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" Afro Blue" is a jazz standard composed by Mongo Santamaría.
"Afro Blue" was the first jazz standard built on a typical African 3:2 cross-rhythm, or hemiola.Peñalosa, David (2010). The Clave Matrix; Afro-Cuban Rhythm: Its Principles and African Origins p. 26. Redway, CA: Bembe Inc. . The song begins with the bass repeatedly playing six cross-beats per measure of or six cross-beats per four main beats—6:4 (two cells of 3:2). The following example shows the ostinato "Afro Blue" bass line. The cross noteheads indicate the main beat music (not bass notes).
\new Staff <<
\new voice \relative c {
\set Staff.midiInstrument = #"acoustic bass"
\set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 105
\time 12/8
\clef bass
\stemUp \repeat volta 2 { d4 a'8~ a d4 d,4 a'8~ a d4 }
}
\new voice \relative c {
\override NoteHead.style = #'cross
\stemDown \repeat volta 2 { g4. g g g }
}
>>
While the bass sounds the six secondary beats, Paul Horn's flute solo and Emil Richards' marimba solo emphasize the four primary beats. Francisco Aguabella takes the conga drum solo on the first recording, quoting phrases from the vocabulary of the abakuá bonkó drum.
Using brushes, Willie Bobo plays an abakuá bell pattern on a snare drum. This cross-rhythmic figure divides the twelve-pulse cycle into three sets of four pulses. Since the main beats are grouped as four sets of three pulses (dotted quarter-notes in the top example), the bell pattern significantly contradicts the meter. Bobo played this same pattern and instrumentation on the Herbie Hancock jazz-descarga "Succotash.""Succotash" Inventions and Dimensions (Herbie Hancock). Blue Note CD 84147-2 (1963).
The harmonic structure of Santamaria's version is a simple B pentatonic blues.
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