Ed Fast & CongaBop!
Dance America: 250 Years of Rhythm
Dwight Library
Hartford
July 16, 2026
My secret love affair with the vibraphone began in high school, when my grandmother bought me a Casio keyboard for Christmas. I would compose songs using the various instruments the keyboard could reproduce. My favorite was #87 out of the hundred different sounds it offered: the vibraphone.
Dwight Library on New Park Avenue in Hartford rekindled that love with the music of Ed Fast & CongaBop!, a Latin jazz ensemble that incorporates Afro-Carribean influences from mambo, rumba and more. The band is currently made up of Jorge Fuentes on conga, Gianni Gardner on guitar, David Uhl on bass and Ed Fast himself on the vibraphone.
Not only did Fast and his band provide a great concert despite the heat, they gave a history lesson on the wide range of the influences of Latin jazz. The band’s set was composed of songs performed by legendary Latin jazz performer and vibraphone player Cal Tjader, whose birthday is the same day as the performance.
Tjader was the son of Swedish-American vaudevillians; his mother was a pianist and his father was a tap dancer. One does not typically think of Swedes or vaudeville when it comes to Latin jazz, but Tjader has influenced Latin jazz since his death in the 1980s. Even more interesting is the fact that one of the songs CongaBop! performed was called Viva Cepeda, written to celebrate Hall of Fame baseball player Orlando Cepeda.
Fast was magnificent on the vibraphone, using the instrument’s unique sound to create echoes and callbacks even as his mallets flew across the bars. Vibraphones (the real ones, anyway, not my Casio) make a lovely sound that seems to expand and contract as the note hangs in the air, hence the name. Fast utilized every part of that sound like a virtuoso. The rest of the band was terrific as well, with each song turning into an extended jam session that showed off the talents
The history and music didn’t stop there, as they continued to play through Tjader’s extensive library. Eventually they came to a song with a Connecticut connection. Bill Fitch is one of the most famous conga players of the 20th century, and he played in Tjader’s band. Fitch is also from New Haven, and Fast explained his deep roots within the city. Fitch composed the song Insight for Tjader, and decades later its rhythm is so smooth and infectious that it had the audience dancing in front of the library, and even joining the band.
Ed Fast & CongaBop! presented a unique but quintessential take on America in this 250th year of its existence. Where else can a band representing different Latin American cultures play music written for a band led by a Swede, about a Puerto Rican baseball player? I wish I still had my Casio so that I could try and recreate the amazing vibraphone play I heard today. Thankfully for my neighbors, I have the recordings of Ed Fast and his band to make do.
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