Hi Joni (and rest of Listees...),
--- "joni ." <kitty429@hotmail.com> wrote:
1 Are these two groups related to eachother and if so how?
2 Does anyone know which of their albums are best or is
there a particular album that is better to pick up from
these latin Gods!?
--- Stimp <stimp@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> To answer your question, although both
> records came out at approximately the same time, they
> don't have anything (that I know of) to do with each
> other.
> The Buena Vista Social Club got the huge, well
> deserved props that it did mostly because it's a Ry
> Cooder collaboration, and Warner knows that anything that
> Ry Cooder touches turns to gold.
>
Yes, as Juuso Koponen noted, both the Buena Vista Social
Club and the Afro-Cuban All Stars share many similarities,
including singers, musicians, and labels, while being
produced and Exec-produced by the same people (Ry Cooder
and Nick Gold, respectively).
With apologies to Stimp, while Ry Cooder's collaboration
may have added many resources for promotion, etc., in my
opinion, BVSC succeeds _in spite of_ his input. His
intrusions on slide and electric guitar licks seem
distinctly out of place. For my money, the ACAS' first
album, 'A Toda Cuba Le Gusta', is the better buy because
Cooder's intrusions are fewer, and the prowess of these
cuban luminaries is left to shine (their second album,
'Distinto, Differente' provides much of the same, although
I think I like the first one better - but that might be
because I've had the chance to listen to it more).
With the success of these two releases, just about everyone
featured on these releases put out their own solo album,
with titles from Ruben Gonzales, Ibrahim Ferrer, Iliades
Ochoa, Compay Segondo, and Omara Portuondo. In addition
there have been many "roots of buena vista"-type albums,
some which feature early vintage recordings of said
artists. In truth, it's been quite hard to keep tabs on
all these releases, and because of their ubiquity, i'm
starting to take a 'been there, heard that' attitude to all
these cuban/latin releases, and all the tracks start
sounding the same after a while. I can attest to having
listened to the Ferrer and Portuondo albums, and quite
enjoyed them. I also liked the Gonzales recording.
Branching out a bit, you might want to look at what some
other labels have been putting out. Cubop has been
releasing and re-releasing solid latin recordings for years
now. Their most recent 'Viva Cubop' compilation might be a
good place to start. Six Degrees records has also been
putting out a bunch of dance-floor friendly dance records.
Their recent 'Cuba Without Borders' has a very similar feel
to the BVSC and ACAS records.
And then if you want to bring it back to the acid jazz
topic, there's a couple of recordings which kinda hafta be
mentioned here: Six Degrees' 'Latin Travels' album and
Ubiquity's 'New Latinaires' series. Latin Travels features
new work with a heavy latin sound from all our favourite
producers including Fila Brazillia, St-Germain, Bob
Holroyd, and (AJ list favourites) Jazzanova. The 'New
Latinaires' series' tracks are either new work, or vintage
work that has been remixed and brought up to speed.
Although there's three in the series at this time (More to
come, I'm sure), I quite like the second one; The dnb-ish
P'taah track is a standout, even amongst other great tracks
from latin masters Papo Vasquez and Francisco Aquabella,
and house master Joe Clausell (no Jazzanova track on this
one, but there is one on volume one...)
Maybe your local library might have some of these titles so
you can preview them to see which you prefer before going
out and buying them. Although with christmas coming, it's
hard not to get into the spirit of mass consumerism...
Best of Luck,
=====
Marco Pringle, host of
the Fat Beat Diet - Way late, Tues nights/wed morning
CJSW 90.9FM (Calgary) - in real audio at:
http://www.cjsw.com
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