Just returned from out of town and found this album in my mailbox. I’ve been looking for this LP for ages (I’ve been outbid on ebay numerous times for this one). Also, you may have noticed already that it’s been heavily written about and reissued a few times, yet I still wanted to share it. This album is massive. Really nice b-boy style Afro-Latin funk from Manteca. Reminds me a bit of the Understanding Latin Rhythms song Masacote I wrote about earlier. It should too, since it also has Carlos “Patato” Valdes playing on it. I also read somewhere that Cachao may be playing electric bass on this? What the hell?
Anyway, I’ve been super busy re-working my entire life and it seems to be paying off. Change or whither away. I would really like to get more posts on this site, which is my next goal – and I also wanted to remind anyone out there that they are welcome to do a guest post anytime (unless I really don’t like what you have to offer – but that doesn’t seem to have ever been the case so far). Eamon Ore-Giron & Marcos Juarez please do a guest post, I thought you guys were my friends?
Took this off the Orgy In Rhythm audioblog – I really liked what Bacoso had to say, plus he has a full rapidshare of the entire album. I selected my 3 favortite songs, but the whole entire record is amazing. Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy!
– Sonido Franko
Super heavyweight percussion/descarga session from Pla, plus Patato Valdes and Nelson “Flaco”Padron (Cachao on Bass???). If you liked Puente in Percussion this will blow you away. Just check out the ridiculous breaks on “Afro Funky” and “Cosas De Manteca” to get a flavour of how good this is. Percussionists who were lucky enough to witness Manteca play the bongos with this group, relate tales of an enormous man who could ignite a near riot by simply coming forward from the rhythm section to the front of the stage playing wild rhythms that became more and more complex as the audience cheered him on. Lazaro Pla, known as Manteca, was a master “bongosero” who first rose to fame in 1940s Cuba when he was a featured attraction with the great pianist and composer Ernesto Lecouna and the renowned Cuban Boys, a leading exponent of the Cuban musical wave who gained international recognition and subsequently toured the globe. Although Manteca is found on many recordings originating from Cuba, only a very small amount of material exists of him as a featured soloist or as the leader of a small combo. These famed sessions took place in the United States – Miami to be exact, sometime in the early 1970s. This was a very unique session indeed as two other Cuban expatriates join Manteca in the studio – two of his early admirers who grew up listening to his rhythms: master percussionists Carlos “Patato” Valdes and the amazing Nelson “Flaco” Padron producing these two of the finest examples of incendiary Cuban percussion ever recorded. The remainder of this session’s musicians are unquoted. (I’ve heard it suggested that the legendary Cachao could be on bass but this remains unconfirmed).
– Bacoso
Super Sonido 
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