Jazz · afro 6/8 · 6/8 compound

Afro-Cuban 6/8 vamp (Afro Blue)

165 bpm Loop: all
8ths
Clave
Kick
Hi-hat
Rim
Piano
Bass

Mixer

Keyboard

Afro 6/8 vamp — the Mongo Santamaría / Coltrane "Afro Blue" feel: a jazz rhythm section playing the Afro-Cuban bembé in 6/8, two bars to one cycle of the 12/8 bell (x·x·xx·x·x·x, on the clave line). The bpm is the eighth-note's quarter grouping as everywhere in this dictionary, so 165 is a dotted-quarter pulse of 110.

The bass plays the signature ostinato — root held for a dotted quarter, then fifth, seventh and octave in eighths that run up into the next bar; the piano states a quartal voicing on 1 and again on the fourth eighth (the bell's "xx" pair), and the kit keeps it small: kick on 1, cross-stick on the 3rd and 6th eighths, hat on the second dotted quarter. Harmony is a static i–iv (Gm7 / Cm7).

Listen for the two pulses at once — three groups of two (the bass eighths) against two groups of three (kick and hat); the bell holds both. Practice: sing the bell, tap the dotted-quarter pulse with your foot, then play the bass line and keep the fifth-seventh-octave run inside the bell.

Sources

  • standard practice; no transcribed source (bell pattern as in Scivales, Play Latin Piano Like a Pro, ch. 22 Ex-113-7)

Keyboard

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