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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