Everything about this album, from the artist's name and album title to the rather cheesy cover photo of a smiling tuxedo-clad man on a beach surrounded by congas, suggests to a cynical eye that
Arriba! Con Montego Joe is kitschy exotica on par with
Martin Denny or
Les Baxter. And while that style of music has its fizzy charms, it turns out that
Arriba! Con Montego Joe is something much meatier. Collecting the entirety of the two albums
Montego Joe (born Joseph Sanders) made for Prestige (1964's
Arriba! Con Montego Joe and 1965's
Wild and Warm), these 17 tracks are a uniformly excellent blend of swinging, groove-oriented Latin percussion against soulful hard bop horns and piano (played by some kid with the unlikely name of
Chick Corea). This unlikely combination works a treat, especially on the tracks that take a while to unfold, like the sinuous "Bata Blues," which marries some excellent soloing by
Corea and tenor saxophonist
Al Gibbons to the pitter-pat of the African tuned drums of the title. There is little that's groundbreaking on these albums, but
Miles Davis would attract quite a lot of attention several years later for his cross-cultural experiments in a very similar style, and this is an intriguing early indication of that direction.