Chavee49's video: Macondo - Do It To Me

MACONDO In 1972, a crossover dream was realized in Fred Ramirez's [keyboards/background vocals] love of the Afro-Caribbean rhythms being fused with the Blues, Funk, Pop, and Jazz consciousness' of musicians Lee and Sergio Pastora, Eddie Caicedo and Mac Uballez in a powerful nine-piece unit known as Macondo. While in the studio recording, they were signed on the spot by Ahmet Ertugen to Atlantic Records who brought in Sergio Mendez to complete their album one week after signing. Their version of Tito Puente's "Oye Cayuco" went gold in one month. A second album, musically brilliant in its concept of taking the dream to even further explorations of the rhythms was, and still is, in the can, never realized because... who knows? Produced by Sergio Mendes, Macondo was one of the more interesting, and frustrating groups to fuse Latin music, heavy rock, and funk in the wake of Santana's huge early-'70s success. Though the band featured several able instrumentalists (particularly bassist Ron Chretin) and loads of raw energy, no one in the group was a particularly good vocalist. Leader Max Uballez has a nice knack for melody and loads of interesting musical concepts. Perhaps sensing that they rocked but didn't have anything close to a hit, on side two the group (or perhaps Mendes) decided to include Macondo's very own "Oye Como Va" (a full two years after Abraxas) in the form of "Cayuco," a similar Tito Puente composition. The tune sounds a bit out of place considering not a word of Spanish is sung on the entire first side of the record. Macondo is certainly an obscurity worth looking out for and highly recommended to fans of the genre.