Eddie Palmieri (Bilongo) Vocals Ismael Quintana Album The History Of Eddie Palmieri 33RPM LP 1975

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SIDE A
1. CAFE
from the Tico album SLP 1113 "ECHANDO PA' LANTE"
2. BILONGO
from the Tico album SLP 1194 "SUPERIMPOSITION"
3. CUIDATE COMPAY
from the Tico album SLP 1122 "AZUCAR PA' TI"
4. SUJETATE LA LENGUA
from the Tico album SLP 1126 "MAMBO CON CONGA IS MOZAMBIQUE"
5. CONMIGO
from the Alegre album SLPA 8170 "EDDIE PALMIERI & HIS CONJUNTO LA PERFECTA"
SIDE B
1. TIRANDOTE FLORES
from the Tico album SLP 1148 "MOLASSES"
2. LAZARO Y SU MICROFONO
from the Alegre album SLPA 8240 "EL MOLESTOSO"
3. JUSTICIA
from the Tico album SLP 1188 "JUSTICIA"
4. BOMBA DEL CORAZON
from the Alegre album SLPA 8320 "LO QUE TRAIGO ES SABROSO"
5. VIEJO SOCARRON
from the Tico album SLP 1225 "VAMONOS PA' L MONTE"
PRODUCED & CO-ORDINATED BY JERRY MASUCCI
& EVE CHARLACK
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LEE MARSHALL
ALBUM DESIGN BY RON LEVINE

Eddie Palmieri's first liner notes were written by an expert. And they laid it on the line,
"My kid brother is a nut", they
said. Thanks be, he's stayed that way ever since: a piano nut, a music nut and above all a Cuban music nut. All of which insanity helped make him one of New York salsa's most innovative musicians ever. Eddie was born in El Barrio and brought up in the Bronx. But he probably didn't get to see too much of either, being chained to the piano from an early age ("or she'd sock it to me"') by a mother we all owe mii gracias. As we do to bia brother Charlie, who got Eddie the early breaks that led to gigs with then-big names like Johnny Segui and Tito Rodriguez.
Gigs that carried him for the five minutes or so it took him to go out on his own and embark on his lifework of rewriting the Latin music book.
Eddie's music is very much out of his own head. But no artist exists in a vacuum, and his work is so damn good partly because it's built on damn good foundations. On classic Cuban dance music first -, “my whole life"
-and especially on the great Cuban pianists ("the daddies") like Luis Grinan. Second, on jazz, and above all on McCoy Tyner's piano playing. Mind-blowing, the way Eddie always comes out of two
places at once: Tyner and Grinan, today and yesterday, funk and filligree. Check out "Viejo Socarron" Compay"
the pure old Cuban sound, love it to bits, work toward Now, build a drive that'd take the band straight through a solid
brick wall. That drive is part of what tells you Eddie is a real bandleader.
Something else tells you that The way
Eddie has always hired fine men, and always let them work with him as well as for him once he's hired them. Top of the list, of course, is Ismael Quintana. A singer so unassuming you may not realize quite how good he is first time around. But good he is, oh yes! One of the original Latin cats once said art consists in concealing art. That's Pat. On top of which, he wrote the lyrics to 11 years' worth of hits, from Eddie's first - "Muneca"
- all the way to "Puerto Rico"
(On that subject, check out "Bomba del Corazon", Puerto Rico's ancestor in more ways than one.) Those two things together - a five-star sonero and all that hitmaking - make Quintana a very big part of the History of Eddie Palmieri. Then there's “Chocolate" Armenteros, another out-of-sight talent that Eddie let loose on several tracks. Hear the man work out on "Bilongo" and "Justicia". Pat and Chocolate are very different musical heads, but one thing they have in com-mon. A clarity and smooth warmth like the best white rum.
And Barry Rogers. A MAJOR influence on Eddie's sound and therefore on salsa as a whole. Not only one of the two 'bones that came at you like a house on fire on the early recordings, but the man whose fine arranger's mind redrew the map of tipico. • Don't believe me, check out the mambo section of
"Cuidate Compay" or the horns on "Tirandote Flores" (rightly a smash single in its day).
That's Eddie Palmieri, bandleader. Palmieri, pianist, is plain extraordinary at times. Not that he comes on flashy. In fact he's liable to kind of edge into a solo sideways. A little brooding session over the keyboard. A few fingers'-worth of Eddie-ized Tynerisms. A touch more meditation.
A guajeo that unites
funk with a hint of outer space. A sudden cascade of Grinan-styled delicacy, Finally, the options well mulled over, great heaping handfuls of pure Palmieri.
Big bie, Charie ala and his aution prove i ne slared,
nic. Che ch out his solo on conmige , rom his trat album
, from his first album
ever. Check out "Cale" (a slow son montune always
shivers down my spine, but Eddie raises goose-bumps 100).
Check out "Bilongo"
ne you can keep irom dancing i
dancing for long enough, that is.
Because one last two-ways-at-once Eddie-ism remains,
This crazy, lar-out, head music comes out of the heart of - Eddie's words - "The orchestra of happy feet." John Storm Roberts
John Storm Roberts, the author of
"Black Music of Two
Worlds" writes on salsa for Stereo Review, the Village Voice,
the Melody Maker, and many other magazines.