by Thomas Altmann » Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:58 pm
I am with tamboricua. I am both a jazz drummer and a conga player, and I never liked to tie jazz drummers with a freer post-bop approach to a conga tumbao. It strangles the trap drummer and makes the conguero sound cheesy.
If you want to hear a really fast tumbao in swing, listen to Mongo Santamaria's "Dirty Willie" on the Skins CD (or LP).
The field for a conga player to do the comping, fill-in, and repique along with the jazz drummers left hand & right foot is yet unexplored. I did it sometimes in medium tempos, but not often enough to really master it, make it sound good and matured, or represent it as "my style" or whatever. I guess I have to leave it over to guys who have more opportunities to play. Your chance!
To me, the conga/swing combination has always a more groove- or even dance-oriented, boogalooish flavour and should be handled with discretion in a hardcore jazz setting (apart from early Afro-Cuban Jazz à la Dizzy, Machito etc.).
Thomas