Hi all,
I would like to offer a somewhat tangential remark:
With the proliferation of afrocuban music in the last few years, and
the many interpretations of this style within the electronic
realm, on of the projects that truly stands out to me is Bill Laswell's
Havana Mood & moreso the Havana Dubs.
Havana dubs is an afrocuban soundscape that takes all the elements of this
type of arrangement and freaks it in a dub stylee. An absolutley
infectious result that could only be architected by Mr. Laswell, dub &
world music master, whose work never ceases to amaze me.
The general feel is rhythm-section heavy latin grooves with an occasional,
highly filtered & reverbed horn section or chorus, glued together by deep,
dubby latin basslines. If you like dub, and who doesnt ;), and you like
the music being discussed in this thread, I highly recommend this album.
Another comment on the subject of AfroCuban music:
(warning... this is longwinded and Highly Off Topic)
ACAS and BVSC are highly important not only musically but in a historical
& political context. The last 3 years have seen an opening of the channels
of communication between the West and Cuba, first with the lifting of some
embargos, then with the explosive Elian Gonzalez case, and also with a
huge influx of 'unofficial' US tourism via Canada or the British Virgin
Islands.
It is a fascinating angle to observe, the connection between musical
trends and political ones. Cuba, on its last leg politically, has been
holding out for almost a decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union &
Eastern Bloc... The last few years have been like a massive cultural
'Catchup' during which Westerners have flooded into the country trying to
capture & share with the world as much as they can piece together from 40
years of isolation.
The most recent wave of Latin music in the mainstream I think has
been catalyzed by these Cuban musicians, and therefore focused more on
Afro-Cuban music than the more Poppy music coming out of Puerto Rico and
Dominica, and the other spanish countries. It has a bit of an older, more
traditional sound, and not unlike stuff that was coming out here in the
60s and 70s.
Let us not forget that there is a huge roster of artists based in the US
and Puerto Rico who have been making similar (and just as good!!!) music
for 30+ years... I'm no expert but here are some names who I've come
across who I love:
Tito Puente
Mongo Santamaria
Jose Mangual
Jonny Pacheco
Patato Valdez
Pete 'El Conde' Rodriguez
Celia Cruz
Ismael Rivera
Sonora Poncena
Oscar De Leon
Eddie Palmieri
Charlie Palmieri
Cal Tjader
Hector Lavoe
And the labels:
Fania
Tico
Uni
Alegre
whew!! sorrry for the ramble.... back to work....
Nat
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Marco Pringle wrote:
> 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
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products.
> http://shopping.yahoo.com/
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Dec 09 2000 - 01:43:26 CET