At 77, Ibrahim Ferrer has lost none of his cheeky charm. Buenos Hermanos lives beautifully up to its title--"Good Brothers"--with those Cuban stalwarts Cachaito Lopez and Chucho Valdes joined by that genius of the electric guitar, Manuel Galban, and with the Blind Boys of Alabama enriching the basic mix. Moreover, Ry Cooder, who originally coaxed Buena Vista Social Club into life, here acts as midwife once again. This CD, he says, was "the last chance in the world today to work with such a voice." Well, Ferrer's voice no longer has the ringing exhilaration we heard on his solo album, Ibrahim Ferrer. His effects are more muted now, more laid back, but they still cover a kaleidoscopic range of tone and color. He delivers his boleros with lovely swing, and he radiates the genuineness of a premarketing age. It's easy to believe that most of these tracks were one-takes: the whole thing has wonderful freshness.
Created as a benefit project for Artists' Project Earth, an organization devoted to protecting the environment, reversing climate change, and tendering disaster relief, this compilation pairs Western pop stars (U2, Sting, Artic Monkeys, et al) and their hits with all-new arrangements performed by members of Cuba’s Buena Vista Social Club plus other Havana-based talent. The overall effect is of a well-meaning but not entirely simpatico mutual admiration society. Coldplay's "Clocks" is a good example; the lead vocal is coolly lethargic, engulfing the spiky crags of the rhythm section like syrup on a waffle. But then, most of the singers sound strangely unconnected to the frisky 1-2-3/1-2 of the clavé beat. The contrast between the two groups of players could have been bracing, and to many ears it perhaps will be, but most of the time, they seem to transmitting from parallel universes. Not surprisingly, the best tracks are those in which hometown icons are left to do what they do best. But the late, great Ibrahim Ferrer's marvelous interpretation of "As Time Goes By" (his final recording) and Omara Portuondo's wistful yet powerful cover of "Killing Me Softly" only serve to further showcase what’s amiss with the rest of the album.
Tracklist
COLDPLAY - Clocks
JACK JOHNSON - Better Together
ARCTIC MONKEYS - Dancing Shoes
DIDO and FAITHLESS - One Step Too Far
IBRAHIM FERRER - As Time Goes By
U2 with COCO FREEMAN - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
MAROON 5 - She Will Be Loved
KAISER CHIEFS - Modern Way
OMARA PORTUONDO - Killing Me Softly
VANYA and RDM featuring QUINCY JONES - Ai No Corrida
The Conga Kings are back with their second Chesky Records release to prove that these master congueros have more rhythmic tales to tell. Featuring Candido Camero, Carlos "Patato" Valdes and Giovanni Hidalgo, Jazz Descargas is a spontaneous celebration of modern rhythm and melody, a joyous colloquium of Jazz and Afro-Cuban sounds by the likes of Machito, Dizzy Gillespie and Tito Puente. Historically, musically and conceptually, this rhythmic dream team is creating the genuine article. The Conga Kings are the originals giving energized performances from the musical revolution they helped to create. The Conga Kings are joined on Jazz Descargas by special guests Phil Woods, Mario Rivera, Chocolate and Jimmy Bosch.
It should never cease to amaze how spry and dramatically potent a force is the Buena Vista Social Club. The group--really a gaggle of aging Cuban maestros brought together for stunning all-star performances--keeps its footing in Cuban dance music at the same time as it revels in the lax tempo of layered hand percussion and traditional rhythms. Ibrahim Ferrer stepped to the international fore as the vocalist on the eponymous BVSC CD in 1997 and here furthers his already-obvious command of everything from sultry, horn-swaying ballads to gritty son tunes like "Mamí Me Gustá." Ferrer's tattered vocal inflections shape the more rollicking tunes so their texture is palpable, especially when belted in antiphonal give-and-takes with the rest of the huge band he totes along here. A 15-member-strong string section steps forward on the bolero tracks, which send off a smoldering passion that's startling in light of the BVSC's heightened, horn-charged charts. But the rich string passages color songs in wide brush strokes, which is to say that they heighten the passion to no end. Ferrer's debut might come in his twilight years, but it's a majorly luminous event.
While she came to global prominence as the female singer on the Buena Vista Social Club album and in the film, Omara Portuondo has a career that--like the other articipants--stretches back many years. She puts her experience to good use on this record, sounding for all the world like a Cuban Billie Holiday, smoky and quietly tragic, with a history of lost love. The lush arrangements, which often sound transplanted straightfrom 1950s Havana, frame her voice exquisitely while guests such as Ibrahim Ferrer, CompaySegundo, and Rubén González add their inimitable talents to the mix. Her reading of "The Man I Love" ("El Hombre Que Yo Ame") is also a microcosm of the disc--slightly jazzy, with a yearning vocal that's emotive without ever being overwrought. There's little doubt that Portuondo is a world-class singer, and this is the ideal showcase for her extraordinary talents.
