Q. Does the world really need yet another “various artists” collection of Cuban music?
A. If it’s as good as this one, yes.
I didn’t expect to like this, one of dozens of similar CDs to hit the market since the Afro Cuban All Stars and Buena Vista Social Club started the latest Cuban music revival in 1998. But as usual, the masterminds behind the Rough Guides have done it just right and come up with a winner. The Cuban Music Story is intended to accompany the Rough Guide to Cuban Music book, but it stands perfectly well on its own.
Producer Phil Stanton and compiler David Flower sought to demonstrate the interrelationships inherent in the best Cuban music of today, and its ties to the music’s pioneers. They’ve succeeded brilliantly with a CD that is a primer on the art form, but never an academic exercise. The Cuban Music Story sings, it swings, it sways and it even rocks.
Also as usual, the liner notes are excellent, informative and clearly written. There’s lots of background on the project as a whole, and on each track. And what tracks they are. There’s not a bad one, or even one that’s less than excellent, out of 15. The CD opens and closes with two influential figures, bandleader Beny Moré and pianist Pedro “Peruchín” Justiz. The latter’s rendition of “Laura” is particularly poignant, a bit of real old-style Cuban-American jazz, the master’s piano accompanied only by bass and percussion.
In between these bookmarks is a veritable who’s who of Cuban music, including many of the players from “Buena Vista” and “All Stars.” Some individuals show up on several tracks, particularly flutist Orlando “Maraca” Valle. Maraca wrote some of the pieces and plays as a member of two or three of the ensembles, and his band Otra Vision performs the album’s centerpiece, a traditional son titled “Quiero a mi Guajira.” The vocal duet of Rolo Martinez and Compay Segundo is sublime, as are the numerous solo flights of fancy performed by Barbarito Torres on laúd and Maraca himself on flute.
But there are just too many other excellent tracks on this CD to describe them all. The Afro Cuban Jazz Project, another of Maraca’s ensembles, plays an updated son, with contributions from both Torres on laud and the great Pancho Amat on tres. And of course there’s a track from Amat’s brilliant De San Antonio a Maisi, which is practically reason enough to buy this disc if you’re in the U.S., because Amat’s CD is very hard to find here.
The biggest surprise for me was the delightfully infectious “Somos Lo Maximo,” by the female salsa-rap group Azúcar Letal. The Afro Cuban All Stars are represented by “Al Vaiven de me Carreta,” a very smooth, suave but funky guajira with Ibrahim Ferrer on lead vocals, Torres on laúd, and the amazingly supple young David Alfaro on piano. What a find Alfaro is! A young Cuban pianist who doesn’t just showcase speed and volume, but subtlety and technique in the tradition of masters like Ruben Gonzalez.
Other big names of the Cuban music revival are also here, like Cubanismo and Sierra Maestra. A grand juxtaposition is Guillermo Portabales’ original, stripped-down version of “El Carretero,” followed by a track from Eliades Ochoa’s Cuarteto Patria — Ochoa performed a sublime cover of “Carretero” on Buena Vista. This Cuarteto Patria track is an amazing thing, an instrumental of “Quizas, Quizas” from the album Cubafrica, with Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango.
If you buy one Cuban music CD this year, it should be The Cuban Music Story. But I guarantee that if you do, you’ll find yourself planning to also buy some of the albums from which this excellent sampler is drawn.
(World Music Network, 2001)
