ILM guide to boogaloo

[If this has come up before I'm sorry - my searches didn't throw up any attempt at a definitive thread on the subject.]

Back in the days of CD I had a copy of The Bad Boogaloo - Nu Yorican Sounds 1966-1970. I liked it a lot but I never got around to expanding my knowledge of the genre.

Can we post our favourite boogaloo songs and maybe even put a playlist together?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8J0Csfh-II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHXERS4kFIg

I know next to nothing about boogaloo, but looking forward to see what people post.

Are either of those tracks boogaloo though?

I mostly know it from the jazz/Blue Note side, not the Latin (jazz) side. But my spicy take is that I don't really like boogaloo, and usually skip the token boogaloo track on '60s post-Sidewinder records.

T/S: boogaloo vs bugalu

Jordan, I think it's definitely a different thing in the jazz context. Based on OP they're asking about a late '60s New York pre-salsa popular Latin/soul hybrid à la Pete Rodriguez and Johnny Colon. There was a documentary about it: https://latinboogaloo.com/

I have much to say/share, as I love this music, but will need to find the time

Talking of Pete Rodriguez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgxEqc-ilSY

Yes, Cattedrale, it was 'late '60s New York pre-salsa popular Latin/soul hybrid' that I was thinking of.

Looking forward to your input when you get time, Cattedrale.

Meanwhile, this is my favourite from the compilation I mentioned in the OP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV-HhUGGX-g

Looks like you're off to a good start. I'd use the "Bad Boogaloo" comp as a launching pad and track down the albums especially by Pete Rodriguez, Johnny Colon, Ray Rodriguez, Joe Cuba, Joey Pastrana, and Ray Barretto. Something to keep in mind is that most of the big stars from the '70s NY salsa scene released at least one boogaloo record between '67 and '69, so that's a good place to look too. Additionally, the Fania-focused "It's a Good, Good Feeling" compilation is basically four hours of pure gold for this music. Anyway, here's some tracks I like by artists I didn't see on the "Bad Boogaloo" comp:

Bobby Queseda - Bataola Boogaloo
Orchestra Harlow - Groovin' to the Afro Twist
Charlie Palmieri - Bugalu
Willie Colon - Skinny Papa
Monguito Santamaria - Boogaloo Sabroso
Willie Rosario - Watusi Boogaloo

There's also a fruitful vein to explore in the West Indian analogue of this music, and a good place to start with that is the Born Bad compilation "Disque La Rayé." One of my favorite tracks from that is "Tu bois beaucoup" by Ryco Jazz.

There's also non-boogaloo stuff that's still heavily adjacent, e.g. Arsenio Rodriguez's recording of "Hang on Sloopy" from 1967. Sometimes it's nice to throw in stuff like that to change up the sound when you're making a mix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJY_d9UfIS4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8B63CvZb_k

Additionally, the Fania-focused "It's a Good, Good Feeling" compilation is basically four hours of pure gold for this music.

cosign this, was literally listening to it when i saw this thread yesterday, lol

Cool, I really haven't listened much to this side of things. So it's more the other direction, Latin musicians embracing r&b/Black music rather than vice versa? Wonder if the dancing was the same.

Rhythmically it's completely different from the jazz version, which is more like a funky bossa nova (or slower version of the New Orleans clave).

Thanks for the tips. PLease keep them coming.

I was listen to Dorothy Ashby yesterday and it occurred to me that this has sprinklings of boogaloo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsKBzK1A5eQ

so, hang on, this is not boogaloo ?

https://www.discogs.com/release/1755390-Various-Ready-Steady-Boogaloo-Amphonic-Grooves-For-Carnaby-Chicks-And-Cool-Steppers

Oh, just remembered another tip is to check out El Gran Combo, they made a string of superlative boogaloo records. I have this one and love it

https://www.discogs.com/master/526458-El-Gran-Combo-Tu-Querias-Boogaloo-Toma-Boogaloo

Johnny Colon might be my favorite boogaloo artist. The percussion on his tracks always sounds so fucking crisp and deep and funky. And he takes these deceptively simple arrangements but really elevates them with tight vocal harmonies that make my spirit soar. Idk, just love the dude's music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSWFWQGzHyw

His cover of "Guantanamera" is one of my favorite tunes in any genre. As is this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pjNVE95nGw

I think of boogaloo a bit like rocksteady. It was only viable for a few short years, and in it you can hear the nascent qualities of a genre emerging that would revolutionize music around the world (reggae/salsa). But there's something really charming about being here on the ground floor before the rules were codified and people were experimenting in ways that can be surprising. And there's a kind of honesty and directness and naïveté.

