
cpeterson, I understand that the Tigers' new hone is a pretty cool place. I happen to like the Phillies' new field, Citizens Bank Park, a lot. Of course, Veterans was a dump....
Cody, agreed on all counts. I interviewed Sublette years ago for a magazine article that never ran. He was amazing. It's very sad that his label, qbadisc, is no longer around. (At least I assume it isn't. He put out much of the best shit coming out of the island....
Spike, I had the same initial impression of Latin music. Marrying a half-Cubana helped open my eyes. It saddens me somewhat that Latin stuff gets so little love on MOG.....
Hallo Mr Ivylander. I love the brass of this cut... I'm not fan any base-ball team except for the Mundys depicted by Philip Roth in his "Great American Novel" which I must confess I didn't understand because of the baseballisms.
May I ask if Mrs half-Cubana Ivylander is fan of the Orioles too?
Ah, the prodigal son returns. You have been missed, friend. The pullet we ritually slaughtered last weekend clearly did the trick.
Mrs. I rather loathes baseball. When she was a young child the Dodgers left Brooklyn, traumatizing her father, who never developed another allegiance. And it's clear that she took note. Back when we were both young, carefree Manhattanites, she was willing to accompany me to the occasional Mets game (never the Yankees, they were starting to play well again by that time), but only if she were allowed to stop at a magazine stand and make several purchases.
I trust you'll be posting a "What I Did On My Holidays" essay soon?
Don't be a hit and run lover Bartleby..