Soul Sauce

"Soul Sauce" is a musical composition penned by conga player Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie.

It was made famous by Cal Tjader who made it the title of the eponymous album Soul Sauce in 1964.

Tjader had been toying with it for over a decade and it was a radio hit (hitting the top 20 on New York's influential pop music station WMCA in May 1965), and landed the album on Billboard's Top 50 Albums of 1965. Originally titled "Guachi Guaro" (a nonsensical phrase in Spanish), Tjader transformed the Gillespie/Chano Pozo composition into something new. (The name "Soul Sauce" came from Creed Taylor's suggestion for a catchier title and Willie Bobo's observation that Tjader's version was spicier than the original.) The song's identifiable sound is a combination of the call-outs made by Bobo ("Salsa ahi na ma ... sabor, sabor!") and Tjader's crisp vibes work. The album sold over 100,000 copies and popularized the word salsa in describing Latin dance music.