Home » Jazz Musicians » Mongo Santamaria

Mongo Santamaria

His song Afro-Blue became a contemporary jazz standard, best-known in the coruscating version by saxophonist John Coltrane. His own adaptation of Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man provided the biggest hit of his career in 1963, and is regarded as a classic artefact on the Lounge Music scene.

He was born Ramon Santamaria in Cuba, and nicknamed Mongo by his father (the word denotes a tribal chief in Senegal). He began learning violin, but quickly switched to drums and then congas, and left school early to work as a musician on the highly active local scene in Havana.

He graduated to the famous Tropicana Club with bands like Conjunto Matamoros and Conjunto Azul, then moved to New York in 1950. He was able to pursue his interest in American jazz at its epicentre, while gaining valuable exposure playing with two of the most important Latin band leaders in the city, Perez Prado and later Tito Puente.

Their explosive percussion battles became a major attraction in Puente’s band, but in 1958 he left the band to work with the jazz vibraphonist Cal Tjader, who was beginning to explore the Latin jazz direction which made his reputation. He spent some years in California in this period, but returned to New York in 1962.

He was already making records under his own name while working with Tjader, and soon formed his own band in New York. He came across Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man when the pianist sat in with the band at a Cuban music club in the Bronx in 1962, and immediately saw the possibilities.

His own version was a top ten entry on the American pop charts in 1963, and launched the percussionist on a new and more commercial direction, although the standard of his musicians generally remained high, including jazz artists like Chick Corea, Ray Vega, Sonny Fortune and Hubert Laws.

He pursued the strategy of adding a Latin groove to jazz and pop tunes throughout the next two decades, and became an acknowledged leader in the highly popular Latin-soul fusion movement of the era. He became one of the best known names in Latin music, and reached a wide audience with his accessible, dance-oriented approach to the music.

Although he never scored another hit of the magnitude of Watermelon Man, his other successes of the period included an energised version of La Bamba in 1964 and another big American success with his version of The Temptations’s Cloud Nine in 1969. He received several Grammy nominations in the Seventies and Eighties, and won the award in 1977 for his album Amancer.

Mongo Santamaria: El Bravo

by C. Andrew Hovan
October 14, 2003

As one of the premier ambassadors of Latin music, conguero and bandleader Mongo Santamaria melded styles to arrive at an infectious fusion of hot rhythms with the improvisational energy of jazz. Although his series of albums in the '50s for Fantasy and the early '60s for Riverside established his integrity as a major artist, it would be a contract with Columbia Records in the mid '60s that brought his music to a whole new audience, thanks to the publicity engine ...

343

Album Review

Mongo Santamaria: Montreux Heat!

Read "Montreux Heat!" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
October 7, 2003

Even if not quite essential, this new release is drawn from the same 1980 Montreux Jazz Festival performance from which Santamaria’s live recording Summertime was previously released (Pablo, 1981) – including all three encores – and so helps to complete a more well-rounded portrait of the legendary Afro-Cuban conguero/bonguero as the 1970s transitioned to the ‘80s. It’s Afro- Cuban jazz from someone who helped forge the mold.

More warm than hot, this is one more fitting coda to ...

124

Album Review

Cal Tjader: Plays Harold Arlen and West Side Story

Read "Plays Harold Arlen and West Side Story" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
September 13, 2002

Like the recently reissued Our Blues, this double CD presents Cal Tjader before he seriously delved into the Latin tunes that made his name in jazz circles. Unlike the previous album, which presented the vibraphonist as a serious improviser, Tjader is content to let the songs take the center stage; about three-fourths of this CD features a string section in the background. The strategy works well. Tjader cuts loose on a few Arlen standards before settling into melodic passages on ...

369

Album Review

Mongo Santamaria: Skin On Skin: The Mongo Santamaria Anthology (1958-1995)

Read "Skin On Skin: The Mongo Santamaria Anthology (1958-1995)" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
May 1, 1999

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1922, Ramon Santamaria, lovingly known as Mongo was to Afro-Cuban music what Ted Williams was to baseball. Fans loved his playing and fellow musicians studied his bongo and conga technique. He traveled to New York in 1948 to find beboppers like Dizzy Gillespie incorporating Chano Pozo's Cuban folk music and bandleaders Mario Bauza and Machito presenting popular Cuban music to eager listeners. Rhino records collection of Mongo Santamaria's music from 1958-1995 is an overflowing two-disc ...

162

Album Review

Mongo Santamaria: Afro Blue: The Picante Collection

by Robert Spencer
November 1, 1997

Mon Dieu! Mondo Mongo is a great place! Mongo Santamaria is the man who gave the world “Afro Blue," a song that caught the ears of John Coltrane and many others for its soaring and dignified spirituality -- a songmadefor Trane. That the composer himself, meanwhile, is no one-hit wonder is abundantly proven by this Concord Picante collection, aptly titled Afro Blue: The Picante Collection.

There's a hybrid spirit of melancholy and resolution to many of these tracks, a spirit ...

Video / DVD

Weekly Latin Jazz Video Fix: Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Candido Camero, and Ray Barretto

Source: The Latin Jazz Corner by Chip Boaz
April 22, 2011

Percussion sits at the heart and soul of Latin Jazz, providing the music's cultural lifeline and rhythmic vitality. The use of percussion certainly sets Latin Jazz apart from straight ahead jazz, but it is so much more than a simple novelty. Embedded in each hit of the drum is a cultural legacy, associated with centuries of social development. When that deep legacy blends with the rich cultural history of the African American experience through jazz, miracles can happen. Percussionists are ...
read more

100

Music Industry

Revisiting Latin Jazz Classics: At the Black Hawk, Mongo Santamaria

Source: All About Jazz
May 14, 2008

159

Event

A Tribute To Mongo Santamaria

Source: All About Jazz
December 11, 2003

ZEYBRAH & the SCHOMBURG CENTER for Research In Black Culture present: A MOMENT IN TIME IV: PEACE SONG 4 MONGO In the spirit of world peace and dedicated to the memory of Ramon “Mongo" Santamaria, Legendary Latin Jazz Pioneer TIME: 3:00 p.m. DATE: Sunday, 12/14/03 VENUE: Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Blvd (at 135 St.) FREE ...
read more

111

Obituary

Mongo Santamaria: Cuban Percussionist Was Popular Latin Jazz Leader

Source: All About Jazz
February 8, 2003

Percussion, bandleader Born: April 7, 1922 in Havana, Cuba Died: February 1, 2003 in Miami, Florida

Mongo Santamaria enjoyed a long and successful career in Latin music. His recordings and concert performances ranged from the authentic percussion music of Afro-Cuban religious rituals through to Latin-jazz reworkings of American jazz and pop hits. His song Afro-Blue became a contemporary jazz standard, best-known in the coruscating version by saxophonist John Coltrane. His own adaptation ...
read more