The Buena Vista Social Club was the name of a members-only music club in Havana, Cuba that was at its height during the 1940s. In the late 1990s Wim Wenders made a movie upon the initiative of Ry Cooder called Buena Vista Social Club about some of the musicians who had performed there and their involvement in the production of an album released in 1997 also called Buena Vista Social Club. Both movie and album were highly successful, and started a craze for Cuban music in the United States and Europe. A number of subsequent albums featuring the same musicians have been released, with the title "Buena Vista Social Club" being used as something like a brand to link them.
Setuagenarian percussionist, singer and songwriter Paulino Salgado 'Batata' hails from the village of San Basilio de Palenque, hidden away in an isolated mountain range close to Colombia's Caribbean coast. This is the legendary 'village of the Cimarróns', founded four centuries ago by Africans who had escaped the slave port of nearby Cartagena. They successfully defended it from attack by the Spanish, who eventually gave up and 'granted' them their freedom.
Batata and his excellent band specialise in son palenquera and champeta, and may already have come to your attention through the inclusion of the track Ataole on the "Champeta Criolla Vol. 2" compilation. That CD focussed largely on Cartagena's sound system based form of champeta, a newish hybrid style which cannibalises pan-African and indigenous Colombian influences, spicing them up with mucho shouting and sometimes irritating use of trashy effects. What might be a lot of fun at a rum-fuelled street party makes for a sometimes wearing experience in other contexts.Thankfully Batata's band stick to a much rootsier groove, employing tiple, accordion, brass, twinkling soukous guitar, plenty of drummers and call-and-response vocals to create their hypnotic grooves.
Batata belongs to a famed dynasty of drummers and got his first break in the 1960s when he joined Toto la Momposina's group and toured with her for the next two decades. She's also recorded a number of his songs. The sleevenotes tellingly describe him as 'the Wendo Kolosoy of Colombia', and like that grand old man of Congolese rumba, he has a deliciously off-key lived in voice.
Arsenio Rodríguez was a Cuban musician who developed the son montuno. He was a prolific composer and wrote nearly two hundred songs.
He was born in Güira de Macurijes in the province of Matanzas. As a young child, Rodríguez was blinded when a horse (or possibly a mule) kicked him in the head.
Later, he became a musician, and eventually became one of the most renowned bandleaders on the island earning him the nickname "El Ciego Maravilloso". His music emphasized the Afro-Cuban rhythm as well as the melodic lead of the tres, which he played. In 1928 he played his own compositions with the Sexteto Boston, which disbanded in 1937 because as a blind he felt unable to be a bandleader, and he joined the Septeto Bellamar of cornettist José Interián. From 1940 to 1947 he led a band again, Arsenio Rodríguez y su Conjunto. He then went to New York where he hoped to get cured from his blindness but was told that his seeing nerves had been completely destroyed. This experience led him to compose the bolero La Vida es un Sueño (Life is a dream). He went on to play with percussionist Chano Pozo and other great players of what became Latin Jazz like Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, and Mario Bauza. He had success in the US and went to exile there in 1953. But at the end of the 1950s the Mambo craze more or less petered out, and Rodríguez showed no interest in modern Latin styles like Guaracha or Boogaloo. He tried a new start in Los Angeles but had no success and died there as a poor man in relative obscurity in 1971.
Barbarito Torres played as a guest instrumentalist on Buena Vista Social Club and A Toda Cuba Le Gusta before gathering together Cuba's premier musicians and recording this amazing debut. A sensual mix of Cuban son, danzon, and guaracha, Havana Cafe makes austere use of instrumentation, using only the laud (Cuban lute), guitar, percussion, and vocals to create a wall of wonderfully spirited music. "Hijo del Siboney" rings in the collection with bright melodies and vibrant guitars before the set goes on to boast gem after gem of traditional and contemporary Cuban music. Singer Pio Leyva lends his brassy bellow to two tracks, adding an authentic dimension that's refreshingly void of pretension and characteristic of this playful, joyous album. Singer Ibrahim Ferrer also appears in all of his romantic glory. It's rare when the "in the moment" chemistry of musicians collaborating is captured on disc, but with Havana Cafe, the chemistry is thankfully captured forever.
Following in the steps of the Buena Vista Social Club mania that in 1997 launched a worldwide revival of traditional Cuban music by an all-star cast of veteran septuagenarian and octogenarian players, we have Buena Vista: The Next Generation. This new all-star cast of players is comprised mostly of the children and grandchildren of some of the greatest Cuban music legends, under the musical direction of trombonist Juan Pablo Torres. Adding a fresh breath of flavor and sound to the traditional sounds of Cuban music in this recording are Rubén González Jr. on piano (son of Ruben González), vocalist Manuel Licea (son of singer Puntillita), bassist Lazaro López "Cachao" (nephew of Cachaito), vocalist Maria Ochoa (sister of Eliades Ochoa), vocalist Miguelito Cuní Jr. (son of the famous singer of the same name), percussionist Johannes Bonat García (son of vocalist Teresita García), vocalist Conchita Torres (sister of Barbarito Torres), trumpeter Elpidio Chappottín (son of Félix Chappottín), and Alejandro, Ernesto and Leonardo Repilado (the grandsons of Francisco Repilado, alias Compay Segundo). Special guest musicians include Generoso Jiménez, Tata Güines, Changuito, Julio Padrón, Raúl Plana, Pio Leiva, Lazaro Reyes, and Pancho Amat. Highlights include the tracks Los Herederos (which features the veteran vocalists on the lead and their siblings on chorus), Pa' Los Rumberos (featuring Conchita Torres on vocals), and the Compay Segundo classic Chan Chan (in a version interpreted by the grandsons of the composer). The CD is packed with plenty of rumbas, sones and other traditional Cuban rhythms.
