The Robin Jones Seven - 1972 - El Maja

The Robin Jones Seven 

1972

El Maja

01. El Maja

02. Santa De La Luna

03. Hot Chili Sauce

04. Oya

05. Gina

06. Atlas

07. Batucada Da Vida

08. The Wailer

09. Warm Loving Eyes

10. Chant Afrique

11. El Lobo

12. Carica Papaya

Bass – Percy Borthwick

Bongos – Simon Morton

Congas – Tony Uter

Drums, Percussion – Robin Jones

Keyboards – John Porter

Saxophone, Flute – Olaf Vas

Trumpet – Roy Edwards

London, England: Early 1970's. The airwaves ruled by a mixture of Novelty Pop and Glam by day, Progressive Rock by night. Down at the Disco every night finishes with Jeff Beck's “Hi Ho Silver Lining” if you're lucky, all 11 minutes of “Freebird” if you're not.

Not the best time to release an uncompromising and highly creative foray into Latin Jazz territory. The Robin Jones Seven “El Maja” unsurprisingly falls into that limbo known as “between the cracks”. Cue a decade later, it's the beginning of the 1980's, a tough decade with tough dancefloors. Two-tone, 

Punk, Funk, Northern Soul and some Heavy, Heavy Dub. And Jazz. Jazz For dancing. Jazz for cutting up your mates with your moves. Combat Jazz. One of the essential tools for any aspiring Jazz DJ was this re-discovery; a dig from the dustiest part of the basement piece of wax that's just chock full of Latin Jazz Burners!

Back in the night of the day there was only one store that had a decent supply of these must have treasures: Fusions Records run by DJ Paul Murphy. “They came into the stock room and as fast as I could put them on the shelves they were snapped up.” With originals now going for a wallet busting $400 (and up!)

Robin Jones: "My early recordings all crossed the lines musically between Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian music. I made two such albums that were released by Apollo Sound in the 1970s: "Denga" and "El Maja".

Uptempo, four hundred feet or more on the floor stompers like “El Maja”, “Carica Papaya”and the track that Robin himself said is the first recorded Samba tune in the UK: “Batucada Da Vida” are complemented by the Afro-Boogaloo of “The Wailer”, the soulful grooves of “Chant Afrique” and a particular highlight being the funk drenched “Atlas”.

A classic album of Latin grooves from the UK scene -- a musical world that wasn't always a hotbed of styles in the Afro-Cuban mode, but which did have the benefit of the mighty percussionist Robin Jones! Jones was born in India, but moved to London during the same post-colonial jazz migration that brought the city key talents from the West Indies -- and like Joe Harriott, Shake Keane, and others, Robin's contributions to the scene were crucial during the years he worked in a variety of different groups! This set is Jones' second as a leader -- a very hip set that's all jazz all the way through -- with plenty of percussion from Robin, and a combo that includes trumpet, saxes, keyboards, and vibes -- all used in ways that take off from the best jazz descarga styles into a range of other modes.