Aquí Los Bravos

Every time a new album comes out of one of Colombia's coastal regions, one fact becomes ever clearer: if it hadn't been for a halfcentury of turmoil and terror, this beautiful, culturally rich country would have been up there with Cuba and Mexico for musical verve and variety. This ‘Best Of’ collection takes us to the 1960s, when NuYorican salsa and boogaloo invaded the northern shores, and old-world Cartagena and brashly modern Barranquilla responded with open arms and lively leg movements. Michi Sarmiento is a brilliant sax player who responded naturally to the incoming sound and reappropriated it, adding lots of frantic metallic percussion, bouncing bass and rough-edged bar-room vocals. His sax and, occasionally, clarinet, hold things together and also take brief leads that add his signature to the songs. These 16 tracks date from the period 19671977 and include cumbias, guaguancós, descargas and salsa/boogaloo crossover tunes: it's party music, and the studio recordings were made ‘as live’. Forget the Cartagena of tourist folklore or García Márquez's magic realism: Sarmiento plied his trade in the port city's red-light district and there's a dirty thrust to the way he and his combo interact. The music pours out, instruments all tumbling forth, summoning the NuYorican boogaloo novitiates to couple up. Still going strong at 72, Michi Sarmiento is the MC of sassy, sexy salsa.