Mongo Santamaria with Dizzy Gillespie and Totos Thielemans – Summertime
The dalliance of jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms ripened into lasting love in 1942. That’s when Dizzy Gillespie wrote a piece called “Interlude”, which later became known as “A Night In Tunisia”.
By 1946, with Gillespie educating American musicians in the rhythmic mysteries, jazz was becoming increasingly intimate with Latin idioms. The marriage was consummated in 1947 when the great Cuban conga drummer Chano Pozo joinded Gillespie’s big band.
Pozo lived only a year longer, but his wisdom and much of his fire are alive in his younger countryman Mongo Santamaria. Here, Mongo’s superb band is joined by Gillespie the godfather of Afro-Cuban jazz and in 1980, when this recording was made, still a trumpeter of incendiary power.
Mongo Santamaria (congas, bongos), Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Toots Thielemans (harmonica), Milton Hamilton (piano), Lee Smith (bass), Steve Berrios (drums, timbales), Tommy Villarini (trumpet, cowbell), Doug Harris (tenor saxophone, flute), Allen Hoist (alto flute, baritone saxophone, cello).
4 Tracks. Recorded by Mountain Studios (Montreux Switzerland); July 19, 1980.