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This
second release by Charlie is a strong follow-up
to the previous release, Bing,
Bing, Bing. "The groove is there,
but it's more jazz-oriented this time," Hunter
says of Ready, Set...Shango!. "It
has a much looser feel than anything we have recorded
so far. For this album, we wanted to emulate the
stuff Cannonball Adderley, Big John
Patton, and Eddie Harris were doing
back in the '60's but update it with a modern
twist. It's a pre-funk funk record with no back
beat." When asked what exactly is shango,
Hunter replies with a grin, "It's a dance...well,
not exactly a real dance, but a mythical one.
But it has no steps."
Hunter continues, "It's a bogus cultural
dance movement that's a figment of my imagination.
It's done in an effort to hoodwink the record
buying public into thinking there is actually
a dance called the shango, and we are the sole
purveyors of its music. It's also a ready-made
social-cuiltural movement for the press to pick
up on."
Ashby Man - "Definitely a full tilt
shango. It's a piece Calder
and I wrote about this guy who hangs out every
day on Ashby Avenue in Berkeley drinking beer.
I mean, every day! This is his song."
Teabaggin'
- "This is one of Calder's compositions.
I'd have to say this is more of a Latin shango."
Let's
Get Medieval - "This is not a shango
of any type. It's based on a line from a movie
I saw. I can't remember its name. My impression
of this tune is that it sounds like a Little Richard
45 played at 33."
Shango
III - "This is an impressionistic
shango that takes its inspiration from the mid-'60s
Miles Davis era. It's not an avant-shango."
Dersu
- "Based on that Russo-Chinese film Dersu
Uzala about that southern Siberian-Mongolian guy
who befriends a Russian explorer. The music is
based on a vamp that I ripped off from Big John
Patton. It's played in 5/4 time and slowed down
into a John Coltrane-like vamp."
911
- "That's the short title of the number which
has as its full name 'Disgruntled Employees Union
No. 911.' It's a straight shango. Really, it's
a Buick shango, which is not to be confused with
a Cadillac shango."
Shango...The
Ballad - "This is definitely a hoax.
It's actually a duo tune that Scott
and I have been playing for quite a while. We
banged that out in the studio on the first or
second take. We gave it this name when we decided
to take the shango thing to an extreme."
Thursday
the 12th - "This is the Cadillac
shango because it's got that mojo-working vibe
from Muddy Waters. But it's really a Caddie because
it has a few extra chords in it which makes it
a deluxe."
Sutton
- "This is another of Calder's compositions.
It has nothing to do with shango. It's just a
jazz tune. We figured since we're recording for
Blue Note, we had to have at least one jazz number
so we could try to get into heavy rotation on
jazz radio."
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