Ibrahim Ferrer, the "official" lead vocalist of
Buena Vista Social Club, and producer
Ry Cooder take numerous chances and many labyrinthine journeys (guaranteed to piss off all of the purists) on their third collaboration for the
World Circuit/
Nonesuch label, yet manage to come up with the most beautiful fruit of their collaborative efforts to date. The pair took tons of chances, recording both in Havana and in Los Angeles and bringing in not only additional musicians among Cuba's top session players -- such as guitarist and keyboardist
Manuel Galban,
Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez on bass, and
Miguel Diaz on congas, to name three of more than a dozen -- but also adding
Jim Keltner to the drum mix, along with
Cooder's son,
Joachim, who handles these chores on every track.
Keltner, the younger
Cooder,
Ry, and
Galban also play together on a few tracks. But add to this already eclectic mix master Cuban pianist
Chucho Valdes and vanguard textural trumpeter
Jon Hassell as well as
the Blind Boys of Alabama on one cut and you have a recording that is at once celebratory, charming, eclectic, and, well, brilliant.
Ferrer's talents as a vocalist transcend all boundaries and musical types, yet he makes every song a Cuban song, one rooted in the earthy spirit of his native Havana.
"Perfume de Gardenias" has
the Blind Boys replacing
Ferrer's regular Cuban chorus of backing vocalists and features the great saxophonist
Gil Bernal as well as
Galban on a wonderfully understated yet commandingly melodic piano. The track lies in the seam, where
the Blind Boys add a more restrained and rounded backing to
Ferrer's pricelessly gorgeous croon;
Bernal and
Galban move this folky
ballad into the realms of a
jazz/
pop tune, and it still comes off as a firmly Cuban song, rooted in the heat, the rhythm, and the passion of everyday life in Havana.
"Mil Congojas," which follows immediately, features the band backed by a string orchestra.
Ferrer feeds off the atmospherics and allows his voice to literally drip from his throat and enter the mix as if he were singing to the angels. In addition, coming off these two
ballads, so silky and gorgeous, is
"Hay Que Entrale a Palo a Ese," a steaming
son with a large percussion section shoring up the backing chorus and
Ferrer using a rapid-fire delivery to add to the rhythmic intensity of the track. In addition, there is
Valdes'
"Boliviana," a folky love song rooted in the traditional melodies of Cuban Indios and extrapolated to fit a more contemporary Afro-Cuban musical framework --
Abdullah Ibrahim himself could have composed the music here, so saturated in South African melodic and harmonic structures it is, with
Valdes' sense of blurred, elongated time signatures and shifting rhythmic patterns.
Hassell's trumpet adds a wonderfully simplistic element to the female backing chorus and
Ferrer pours his heart into every crack and crevice of the song, splitting it wide open and letting its longing show through. The record closes with a burner,
"Oy el Consejo," once again a traditional call-and-response
son tuned into an intensely rhythmic polysyllabic poem via
Ferrer's no-holds-barred vocal. In sum, this album reveals what is truly possible when musicians of other cultures get together to serve the music, not individual talents. And though
Ferrer proves himself yet again to be one of the world's greatest treasures as a singer, he is always loyal to Cuba, ever the slave of the rhythm, ever the angel of the song itself. ~ Thom Jurek
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