The magnetic, ninetysomething Francisco Repilado, better known as Compay Segundo, recorded the first 78 rpm discs in Cuba in the 1930s with his seven-stringed armónico/tres guitar. After decades of obscurity following the 1959 revolution, guitarist-producer Ry Cooder catapulted Segundo to world fame with the hit Buena Vista Social Club CD. On Duets, Segundo's silky baritone voice is paired with old and new friends and family. Segundo's BVSC homegirl Omara Portuondo puts her spin on the classic track "La Pluma," while Segundo's guitarist son, Basilio, synchs with dad on "Linda Graciela." Segundo's global duets include the mesmerizing morna-charanga "Linda Graciela" with Cape Verdean empress Cesaria Evora, the Gallic-graced "Morir de Amor" with French legend Charles Aznavour, and an Afro-Moorish rendition of "Saludo a Chango" with Algerian singer Khaled. Segundo also pairs up with neuva trova icons Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes, and even kicks it with the "Mambo No. 5" man Lou Bega and actor Antonio Banderas. Not bad for someone nine decades young
Tracklist
Saludo a Chango (w/ Khaled)
Fidelidad (w/ Silvio Rodriguez)
Lagrimas Negras (w/ Cesaria Evora)
Chan Chan (w/ Eliades Ochoa)
Viejos Sones de Santiago (w/ Duo Evocacion)
Virgen del Pino (w/ Santiago Auseron)
La Juma de Ayer (w/ Pio Leyva)
Baby Keep Smiling (w/ Lou Bega)
Frutas del Caney (w/ Felix Valoy)
Morir de Amor (w/ Charles Aznavour)
Linda Graciela (w/ Basilio Repilado)
Macusa (w/ Pablo Milanes)
La Pluma (w/ Omara Portuondo)
Jaliancito (Tu novia te boto) (w/ Martirio and Raimundo Amador)
Compay Segundo was a Cuban musician and songwriter.
Segundo was born Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz and brought up in the city of Santiago de Cuba. He became a songwriter and performer, well-known to fans of Cuban music. He was also the inventor of the armónico, a seven-stringed guitar-like instrument.
In his early years he played the guitar, the clarinet and the bongos. He also played the congas.
His curious stage name derives from the fact that he played second voice in a popular duet of the 1950s called Los Compadres (compadre, or compay for short, in Latin America means "baptism brother", but as a colloquialism is used also to designate a good friend).
However, international fame only came in 1997 with the release of the Buena Vista Social Club album, a hugely successful recording which won several Grammy awards. Compay Segundo appeared in the film of the same title, made subsequently by Wim Wenders.
His most famous composition is "Chan Chan", the opening track on the Buena Vista Social Club album, whose four opening chords are instantly recognizable all over the world. "Chan Chan" was recorded by Segundo himself various times as well as by countless other Latin artists.
A rousing ensemble recording, A Todo Cuba Le Gusta features a band made up largely of Cuban music elders. As a reflection of their collective experience playing multiple percussion instruments and brightly lit trumpets, the Afro-Cuban All Stars churn with high drama, even while playing music that's paced with extravagant patience. The time signatures overlay and run against each other in a casual trot while the trumpets blare with fat fullness. Add to that the impassioned group vocals and you've got a hard-to-beat Cuban traditional music session
Afro-Cuban All-Stars is a Cuban band led by Juan de Marcos González (formerly tres player for Sierra Maestra). Their music is a mix of all the styles of Cuban music, including bolero, chachachá, salsa, son montuno, timba, guajira, danzón, rumba and abakua. They are especially well-known internationally for their 1997 album A Toda Cuba Le Gusta, which was recorded at the Buena Vista Social Club sessions. Members have included Rubén González, Raul Planas, Pío Leyva, Puntillita Licea, Yanko Pisaco and more recently Caridad Hierrezuelo and Pedro Calv
At 77, Ibrahim Ferrer has lost none of his cheeky charm. Buenos Hermanos lives beautifully up to its title--"Good Brothers"--with those Cuban stalwarts Cachaito Lopez and Chucho Valdes joined by that genius of the electric guitar, Manuel Galban, and with the Blind Boys of Alabama enriching the basic mix. Moreover, Ry Cooder, who originally coaxed Buena Vista Social Club into life, here acts as midwife once again. This CD, he says, was "the last chance in the world today to work with such a voice." Well, Ferrer's voice no longer has the ringing exhilaration we heard on his solo album, Ibrahim Ferrer. His effects are more muted now, more laid back, but they still cover a kaleidoscopic range of tone and color. He delivers his boleros with lovely swing, and he radiates the genuineness of a premarketing age. It's easy to believe that most of these tracks were one-takes: the whole thing has wonderful freshness.
