Date: 1973
Release: Soul Jazz Records #12
Cover Art: view / download
Buy the Album
The Arabs gave the world the concept of zero. America’s own School House Rock taught us that “three is a magic number.” And Chinese numerologists revealed which numbers carried good luck and bad. All these developments set the stage for the release of eight songs recorded by eight Puerto Rican-born African-American musicians who took their name from the Spanish word for the number eight, Ocho. One of the defining bands of the ‘black and proud’ NuYorican scene of the early 1970s, Ocho masterfully fused elements of Latin, funk and jazz. From 1973-75, they recorded four LPs (all reissued by Soul Jazz Records) that are on par with almost anything released by Ray Barretto, Joe Bataan, and Eddie Palmieri. The cream of the crop is Ocho 1, a glorious record loaded with exactly the kind of sounds I have in mind when I tell people that I’m into Latin music.
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