js Mongo Santamaria received a lot of criticism from both the jazz and Afro-Cuban establishment for his attempts to mix American RnB with Afro-Cuban rhythms, but to collectors of rare grooves, these records can be treasure troves. The key words here are “can be”, because Mongo’s Latin RnB records are sometimes trite and overly commercial, its hit and miss for the collector looking for some exotic 60s/70s beats when you start digging into the huge stack of Santamaria’s output.

“Hey! Let’s Party” definitely falls into the hit and miss category, there are some great tunes on here, but also some fairly lifeless filler that just follows the Mongo recipe for success, but without the passion. One of the best cuts on here is “Baila Dance”, a hot Latin groove original by Marty Sheller and the only song on the album that isn’t a cover of a pop tune. Mongo’s Latin funk hybrid works magic on “I got You”, a song that often falters for mediocre bar bands all across the world. The best of the rest include a slinky cover of “Satisfaction” and an OK cover of “Shotgun”. The rest of the album is not terrible, but its just not up to what Santamaria is capable of. “Walk on By” is dull and lifeless and do we really need more covers of “Louie Louie” or “In the Mood”.

For the serious collector, there are about three or four songs on here that you might want to get, but if you are looking for something better, try Mongo’s “Stoned Soul”.

js There’s nothing too subtle or complicated going on here, ‘Stone Soul’ is just one great party dance record played by some of the best musicians in the business. A lot of aficionados of Afro-Cuban music get down on Mongo for his RnB and pop recordings, but any fan of RnB-jazz will affirm that nothing makes these old soul tunes rock like a three piece Latin percussion section. To pull off his jazz-Cuban-RnB hybrid, Santamaria pulls in some of the best musicians from all three of those musical worlds. Bernard Purdie has always been one of the most in demand RnB drummers of all time, Sonny Fortune and Hadley Callinan are top notch hard bop horn players, and Mongo himself is tops in the world of Afro-Cuban percussion.

The album cover features a classic southern US soul food meal of pork ribs, black-eyed peas, rice and cornbread that lets you know what this music is all about. This is old school blues based southern soul music with a honking sax on the lead melody and always a good jazzy solo or two on each cut. Most of the tunes are medium tempo groove except for two that pick up the pace. ‘The Now Generation’ is one of those early 70s euphoric jazz-pop rockers that has a new uplifting hook every couple of bars and ‘Cloud Nine’ is a high energy soul-jazz reworking of the Temptations psychedelic classic.

Acid jazz and rare groove DJs will kill to get their hands on this sort of groovy semi-kitsch old school funk. Southern soul meets Afro-Cuban groove, it’s a match made in funky heaven.