Afro Blue

"Afro Blues" redirects here. For the McCoy Tyner album, see Afro Blues (album).

"Afro Blue" is a jazz standard composed by Mongo Santamaría, perhaps best known in its arrangement by John Coltrane.

Santamaria version

Mongo Santamaria 1969

Mongo Santamaria first recorded his composition "Afro Blue" in 1959.

Rhythm

"Afro Blue" was the first jazz standard built upon a typical African 3:2 cross-rhythm, or hemiola. The song begins with the bass repeatedly playing 6 cross-beats per each measure of 12/8, or 6 cross-beats per 4 main beats—6:4 (two cells of 3:2). The following example shows the original ostinato "Afro Blue" bass line. The slashed noteheads indicate the main beats (not bass notes), where you would normally tap your foot to "keep time."

"Afro Blue" bass line, with main beats indicated by slashed noteheads.

While the bass sounds the six secondary beats, Paul Horn's flute solo and Emil Richards' marimba solo emphasize the four primary beats. Francisco Aguabella takes the conga drum solo on the first recording, quoting phrases from the vocabulary of the abakuá bonkó drum.

Using brushes, Willie Bobo plays an abakuá bell pattern on a snare drum. This cross-rhythmic figure divides the twelve-pulse cycle into three sets of four pulses. Since the main beats are grouped as four sets of three pulses (dotted quarter-notes in the top example), the bell pattern significantly contradicts the meter. Bobo played this same pattern and instrumentation on the Herbie Hancock jazz-descarga "Succotash."

Abakuá bell pattern.

Harmony

The harmonic structure of Santamaria's version is a simple Bb pentatonic blues.

Coltrane version

John Coltrane

Rhythm

In 1963 John Coltrane recorded "Afro Blue" with Elvin Jones on drums. Jones took the opposite approach of Santamaria, superimposing two cross-beats over every measure of a 3/4 jazz waltz (2:3). This particular swung 3/4 is perhaps the most common example of overt cross-rhythm in jazz. Coltrane and Jones reversed the metric hierarchy of Santamaria's composition, by performing in 3/4 swing (2:3), instead of 6/8 or 12/8 (3:2). See: Demonstration of 2:3 cross-rhythm in 3/4 jazz waltz.

Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things, also uses a 3/4 jazz waltz rhythm.

Harmony

Coltrane added several chords, making his version more harmonically sophisticated than Santamaria's original version.

Performances

• The first recorded performance of the piece was by the Cal Tjader Sextet, April 20, 1959, at the Sunset Auditorium in Carmel, California, with composer Mongo Santamaría on percussion; this performance was released on the LP Concert By The Sea, Part 1.
• Mongo Santamaría recorded the piece with his own band the following month on his LP Mongo, which was nevertheless released prior to the above recording.
• Abbey Lincoln performed the song on her 1959 album, Abbey Is Blue, with lyrics by Oscar Brown Jr.. (On the original LP sleeve it was credited to Herbie Mann)
• Rahsaan Roland Kirk on Brotherman in the Fatherland
• Derek Trucks Band's Soul Serenade and Roadsongs
• Gov't Mule's Live... With a Little Help from Our Friends
• Lizz Wright's Salt
• Michel Petrucciani's Date With Time
• John McLaughlin's After The Rain
• Andy Summers' The Last Dance Of Mr. X
• Susana Baca's Espiritu Vivo
• McCoy Tyner albums Song of the New World, McCoy Tyner Plays John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner and the Latin All-Stars
• Dee Dee Bridgewater's Afro Blue, 1974
• David Garfield's Retro Jazz Quintet, AIX Records
• Candida Rose's KabuMerikana: The Sun of Me
• Borgore's "Borgore Ruined Dubstep"
• Dianne Reeves's I Remember, 1988
• Stephane Wrembel's Barbes Brooklyn, 2006
• Shigeharu Mukai's Favorite Time, 1976
• Momo Wandel Soumah's Momo le doyen and Matchowe