by Stephen Cook
Soul Sauce is one of the highlights from Tjader's catalog with its appealing mixture of mambo, samba, bolero, and boogaloo styles. Tjader's core band -- long-time piano player Lonnie Hewitt, drummer Johnny Rae and percussionist's Willie Bobo and Armanda PerazaÑ -- starts things off with a cooled down version of Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo's latin jazz classic &Guachi Guaro (Soul Sauce)&. With the help of guitarist Kenny Burrell, trumpeter Donald Byrd, and tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath they offer up a lively version of Mongo Santamaria's &Afro Blue.& Sticking to his music's &Mambo Without a Migraine& reputation, though, Tjader's musicians keep things fairly calm, especially on Latinized ballads such as Billy May's &Somewhere In the Night& and on midtempo swingers like &Tanya.& On Soul Sauce Tjader had perfected a middle ground between the brisk, collegiate mambo of his early Fantasy records and the mood-heavy sound of Asian themed albums like Breeze From the East. In the process, he dodged the &Latin lounge& label with an album full of smart arrangements, subtly provocative vibe solos, and intricate percussion backing.