Mozambique

Mozambique is the carnival-born rhythm Pedro Izquierdo — 'Pello el Afrokán' — unveiled in Havana in 1963, the first major rhythm created in post-revolution...

Mozambique is the carnival-born rhythm Pedro Izquierdo — 'Pello el Afrokán' — unveiled in Havana in 1963, the first major rhythm created in post-revolution Cuba. Built from the conga de comparsa and what Pello called a stew of Abakuá, Yoruba, Congo and Carabalí elements, it scaled street-carnival drumming into a mass spectacle: drums organised by pitch, three bells, a frying pan for the clave, brass on top and dancers in front. It debuted on the TV programme Ritmos de Juventud and exploded at that year's carnival; hits like 'María Caracoles' carried it from Havana to Carnegie Hall and the Paris Olympia. In New York, Eddie Palmieri — inspired by the name and the idea, though sharing no actual parts with Pello's rhythm — built his own mozambique on son clave (Mambo con Conga is Mozambique, mid-60s), a feel later tied to Manny Oquendo's timbales and, through Steve Gadd's drumset adaptation, Paul Simon's 'Late in the Evening.' The mozambique's band-rhythm trajectory flows straight into songo and timba.

Era

Boogaloo & Pachanga

Traits

Batteries of conga drums and bombos tuned high to low, layered cowbells and a frying-pan clave, with trumpets and trombones over massed percussion and dancers; the Cuban original sits on rumba clave — Palmieri's New York variant on son clave.