In 1963 at the height of the bossa nova craze in America, Duke Ellington released an album entitled Afro-Bossa, which has nothing to do with the Brazilian bossa nova. The LP is a collection of Ellington and Strayhorn originals constructed on Latin American grooves. Although Brazil is technically in Latin America, due to the Portuguese colonization, its language and musical roots differ from the other South and Central American countries who were colonized by Spain.
Spanish culture, and especially its music, differ greatly from the rest of Europe. Although they share a Latin base to their language due to Roman conquest and hundreds of years of Roman rule, Spain enjoyed a rich culture due to its proximity to Africa. Prior to 1492 (the Spanish Inquisition), this society was built on the peaceful coexistence of both Moors (Muslims) and Jews (originally from Israel) in addition to Europeans.
The Jews and Moors brought their Mideastern music across North Africa, where they met up with European music. The Spanish colonizers brought this musical tradition with them to the New World where it met up with the musical traditions of Native Americans and African slaves. Over a period of over four centuries, it grew into the rich Latin music we know today.
Unlike the U.S. and Canada, African slaves to the south were permitted to play drums and therefore continue their African musical tradition. Each country developed its own beats, which by the Twentieth Century reached the United States through northern migration. As jazz developed, jazz musicians, little by little, incorporated Latin rhythms into their music as alternatives to the usual swing beat.
Duke Ellington hired Puerto Rican valve trombonist Juan Tizol in 1929. Tizol composed a number of Latin-flavored songs, which Ellington arranged. Their first major hit was Caravan, which emphasized the Mideastern roots of Latin music. Other collaborations quickly followed such as Pyramid, Moon Over Cuba and Conga Brava. Ellington and Strayhorn also composed a number of Latin pieces on their own such as Flaming Sword and Eighth Veil.
The Afro-Bossa album contains both a new arrangement of Pyramid and the 1946 Eighth Veil along with ten newly composed numbers. Although the opening track bears the title of the album, it is also known as Bula (which was the working title). Ellington described it as a “gutbucket bolero” meaning that down and dirty blues melodies and harmonies are strewn over the bolero rhythm.
The piece begins pp and gradually crescendos to ff before reverting to the opening soft tom-tom beat. The reference to Ravel’s Bolero is undeniable. Also undeniable is the similarities to Ellington 1937 masterpiece Diminuendo In Blue, where the 12-bar blues form is developed both harmonically and formally through truncating and extending chorus lengths, and Crescendo In Blue, where the entire piece is one big crescendo.
The ensemble writing and playing is on display throughout. There are three solo choruses (alto sax, tenor sax and trumpet), but they are only there for color and are limited to call-and-response. This late career masterpiece is a model of richness and power. The Reprise recording succeeds brilliantly in audio quality and performance.