Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Ibrahim Ferrer performing his Afro-Cuban music.
CD Review
Buena Vista Social Club, produced by Ry Cooder, Nonesuch Records, 1997
Usually when I write about Cuba in this space it is to review something about Fidel Castro, the July 26th Movement , or Che as part of the defense of the Cuban revolution and the struggle to break the American blockade that has lasted since the early days of the revolution and makes no sense whatsoever today. But enough of politics, as least direct politics, for a minute. Here I review the, mainly, pre-revolution music as it has survived in post-revolutionary Cuba. Ry Cooder has produced this CD, as well as a well done film documentary, as part of an appreciation of the world music movement that has found a niche on the musical scene.
The centerpiece here is the ‘discovery’ of the late Ibraham Ferrer and the traditional Cuban music associated with old Havana, with the old sangria religious rituals, and with the very real Buena Vista Social Club (a club house that has physically seen better days). Along the way we find that there is a very nice and thriving continuation of this old time music that Americans, for a time, got to hear as Ferrer toured the United States in the wake of the Cooder film documentary and the release of this CD. The booklet that accompanies this CD fills in the gaps about the sources of the music (in Cuban slavery/sugar cane days) and of the instruments used that are slightly different from the ones used here and also gives English translations of the Spanish lyrics. Dance away to this stuff.
CD Review
Buena Vista Social Club, produced by Ry Cooder, Nonesuch Records, 1997
Usually when I write about Cuba in this space it is to review something about Fidel Castro, the July 26th Movement , or Che as part of the defense of the Cuban revolution and the struggle to break the American blockade that has lasted since the early days of the revolution and makes no sense whatsoever today. But enough of politics, as least direct politics, for a minute. Here I review the, mainly, pre-revolution music as it has survived in post-revolutionary Cuba. Ry Cooder has produced this CD, as well as a well done film documentary, as part of an appreciation of the world music movement that has found a niche on the musical scene.
The centerpiece here is the ‘discovery’ of the late Ibraham Ferrer and the traditional Cuban music associated with old Havana, with the old sangria religious rituals, and with the very real Buena Vista Social Club (a club house that has physically seen better days). Along the way we find that there is a very nice and thriving continuation of this old time music that Americans, for a time, got to hear as Ferrer toured the United States in the wake of the Cooder film documentary and the release of this CD. The booklet that accompanies this CD fills in the gaps about the sources of the music (in Cuban slavery/sugar cane days) and of the instruments used that are slightly different from the ones used here and also gives English translations of the Spanish lyrics. Dance away to this stuff.
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