Someone needs to be middlebrow and uncool enough to say that they love Ringo's "Back Off Boogaloo," and I am willing to step into that role. (And take it that it has zero to do with what actually fits the genre.)

Yeah, there was a cast of (typically) English musicians in the 70's who waxed on about boogaloo (looking at you, Marc Bolan) but were about as far from what we are talking about here as you can be.

This a fun (albeit OOP) comp of Soul Boogaloo, a mix of cash-ins and legit crossovers.

https://www.discogs.com/master/1265939-Various-Lets-Do-The-Boogaloo

I love the rocksteady analogy. short-lived but a cornerstone...

Henry S's point about rock people going on about boogaloo is interesting. I wonder what it meant, e.g. Ringo's Back off Boogaloo as claemenza mentioned.

un-PC, but hot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4XMUuxvq2s

I didn't know this was a thing. Got a feeling I'm going to build a substantial playlist. It's all fresh and festive to me.

Love this cover of "Grazing In the Grass"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB3eQV9uRlI

Is the original version of "Evil Ways" considered this? It's pretty damn cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz23H5aW5PY

This is more boogaloo-adjacent, but it's wild that this track is from '67 and sounds just like '70s salsa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRYvmj8_63c

I have that 45, lovely tune

Is the original version of "Evil Ways" considered this? It's pretty damn cool.

not so much for me, i think of Bobo as being in the other stream, foundational for the emerging Latin jazz, he recorded on Verve rather than Fania or its sublabels, played with Cal Tjader and Mary Lou Williams, etc. but of course there are broader cross-pollinations going on and it's not always so cut-and-dried.

I guess I'm confused about the timeline, since those early '60s Eddie Palmieri records sound like fully formed salsa to me. But I'm no expert when it comes to Latin music.

To look at it one way it's all Afro-Cuban music, but in the early '60s there was a sound called Pachanga which Eddie Palmieri specialized in and other salsa guys like Ray Barretto were doing and it evolved, and other styles got into the mix and people started calling the whole thing salsa.

To look at it one way it's all Afro-Cuban music, but in the early '60s there was a sound called Pachanga which Eddie Palmieri specialized in and other salsa guys like Ray Barretto were doing and it evolved, and other styles got into the mix and people started calling the whole thing salsa.

One of the key jumping-off points was when Palmieri (and a few others, like Mon Rivera) took pachanga, which originally had flutes up front, and said, "OK, but how about we do it with trombones instead?" Willie Colón rose to fame doing a more aggro, "street" version of Mon Rivera's sound, and in fact recorded an album with Rivera at his (Colón's) commercial peak in the 1970s.

Johnny Pacheco, meanwhile, stuck with the flutes on his own records, but then became the leader and arranger for the Fania All Stars, which brought it all kind of full circle.

Henry S's point about rock people going on about boogaloo is interesting. I wonder what it meant, e.g. Ringo's Back off Boogaloo as claemenza mentioned.

I think a lot of the rock guys were picking up on an idea of 'Boogaloo ' from listening to contemporary Soul Music, as that word pops up in a # of late '60s dance sides by the Isley Bros. Syl Johnson, Fantastic Johnny C. etc.

Ringo himself said that "Back-off Boogaloo" was inspired by slangy phrases Marc Bolan would casually drop in conversation.

Yeah, when English guys of that era (Bolan, Steve Marriott, et al.) talked about "boogie" but pronouncing it with a long "oo" like "boo-gie," that was something else entirely.

It was also the name of a dance. It's easy to see how the name could have been drifting around and got picked up to generally mean music that makes you move, or a good time. It's fun to say and that's exactly what it sounds like it is tbf

It also kind of sounds like it's a collision of "boogie" and "blues," which makes it great as a shorthand for good time rock n roll

The word was just too irresistible not to use for many disparate purposes.

Joe Bataan: Search & Destroy

I saw Joe Bataan and his band in 2012 in DC. There’s also 2 threads for him and his bugalu

Some call Bataan Latin soul and a precursor to the bugalu on this thread