Wicked double-album CD package collecting two great late-50s albums from Sabu Martinez.
'Safari With Sabu' is one of the most celebrated albums recorded by Louis "Sabu" Martinez, the conga and bongo drummer extraordinaire of the modern jazz era. A sparkling of three cultures, the album blends African percussive instrumentation, Latin-American vocals, and US jazz reed and horn sections.
Here's what the poetic guys at the label have to say about the albums : "In old jungles strange ache-hungry birds watch from trees that wilt and hang. Small loin-clothed men step brittley through overgrown verdure. Natural boleros sound in the teeth of giant crocodiles crunching the bones of careless waterfowl, while in the grass banks, the lice violate in aimless joy the matted fur of some dead, cold, warm-blooded species. SABU... has heard all this and much more. The rhythmic cadences of nature's boiler room are here, the aural history of the sex life of a cosmic corn popper, the wail and chime and gong sound of the eternal SORCERY."
Featuring Ray Barretto, Ray Romero, Evelio Quintero, Steve Berios, Gene Allen, Jack Hitchcock, Cecil Payne, Oscar Pettiford - Recommended.