A piece of music called "Rumba Caliente" shouldn't begin with a reflective two-minute solo piano arrangement, but this one does and it's a perfect set-up. Until hand meets conga for the first time you're not even sure you put the right record on. But that piano seduces you, staggering your senses, rocking your composure. When the rest of the band kicks in, horns and all, you know you're in the right place.

Never judge a record by its cover or a band by its pedigree, right? But you know this band had a wild streak. Hell, they left Barretto's band at the height of its popularity because he wasn't experimental enough. Crazy. By the time that violin on wah wah meds kicks in you're off the charts. So is the band. It's hot, it's different, it's just the kind of adventure you were looking for and didn't even know it.

LISTEN:   Típica '73 "Rumba Caliente"   ·   [1976]   ·   [OUT OF PRINT]   ·   [MORE INFO]

Harlem River Drive was a short-lived but righteous group of musicians brought together in 1970-71 by Puerto Rican pianist and bandleader Eddie Palmieri. Palmieri was always one to push beyond the boundaries of whatever music he was playing in the 60s. He always seemed restless, always out to top himself. By the end of the decade Palmieri was the king of the latin dance floors. So he got down and pushed further out.

A street-tough blend of Latin rhythms, 70s funk and fusion, rock and soul grooves, social poetry, with a touch of psychedelia, Harlem River Drive was named after a short highway in New York City. "In reality, Harlem River Drive was a dividing line," says singer Jimmy Norman in waxpoetics, "a highway where all the rich people just zip past the ghetto, and here we are, just watching them go by."

A line that divides people can also be crossed to unite them. Sounds that polarize people can also be blended to incite them. Harlem River Drive was the sound of a place and time: Harlem, Latin Soul, counterculture, inequality. It offered a message for the masses: empowerment, togetherness, social justice, prosperity. Palmieri took bold steps by crossing over all the lines laid before him. The results of his collaborative experiment were a delirious, ephemeral, and socially conscious trip through, around, and past East Harlem, "from 125th Street to a bridge called G-Dub."

LISTEN:   Harlem River Drive "Harlem River Drive (Theme Song)"
LISTEN:   Harlem River Drive "Seeds of Life"
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