Jorge López Ruiz - El Grito (Be With Records Reissue Vinyl LP)

Jorge López Ruiz - El Grito (Suite Para Orquesta De Jazz) | Vinyl LP - 2021 Be With Records Reissue (BEWITH078LP, pressed at Record Industry, Sunset-colour Mr Bongo exclusive)

• One of the most sought-after South American jazz records, banned by the Argentine military government shortly after its 1967 release, with most original CBS copies destroyed and survivors trading for serious money ever since.
• A protest suite born from a dare, written after philosopher Arturo Jauretche told a young López Ruiz to stop arguing on television and "say it with music."
• First vinyl reissue in over half a century, remastered from the original analogue tapes and pressed on Sunset-coloured wax as a limited Mr Bongo exclusive.

El Grito means "The Scream," and the record earns the title. Jorge López Ruiz was a Buenos Aires bassist, composer and arranger who scored films, and that cinematic instinct runs through all five movements of this suite. He leads a full orchestra: Mario Cosentino on alto, Baby López Furst on piano, Gustavo Bergalli on flugelhorn, his brother Oscar López Ruiz on guitar, Pichi Mazzei on drums, with López Ruiz himself picking up the double bass across the closing movements. The writing leans on hard bop and big band, but there are free jazz flourishes at the edges. What keeps it accessible is the melody. This is a furious record about living under a dictatorship, yet it never stops being easy to sit with, which is a strange and rare balance to strike.

For 50 years El Grito was close to impossible to hear. The original was pulled, the copies were smashed, but the reputation grew. Be With Records brought it back in 2021, remastered from the original analogue tapes and pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands. This particular copy is the Sunset-colour variant, a limited edition run exclusive to Mr Bongo. It is a foundational document of Argentine jazz that spent half a century out of reach. This is the 2021 Be With Records reissue (BEWITH078LP), a Mr. Bongo exclusive limited edition on sunset-coloured vinyl, remastered from the original analogue tapes and pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands.