Broasted Or Fried

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Reading Mike Davis' majestic book "Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the American City" whilst listening to this fantastic compilation provokes simultaneously inspiring and sobering thoughts. The book tracks the increasing influence of the Latino or Hispanic culture in the US, and in particular their innate genius for reinvigorating the city, whilst highlighting the mainstream media's selective-blindness to Latino culture. Even in these times of Ricky Martin, Christina Aguilera, and Santana, Davis notes that, for instance, "the only thing visibily Puerto Rican in mainstream culture is Jennifer Lopez's culo". Magnificent as it is, Ms. Lopez's culo hardly represents sufficiently, does it? "Broasted or Fried", however, does actively represent the latino-funk scene of the early-seventies, a scene which is only now getting the respect it deserves, its phenomenal music generated as it was amidst unprecedented social pressures on the millions of Latinos by then resident in US cities. This compilation on Harmless joins Soul Jazz's fabulous Nu Yorica and Chicano Power releases of recent years, and is both a righteous affirmation of the brilliance of Latino music and a funky good time. Every track here is a killer, showcasing the street-corner collision of hard funk, soul jazz, and the raw Latino sound, forged from the occasionally uneasy but utterly necessary cultural alliance of African-Americans and Latino-Americans (hence Tito Puente's "Black Brothers" included here). James Brown's taut, minimalist precision stalking edgily around the furiously intense grooves of the Mambo Kings. The tracklisting reads like a who's-who of the New York chapter: Bobby Valentin's Puerto Rican boogaloo "Use It Before You Lose It", Joe Torres with his machismo-pricking "Get Out Of My Way"; Joe Bataan; the recently-departed and much-missed Puente; and the 'supergroup' Harlem River Drive (Eddie Palmieri, Bernard Purdie and all). The percussion throughout, naturally, is extraordinary. Whilst the mainstream's appropriation of latin beats and textures can occasionally prick the ears, there's more interesting things happening at the fringes (for instance, the curious but inspired German-via-Chile-and-New Zealand-Latin-sound being developed by Burnt Friedman and Atom Heart). Seek them out, but also seek out the original sound of the first waves of latin-oriented fusion. Broasted Or Fried is the sound of the city reinventing itself - an intensely proud grassroots reaction to an urban earthquake of post-industrial faultlines, expressed in dirty, sophisticated, inspired, joyous, free, funk.