Music fanatics live for things like this: some long forgotten gem languishing in the vault of some record company whose librarians don't remember the thing existed, let alone care enough to make a case for its reissue. Latin funk outfit
La Clave's sole album, recorded for Verve in the early '70s and then issued briefly in 1973, is shrouded in mystery even now. Thanks to the music maniacs at Dusty Groove who have had the class and dedication to create their own label for the sake of reissuing items like this, it can be brought out into the open for a bit at least.
La Clave was headed by the Latin music percussion legend
Benny Velarde. He is best known for his massive session work and the dates he recorded under his own name for Fantasy Records. This disc was apparently remastered from a vinyl copy, and its credits come from the memory of
Velarde.
La Clave boasts the membership of
Lalo Schifrin on keyboards. This is correct insofar as it goes, but producer
Tony Bruno and arranger
John D'Andrea may have only added
Schifrin to provide some last minute touches and "something extra on keys"; no other player is credited. In addition, the sleeve also notes that
Schifrin may have contributed some arrangements to the disc. Perhaps we'll never know. What we do know is that
Schifrin's own film scores of the time indeed have some funky Latin touches that are reminiscent of the music found here, and that this record is all killer.
Consisting of ten cuts where a percussion-heavy ensemble decorated by someone on keyboards, bass, guitar, five horns and the vocals of
Tito Garcia and
Johnny Nelson (there are also some female voices that aren't credited) lay down some of the most infectious, solid summer grooving music to come out of the early '70s.
Velarde's tune choices are stellar. There's Lonnie Smith's steamy "Move Your Hand," done here with choral style vocals under a bubbling bassline, a swirling B-3, a whispering wah wah guitar, and plenty, plenty of soulful drums and hand percussion and horns that feel more like something from
Rico Rodriguez and
the Skatalites at their dubbiest. But it gets better. There's also a cover of
Donny Hathaway's "The Ghetto" here that'll leave you breathless it's so sultry, sinister, and bad to the bone.
Dizzy Gillespie's "Soul Sauce" with amazing piano work by somebody offers a solid foundation for the horn section and drums to dig into with a disciplined groove. As far as the vocals on these tracks, think more
Sergio Mendes and his chorus line approach, all understated and nocturnal, and you get the picture. This even works on usually sappy folk songs like "Sally Go Round the Roses" that is completely transformed.
Schifrin contributed "Latin Slide," which has some bad-ass drum breaks, while "Cocoa Leaf" consists of a brief yet frenetic percussion and piano workout that closes the set abruptly and leaves the listener gasping for air.
Velarde's "Road Runner," a slippery glide through tough funk grooves and Latin soul trappings, has psychedelic keyboard effects, and "Baila Mi Guaguancó," a more traditional Latin salsa workout, albeit with some weirdly angled electric guitar and off-kilter saxophone breaks. These last two round up most of this disc. Nothing here is extraneous: all of it pops, sizzles, grooves and glides its way through the speakers into the listener's ears to her mind and heart. For any fan of Latin funk, for any fan of grooved out music,
La Clave is indispensable listening. It's not a curiosity piece, but a fire breathing, sexy dragon of a recording that doesn't just satisfy our best and most righteous hedonistic impulses, it adds significantly to the wealth of the Latin music's historical canon and deserves its "lost classic" status. ~ Thom Jurek