MANDRILL

This fairly long-living NYC septet that was created in the wake once Santana opened the floodgates at the turn of the decade with ethnic music, beit Latin, jazz-blues, African or Afro-American soul/funk and staying adventurous, at least in their early careers: such as Demon Fuzz, Osibisa, Cymande, Malo, War (with & without Burdon) and Assagai, just to name a few. But Mandrill had that little special extra, between Santana, Chicago Transit Authority and a touch of Traffic along with some furious funk and AfroAmerican, as well as Central American musics. As a matter of fact, the band originating from NY qualified Nu Yorican (contraction between NY and Puerto Rico.

The centre of the band are the Wilson Brothers, Louis "Sweet Lou", Richard 'Dr Ric" and Carlos "Mad Dog" (not Denis 'The Menace", Bryan "The Isolated" and Carl "Mad Cat" who lied on the Beach with the Boys), who all frequented the school music band in high school, then in the military forces. But they were assisted of four more musicians who were no less erudite and in between the seven of them, they were able to play up to 20 instruments. The band was already existing in 69, and by 71, they were signed by Polydor and released their eponymous debut that same year and reached the first quarter of the billboard despite unusually long instrumental breaks and virtuosity display rather un-common in black pop music (jazz & blues excepted of course).

The first album was really in the wave of its time presenting a five movement suite and two longer tracks, often mixing all kinds of styles of music. Anything was a fair game as long as it sounded good, and these guys had no problems making everything sound good. Right off the bat, the eponymous track is a real corker, rivalling with Santana's Soul Sacrifice and Traffic's Freedom Rider, twisting your head all around as there are so many things happening left, right and centre. Rollin In is rather more between Santana and Auger's Oblivion Express and remains that way until the fourth minute, when they veer towards Salsa for the next two minutes and return to a wild funk to the closure. Newcomers to Mandrill have certainly already looked at the track list and noticed Symphonic Revolution, and the track's name is maybe slightly deceptive, since it's mostly a soul track with lush string arrangements whenever they see it fit, most notably in the middle section amid softer vocals, flute and vibes, the strings come very close to cheesy, as often the AfroAmerican would do in most of their music >> I think it's called the Philadelphia Sound. The other real highlight is the Love And Peace 5-movement suite, which is really THE track of the album. This monster takes us through the guts of the group and what it had to say about the tragic events of the 60's and the civil rights movement AND the Nam situation and there are many chilling moments and brilliantly written expressive and dramatic situations. A few spine chills are not excluded here, especially around the fourth movement, Encounter; ending in a sonic electric explosion; while the last one called Beginning is mostly percussions disappearing into the wild after the explosion.

Although Mandrill's debut is a particularly fine fusion album, it's probably not as successful or as brilliant as its follow-up Mandrill Is, but it would be almost unforgivable not to at least give this one a shot first.

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