Cal Tjader

Cal Tjader (July 16, 1925 – May 5, 1982) has been called the greatest Anglo Latin jazz musician. Unlike other American jazz musicians who experimented with the music from Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America, he never abandoned it, performing it until his death.

Soul Sauce (1960s)

After recording for Fantasy for nearly a decade, Tjader signed with Norman Granz's better-known Verve Records. With the luxury of larger budgets and seasoned recording engineer Creed Taylor in the control booth, Tjader cut a varied string of albums. During the Verve years Tjader worked with Donald Byrd, Lalo Schifrin, Armando Peraza, a young Chick Corea, Clare Fischer, Jimmy Heath, Kenny Burrell, and others. Tjader recorded before big band orchestras for the first time, and even made an album based on Asian tonic scales and rhythms.

Related Topics:
Norman Granz - Verve Records - Creed Taylor - Donald Byrd - Lalo Schifrin - Armando Peraza - Chick Corea - Clare Fischer - Jimmy Heath - Kenny Burrell - Tonic

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His biggest success to date, and to the end of his career, was the album Soul Sauce (1964). Its title track, a Dizzy Gillespie cover Tjader had been toying with for over a decade, was a radio hit and landed the album on Billboard's Top 50 Albums of 1965. Originally titled "Guachi Guaro" (a nonsensical phrase in Spanish), Tjader transformed the Gillespie/Chano Pozo composition into something new. (The name "Soul Sauce" came from Taylor's suggestion for a catchier title and Bobo's observation that Tjader's version was spicier than the original.) The song's identifiable sound is a combination of the call-outs made by Bobo ("Salsa ahi na ma ... sabor, sabor!") and Tjader's crisp vibes work. The album sold over 100,000 copies and popularized the word salsa in describing Latin dance music.

Related Topics:
Dizzy Gillespie - Billboard - 1965 - Spanish - Chano Pozo - Salsa

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Hits and misses

The 1960s were Tjader's most prolific period. With the backing of a major record label, he could afford to stretch out and expand his repertoire. The most obvious deviation from his Latin jazz sound was Several Shades of Jade (1963) and the follow-up Breeze From the East (1963). Both albums attempted to combine jazz and Asian music, much as Tjader and others had done with Afro-Cuban. The result was dismissed by the critics, chided as little more than the dated exotica that had come and gone in the prior decade.

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He also recorded a session of Burt Bacharach standards (including "Walk On By") and an album covering West Side Story. Neither is remarkable; both were panned.

Related Topics:
Burt Bacharach - West Side Story

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Other experiments were not so easily dismissed. Tjader teamed up with New Yorker Eddie Palmieri in 1966 to produce El Sonido Nuevo ("The New Sound"). While Tjader's prior work was often dismissed as "Latin lounge", here the duo created a darker, more sinister sound. Cal Tjader Plays The Contemporary Music Of Mexico And Brazil (1962), released during the bossa nova craze, actually bucked the trend, instead using more traditional arrangements from the two countries' past.

Related Topics:
Eddie Palmieri - 1966 - Lounge - Bossa nova

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