MILTON CARDONA
BEMBE
a recording of the songs and rhythms of ten Orishas (Deities) of Santeria

MILTON CARDONA, HECTOR  HERNANDEZ, STEVE BERRIOS, JOSE FERNANDEZ, SANDREA  WILES, YOMIYOMI AWOLOWO, CAROLE AWOLOWO, PAULETTE NIRVANA BUCKLEY, AMMA OFORIWAA AGYAPON, DENISE OLA DEJEAN, LINDA EVANS, AMMA DAWN, TERESA GOMEZÜ

ulute to Elegua (La LuBanche); Elegua; Ogun; Ochosi; Ebioso; Bablu Aye; Obatala; Chango; Yemaya; Ochun; Odudua; Elegua (Closing)

produced by Kip Hanrahan

recorded August 1985
released May 1986

AMCL 1004

"This exquisite recording finds one of the most gifted percussionists in Latin music today working in what is perhaps his true element - the Santeria liturgy.  The spiritual power of this Afro-Caribbean religious ceremony, sung in Yoruba to the accompaniment of a three-man percussion bata is awesome, but it is the intense articulation of rhythm that makes this music so devastating, incredible."
-JD Considine,Musician Magazine

"Is a stone soul picnic, so party down.  If you're going to buy one record this summer, here
is one that, in the words of Hebrew National, answers to a higher authority."
- Glenn O'Brien, Interview

".Bembe reveals that improvisatory music needn't be secular to swing."















"A wonderful album - absorbing, mesmerizing, beautiful and fun, graceful and sensual.  It draws ou into a space and reality all its own, with a mood and flow quite distant from the everyday and yet hauntingly familiar.  I found myself playing it over and over..."
- City Paper (Washington DC)