Ray Perez was a pianist and bandleader of seminal Venezuelan salsa group Los Dementes, recording seven albums between 67 and 68 with this outfit. Off the back of these initial successes, he was exported to New York where he worked alongside Kako’s orchestra (Francisco Angel Bastar) in the late 60’s. After finishing his stint in NYC, Perez returned to Caracas where he summoned the finest indigenous talent available to him at the time (Luis Arias, Alfredo Naranjo, Perucho Torcat, Larry Francia) and founded Los Kenya, an Afro-Venezuelan salsa group that were one of the rawest and most exiting contemporary musical prospects of their day. Originally released in 1969 on the Discos Fuentes label, Ra! Rai! came to embody some of the sharpest musical output recorded by Los Kenya, blending passionate vocal performances, syncopated Latin percussion, hard-breathing horn sections and laser sharp keys from Perez into a danceable and authentically Venezuelan brand of salsa that projected a punchiness and a surging, irresistible rhythmicality.
Set highlights include the seminal Pilar, featuring skittling bongo hits, romantic, heartfelt vocals, and some of the rawest and most energetic campana (cow bell) playing I’ve ever heard, that comes thudding into the track unambiguously high in the mix after a mere 21 seconds. A sucker for well recorded percussion, there is nothing quite like the heavy knock of wood on metal, and at such high frequencies you really feel the rhythmic pulse of the instrument. Difficult to describe to English sensibilities, there are numerous terms in Latin music which refer to how good the music is at the time of playing it, single word exclamations that season the music sporadically and enthusiastically like “agua!” (water), “azucar!” (sugar), “rico!” and “sabroso!” (delicious) “ahi na ma!” (that’s it!). These reactive statements relate to how good the music and the players are sounding and propel a musical bonhomie unique to Latin music. To my ears, the campana bell and the audible joy it projects metaphysically embodies of all these terms and creates a palpable a sense of excitement. Rather than mock or deride the cowbell, as Cristopher Walken once famously did on Saturday Night Live with his catchy remark “more cowbell”, we should all learn to embrace the bell and take it more seriously rather than ridicule it as a banal accessory to the music—it is much more than that here, adding dynamics and enhancing the weight of the rhythm section. For any serious collectors of Latin American music, Los Kenya is a high worth prize on the salsa index, a group of true quality in a rather saturated field of similar sounding yet poorly recorded and often cheesy music.
Buy the LP HERE
Listen to the tracks HERE (Ah Ni Ma!!)
