Album Review

Laurie Mercer [allmusic.com]

Los Admiradores were another of Enoch Light's all-star studio creations, put together specifically to explore stereo recording techniques and exploit the large emerging market of fanatical audiophiles. Released a year after his massive hit ''Persuasive Percussion,'' the LP Bongos Flutes Guitars is not a collection of studio ploys and tricks designed to beguile the public with ping-pong sound effects or other stereo gimmickry, but a subtle and deft exploration of texture, color, and rhythm, with minimal accompaniment of muted horns, double bass, drums; a recording of superlative definition, minimal clutter, afloat in its own ambience. Meticulous liner notes (Light is widely credited as the inventor of the gatefold cover) detail the musical goal of each piece and how it is achieved, duly crediting the musicians -- including Doc Severinsen, Tommy Mottola, and Ray Barretto -- while documenting such minutiae as microphone placement and tape editing specifications. Someday Light will be regarded as a studio innovator and pioneer in the same league as Les Paul, and then his considerable body of work will be reissued on CD or 180 gram vinyl for delighted musical historians everywhere; until then the aware audiophile will have to search record racks for such brilliant forgotten gems as Bongos Flutes Guitars.