Mandrill
One of funk's most progressive outfits, Mandrill paid
the price for their ambitions in commercial returns -- not
that they never earned a reputation or an audience, but
their expansive, eclectic vision often worked better when
given an album's worth of room to roam, rather than being
condensed into hit singles. Mandrill's jam-heavy brand of
funk was liberally infused with Latin, Caribbean, and jazz
influences, plus blues, psychedelia, African music, and
straight-up rock. Their freewheeling approach was a definite
influence on the Parliament-Funkadelic collective (an early
incarnation of which actually served as their opening act),
and their grooves have been sampled by numerous hip-hop
acts in modern days.
Mandrill was formed in Brooklyn in 1968 by brothers Ric
Wilson (sax, vocals), Lou Wilson (trumpet, vocals), and
Carlos Wilson (trombone, vocals), all of whom were born
in Panama and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood
by musically inclined parents. Ric Wilson had already taken
up a career as a cardiologist when the group officially
formed; the brothers had performed together for quite some
time, rehearsing at the beauty salon where their mother
worked. Taking their name from the variety of West African
ape (because of its distinctive, colorful face and well-developed,
family-oriented social organization), Mandrill soon added
keyboardist Claude "Coffee" Cave, guitarist Omar Mesa, bassist
Bundie Cenas, and drummer Charlie Padro. They signed with
Polydor and released their eponymous debut album in 1970,
displaying the influence of the burgeoning jazz-rock and
Latin rock movements in addition to soul and funk. For the
follow-up, 1972's Mandrill Is, Fudgie Kae Solomon replaced
Cenas on bass, and the group scored its first hits with
"Ape Is High" and "Git It All."
With new drummer Neftali Santiago, Mandrill scored their
biggest hit with 1973's Composite Truth, which also produced
their highest-charting single, "Fencewalk." This incarnation
ranked as the classic Mandrill lineup, but didn't take long
to splinter; after 1974's Just Outside of Town (which featured
the hit "Mango Meat"), guitarist Mesa left (citing "spiritual
reasons") and was replaced by Dougie Rodriguez, formerly
of Santana. After the soundscape-heavy double-LP Mandrilland,
disputes over the Wilson brothers' control of the band led
to the departure of every non-Wilson member save for Claude
Cave. Leaving Polydor, Mandrill cut two albums for United
Artists with a session rhythm section over 1975-1976, and
subsequently caught on with Arista. Their label debut, 1977's
We Are One, proved to be their biggest hit since Composite
Truth, spawning the club hits "Funky Monkey" and "Can You
Get It"; it also marked the temporary return of Santiago
on drums, the addition of another brother, Wilfredo "Wolf"
Wilson, on bass, and the debut of guitarist Joaquin Jessup.
Two more albums for Arista followed over the next two years
(New Worlds and Getting in the Mood), and the band also
handled the soundtracks for the Muhammad Ali flick The Greatest
(1977) and the cult gang film The Warriors (1979). Mandrill
went on to cut one more album, Energize!, for Montage in
1982 before disbanding. Fudgie Kae Solomon later died of
a drug overdose.
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