The most respected folks in any field are those capacious enough to craft something completely new – or at least something that masquerades as new and fools enough people along the way. And while those people obviously deserve a huge amount of fawning and any accolades that go along with it all, there are folks who possess an equal amount of bravura for interpreting other’s works.

Granted, people who base their entire career on interpreting work others’ have produced most likely won’t be around until the end of time or even necessarily be remembered a few years one. Sinatra – regardless of what folks think about his actual singing ability, which was negligible – was able to work up an enormously successful stint in jazz and lounge musics based solely on his ability to render other’s songs in familiar terms. Maybe that’s why the singer possessed a talent for acting as well.

Either way, Mongo Santamaria isn’t as well know as Sinatra, but probably engendered the sprit of an age better than his contemporary. Santamaria can’t said to have written any notable compositions – or if he did, they’ve not been retained in the American songbook, or become jazz standards. What the percussionist was able to do, though, was take pretty much any then current hit from sixties’ culture, turn it into some amalgam of funk, soul and latin sounds and arrive at some crowd pleasing grooves still sought after today.

Part of what’s made Santamaria an enduring figure is the fact that he was able to figure which songs would translate well to his own sound and what would be easily taken in by passing fans of jazz. Apparently he was right more often than not. But part of his pretty consistent oeuvre is that as a bandleader Santamaria was able to wrangle some top tier performers.

Because of his renown in the world of rhythms, the band leader was able to snag Bernard ‘Pretty’ Purdie to helm the drum set on 1969’s Soul Bag. The album’s just one of the soul focused efforts Santamaria would work out during the decade, but it sports some of the finest playing in the percussionist’s catalog.

Counting Sonny Fortune as well as Hubert Laws on flute and sax almost assured the date to be a success. “Green Onions” gets a reworking with a slight Latin flair. And while the song remains relatively tied to the Booker T original, the backing percussion firmly claims it as Santamaria’s.

What’s odd about the disc is that it includes a few numbers that crop up on other albums led by the percussionist. No one can ever hear the Temptations’ “Cloud Nine” too frequently, but it’s still curious as to why anyone would include the same track on different albums released within a few years of one another. Whatever the answer actually is, it points to the problem with working in the mold that Santamaria did. It can’t be said that he unloosed a total bummer on listeners, but there was obviously a lack of direction at some points during his recording career.