Chapter 6: Looking for Soul Food and a place to eat
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Casa Latina was easy to spot, the big sign ‘Casa Latina’ being over
the shop. We entered the fabled store and I handed the man who wasn’t
Vincente my list of wants. “You want all these?” he doubted. “No, the
ones starred are essential, I’ll let you select half a dozen more for
me. I’ll trust your judgement”.
Nik had already looked at my list and as he had many of the
selections starred the really fantastic ones, leaving the simply
great alone. I had set aside $250 for CDs on this trip and spent most
of it here within a few minutes.
Here’s what I got from my shortlist of 50 or so albums:
Babo Jimenez y su Banda ? Babo
Chino Rodriguez y la Consagracion ? self titled
Ray Olan y su Sason ? Sugar on Sunday
Roberto Anglero y su Combo, cantar Marvin Santiago ? self titled
The New Swing Sextet ? A Taste of Spanish Harlem
La Crema de New York ? El Party
Hector Rivera ? The Return
Roberto Roena ? Poderoso (re-packaged Megatones album)
Marty Galagarza y la Conquistadora ? Pinocho
Orquesta Dicupe ? Aqui Llegamos
La Muralla ? Avisale
Chamaco Ramirez ? Alive and Kicking
Los Kimbos con Adalberto Santiago ? self titled
…..I was going to mark all the fantastic must buys with a star for
you all, but just stick a star next to the entire list.
Having now played them all I can say that the above represent the best
single purchase I’ve ever made.
A considerably more restrained Ricardo bought just the three which
from memory were the new Lebrons, Son de Cali and Ray Santiago albums.
Jane joined us having managed to find a parking spot just down the
street. BIG HUG. She was looking for a particular track the name of
which escapes me but she left the shop with a great compilation
containing the desired number after consulting with the man who was
Vincente. [Later on she showed it to Richie, and I know he’ll recall
what it was, I think Ricardo knew the track too].
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Previously Deleted/Lost Scene
Restored Outtake:
I picked up several leaflets and a small promotional calendar here, next to the April photo the motto ?Embrace the unexpected, it keeps life interesting? positively winked at me. Leaflets were for upcoming Tito Nieves and Grupo Niche gigs at Wild Palm, a Cortijo?s Wake book party at Julia de Burgos Cultural Center and a July mega-star concert at the Copa under the banner The El Barrio All Stars; Eddie Palmieri, Jose Manual jr, Johnny Colon, Ray Barretto, Jimmy Sabater, Choco Orta, Chocolate, Johnny Rivera and Gilberto Colon jr.
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Jane’s Brooklyn accent and attitude was very much in evidence,
lively/animated is probably the best description. We made our way
further uptown to 135th Street where we stopped off for some Soul
Food. On our way there Jane played us some tapes of an unfinished
Mambo Musical project that, I think, Jose Mangual jr.was involved
with. Jane has known Jose for years and was hopeful that at some
stage we would get to meet him. “He has a wedding gig tonight” she
told us, adding “So maybe he’ll have some time around 3pm, other than
that he might join us at the end of the night, we’ll see”.
Had we been able to make it into NYC for 9am Jane would have joined
us for breakfast with Larry Harlow. Unfortunately the Chinatown bus
service starts at 7am and we couldn’t get there in time. Larry had a
gig in Brooklyn that night and couldn’t hang on for us. We could
hardly complain though, just the thought that we could have met him
if circumstances were different was a thrill in itself.
The Soul Food joint was buzzing. It was laid out like an all you can
eat buffet with hot plates piled high with sweet potato, chicken
dishes, pork ribs, rice n beans and salad for those watching their
figures. Judging by the size of many of the New Yorkers we
encountered, the salad bar was too far out of their way to take
advantage of. We paid for our food by the lb, I managed nearly 3lbs
but I promise that some of that was bones folks!
On the way back to El Barrio I phoned Lapiz on Janes cell [see, I’m
getting used to the local lingo at this stage]. We were now running
about 20 minutes late, and, as an anal retentive the schedule has to
be respected. Lapiz said he would have met us for food had he known
we were going there. He said he’d wait for us, but it goes without
saying that had he sodded off home because we were half an hour late
we’d have been gobsmacked.
We didn’t know if Richie was going to join us so Jane dialed his
number and handed me the phone. His mum answered and I said
something akin to “Is Richie coming out to play?” the response was
that he was out. Jane took the phone off me and they spoke in
ludicrously quick Spanish for a minute.
Ricardo, who speaks some Spanish, said that he picked up the words
“Road” and “Car”. The other 300 were completely unknown to us.
We were headed for The New York Metropolitan Museum. Lapiz had
arranged for us to take a salsa tour with International Salsa Museum
co-creator/Cable TV star/Friend of the Stars/Cubaphile Jose Obando.
Jose had an important official Metro Museum title too, but I can’t
remember what it is.
Just in front of the museum Jane, looking for a parking space [NYC
makes much of London look like an empty NCP Car Park], was slowly
cruising along. A knuckle dragging College Jock type making his way
across the road pointed at her and said “Use your Fuckin’ indicators
bitch!”, then smirking at his approving friends, he having earned a
cool point with his dormies.
Jane gave us an instant display of charm and cool, calm collectedness,
Brooklyn style.
She stopped the car, rolled down the window, leaned out and fixing
the foolish college dork with a steely glare screamed “Hey, FUCK you
asshole”, adding a finger for good effect.
“Sorry about that guys” she said to us but we absolutely loved that moment.
Go Jane!
Just round the corner ‘we’ found a space. Only a 1 hour spot but best
we could manage. This meant that one of us, well, Jane, would have to
leave the salsa tour before it had even started. Pity, she’d have
loved it, despite her warning that it would probably be cheesy like
the International Salsa Museum.
I asked her if a collection containing Joe Cuba’s slippers was really
something to be sniffed at.
At the top of the steps was Lapiz, wearing his best salsa tourist
shirt, emblazoned with musical motifs. Ricardos idea was to sneak up
on him but just as he was making a phone call he spotted me and we
all shaked and hugged. We then tried to cram in about a hundred
conversations into the next few minutes.
Inside the museum we saw Richie. More greetings. Wow. Here I was with
4 people I have wanted to meet for ages, all in one place. The
internet truly is a wonderful thing, without it none of this would
have happened. Our inside the museum guide was Ana Flores. She
handed us all official pin badges and we made our way upstairs to the
instrument collection.
Anna treated us to a half hour of very interesting information about
the history of the Cuatro, there being 4 very nice examples on
display in cases. Half an hour on two display cases, we’d better take
a look at the schedule. Oh, hang on, apart from a ‘wall of guiros’ in
another room, that is the entire salsa instrument collection. By
Ana’s own admission this was “pathetic” and she assured us that in
the future there would be a great increase in the instruments on
display.
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Previously Deleted/Lost Scene
Restored Outtake:
You can make a reasonable facsimile of the Metropolitan Museums ?Wall of Guiros? by gluing 3, with scrapers and a couple of other gourdy objects to a wallpapered piece of 4? x 4? chipboard. More a ‘Tradesman?s Sample of Guiros? than a ?Wall?.
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Jane left us to collect the car, we were to contact her after the
next bit, our walking tour of El Barrio with the yet to meet Jose
Obando. Down at the entrance Jose showed up wearing a tuxedo and
dickey bow tie. “We must be very special” I said to Richie who
spoiled the feeling by saying “nah, he dresses like that all the
time. Probably just come back from a meeting”.
Richie is often attacked on the net for being loud and aggressive. By
this, attackers tend to mean he uses things like facts and evidence to make
points and will not leave stupidly made comments to stand without an
insightful, blow by blow response. In what little we saw of him [look
away now bro.] he was charming, quietly spoken and, well, just lovely.
Bet you’re blushing now RR.
We split into two teams, Richie, Ana and slap in one taxi, The B
Team in the other. On the way we talked about Arsenios grave
situation. Ana was flabbergasted at the news.
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Previously Deleted/Lost Scene
Restored Outtake:
For those reading this not in the know, Arsenio Rodriguez, the father of Afro-Cuban music, lies in an unmarked grave in a cemetery plot known to only a handful of people. It?s like nobody knowing quite where they put John Lennon?s body.
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Around 2pm we found ourselves at Tito Puente Way, time to get out of
the cab and take the walking tour.