The very first bongo break .....?

[remicks]

*****

1971

ONE MONKEY DON'T STOP NO SHOW
Honey Cone


The Honey Cone advanced a fuller sounding dancable soul sound evocative of its Motown parentage. Orchestration was a vital part of the sound usually including strings , but in this round its the horns doing all the work ... well that and the incessant piano....and bongos........guitars....

At 2:38 (-1.17 in reverse) all else stops in ONE MONKEY and all that remains is the unremitting bongoing. The break is a brief one and soon the other instruments fall back in line to rebuild the song's fuller sound.

Still the "drop all else out " idea here has been initiated and soon bongo breaks would be a definitive part of the disco sound.







The first example ???


*****

[Videoskooter]

Remmy, great find, but this tune is similar to....what? It's on the tip of my tongue but...

Some TK stuff??? Do I hear "Gimme Some" in it or is my mind playing tricks on me (could be, it's Halloween).

[QUINNY]

Remmy me old codger:

Are you confusing bongos with the instrument that actually featured in a kazillion and one Disco breaks...namely the Congas. Don't worry, it's a common mistake.

Yep, they sound like bongos in the Honeycone track above.

[remicks]

*****

Or often its a combination of the two being played ...

OK, consider the concept here to mean : The Very First Hand-Played Drum Break ....

That'll cover both !



******

[Disco Funk]

Do you mean in the 70s or during the rock era? Here's a guy who I haven't got his CD, but I believe had a lot of bongo breaks (check out the sound samples):

Epps

Disco Funk

[Simon White]

Here's The Incredible Bongo Bands 1973 cover version of Preston Epps 1959 original. It's danceable but not disco. The flip, 'Bongolia' is great too... weren't these two tracks used a lot in early Beat Box/ Hip Hop contests ?

It was arranged by Perry Botkins Jr who's name might be familiar to some.....he wrote 'Disco Kicks as recorded by The Boys Town Gang !
http://www.discomusic.com/records-more/141_0_2_0_C/

[Mixmachine]

Here's The Incredible Bongo Bands 1973 cover version of Preston Epps 1959 original. It's danceable but not disco. The flip, 'Bongolia' is great too... weren't these two tracks used a lot in early Beat Box/ Hip Hop contests ?

What a coincidence with this thread, :icon_eek: my last purchases are the "Soulful sugar" Honey Cone collection and the Incredible Bongo Band's "Bongo Rock" Cds.

I've got the US 7" release of "Bongo rock" around here, but I didn't know it was a cover... Id like to check out Preston Epps, let's see, but so much music and so little time

This 'Bongo Rock' UK CD release includes "Apache" Grand master flash remix and "Last bongo in Belgium" (breakers mix) as Bonus tracks. (I'm yet to listen to this cd)

Bongos/Congas have always been popular in Cuban Dance music, The "Jingo/thousand finger man ", Candido, was popularizing the Bongos way back in the 50's in the Jazz world of NYC (along with Machito) and also during the Mambo craze of the 50's.

But probably the most influencial 'Conguero' is the master Carlos "Patato" Valdes, credited with inventing the Tunable Conga, and directly influencing the likes of Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barreto, Willie Bobo, Johnny Pacheco and countless others, all of whom went on to become masters 'Congueros' themselves, some of them releasing 'Disco-ish' records during the Disco years...

[Disco Funk]

I think James Brown's Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose, the Sex Machine album version, also had a huge influence, with it's 'clap your hands' conga break, followed by clyde stubblefield getting funky on the drums.

I believe Apache was the one track that got use a lot in the early rap/hip hop circuit, although Bongo Rock was included on the ultimate breaks and beats series from the mid 80s. I don't recall any hip hop artist ever sampling the groove, though. Both Bongo Rock and Bongolia were also featured on the Thing With Two Heads soundtrack.

Disco Funk

[remicks]

*****



Bongos were of course also an important element of the late fifties Beatnik scene in San Francisco , as here portrayed by Bob Denver's "Maynard" on TV's THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS.







From Time Magazine Sept . 14 1959

"Bam; Roll On with Bam!"

Monday, Sept. 14, 1959

One thing a beatnik cannot abide is a square. The bearded, sandaled beat likes to be with his own kind, to riffle through his quarterlies, write craggy poetry, paint crusty pictures, and pursue his never-ending quest for the ultimate in sex and protest. When deterred from such pleasures by the goggle-eyed from Squaresville, the beatnik packs his pot (marijuana), shorts and bongo drums, grabs his black-hosed, pony-tailed beatchick and cuts out. Lately, beatniks in increasing numbers have been cutting out of the incipient squareness of San Francisco and swinging in the shabby little Los Angeles beach community of Venice. There last week the regular inhabitants were howling in protest almost loud enough to drown out the thump of the bongos.
It all started last June in an abandoned bingo parlor near the beach. Backed by
Los Angeles Lawyer Alphonse Matthews, a self-styled beatnik named Eric ("Big Daddy") Nord turned the joint into a coffeehouse. By midsummer, "the Gas House" was in full swing, and the beats pushed in to make the scene, as they say. A jukebox blared the beatniks' Three Bs: Bach, Bartok and "Bird" (Cool Saxophonist Charlie Parker). Bongo drums pounded out broken rhythms from early afternoon to early morning. Folk singers plunked guitars. Far-out paintings dripped from the walls. Ancient, rump-ruptured couches, rescued from the city dump, decorated the floor, and in the center of the room stood an old claw-legged bathtub that could accommodate a couple of good friends. On some evenings, Beatnik Author Lawrence Lipton, whose book, The Holy Barbarians, heralds "Venice West" as the new home of beatdom, read his cool poetry against a jazz background. It was like crazy.
Ashcan School. Crazier still were the neighbors, who complained that the bongos and other assorted beatnik activities were giving Venice a bad name. After police ruled only that Owner Matthews must have an entertainment license for the Gas House, the townspeople shuddered, got their Venice Civic Union to fight the licensing. The beatniks sent for the Civil Liberties Union, and after generously beautifying Venice's alleys by painting vivid abstractions on garbage cans, got ready for battle.
In Los Angeles' antiseptic Police Facilities Building last week, the squares and the beats gathered for a hearing. In the corridors wandered Beatchick Julie Meredith, strumming her guitar and singing sad songs about love and artistry.
Beatnik Lipton came equipped with a sheaf of poetry, which he readily recited:
. . . Yawp it from
The Housetops of Heaven,
Gauguin, great soul, Holy Barbarian of
Tahiti,
Fling us a handful of love. Ride it, Carl Sandburg, stockyards Cowboy, Ride herd on the Realestateniks of
Venice . . .


The complainants' case was simple enough. There was a 1933 hearse, for example, that the beatniks parked outside a nearby apartment house ("There are a lot of elderly people in that apartment building that don't feel very good anyway, and this bothered them"). A man declared that he saw beatniks drinking wine and beer, that he paid admission to attend a life class in the Gas House basement where a nude woman posed, and that he was propositioned by a homosexual. There were tales of lust, drink, and the strange sound of bongos emanating somehow from the sewers.

Later, Man. The beatniks were wise enough to rest their case heavily on respectable—but not square—lawyer Matthews, angel of the Gas House. Defending his friends (and his investment, such as it is), he argued that the beatniks were really harmless. "The fundamental rule," said he, "is 'Thou shall not bug [disturb] thy neighbor.' And we have three dirty words: race, creed and color. I'm not going to regulate people's mores . . . not even the winos'."
As for the sound of the bongos, Matthews confessed that he was helpless to stop it. "Sure bongo drums are loud, but my friends tell me that a bongo is a way of dissolving your antagonisms toward other people."

"Sure bongo drums are loud, but my friends tell me that a bongo is a way of dissolving your antagonisms toward other people."

:icon_cool: :icon_cool: :icon_cool:







******

[Ian Rose]

I believe Apache was the one track that got use a lot in the early rap/hip hop circuit, although Bongo Rock was included on the ultimate breaks and beats series from the mid 80s. I don't recall any hip hop artist ever sampling the groove, though. Both Bongo Rock and Bongolia were also featured on the Thing With Two Heads soundtrack.

Disco Funk

Apache WAS the break from what I know. Im soooooooo sorry I passed on an original pressing of the Incredible Bongo Band lp 5 years ago, as only 2000 copys were pressed. It was going for big money in the 70's. Even the guys in the band dont have copies. Its been sampled a TON!!!!!! Competing sample wise with "Funky Drummer" for sure. Not just in hip hop..The Apache break is a staple of Jungle/DnB.......And a lot of modern music.:icon_biggrin: