Feb 21, 2019

RhoDeo 1907 Roots

Hello,

Today's artists are less a band than an assemblage of some of Cuba's most renowned musical forces, whose performing careers had largely ended decades earlier with the rise of Fidel Castro. Recruiting the long-forgotten likes of singer Ibrahim Ferrer, guitarists/singers Compay Segundo and Eliades Ochoa, and pianist Rubén González, Ry Cooder entered Havana's Egrem Studios to record the album Buena Vista Social Club; the project was an unexpected commercial and critical smash, earning a Grammy and becoming the best-selling release of Cooder's long career. The international success generated a revival of interest in traditional Cuban music and Latin American music as a whole.....N'Joy

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Buena Vista Social Club is an ensemble of Cuban musicians established in 1996 to revive the music of pre-revolutionary Cuba. The project was organized by World Circuit executive Nick Gold, produced by American guitarist Ry Cooder and directed by Juan de Marcos González. They named the group after the homonymous members' club in the Buenavista quarter of Havana, a popular music venue in the 1940s. To showcase the popular styles of the time, such as son, bolero and danzón, they recruited a dozen veteran musicians, many of whom had been retired for many years.

The group's eponymous album was recorded in March 1996 and released in September 1997, quickly becoming an international success, which prompted the ensemble to perform with a full line-up in Amsterdam and New York in 1998. German director Wim Wenders captured the performance on film for a documentary—also called Buena Vista Social Club—that included interviews with the musicians conducted in Havana. Wenders' film was released in June 1999 to critical acclaim, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary feature and winning numerous accolades including Best Documentary at the European Film Awards. This was followed up by a second documentary: Buena Vista Social Club: Adios in 2017.

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Shortly after returning from Havana to record the Buena Vista Social Club album, Ry Cooder began working with German film director Wim Wenders on the soundtrack to Wenders' film The End of Violence, the third such collaboration between the two artists. According to Wenders, it was an effort to force Cooder to focus on the project, "He always sort of looked in the distance and smiled, and I knew he was back in Havana."  Wenders filmed the recording sessions on the recently enhanced format Digital Video with the help of cinematographer Robert Müller, and then shot interviews with each "Buena Vista" ensemble member in different Havana locations. Wenders was also present to film the group's first performance with a full line-up in Amsterdam in April 1998 (two nights) and a second time in Carnegie Hall, New York City on 1 July 1998. The completed documentary was released on 17 September 1999, and included scenes in New York of the Cubans, some of whom had never left the island, window shopping and visiting tourist sites. According to Sight & Sound magazine, these scenes of "innocents abroad" were the film's most moving moments, as the contrasts between societies of Havana and New York become evident on the faces of the performers. Ferrer, from an impoverished background and staunchly anti consumerist, was shown describing the city as "beautiful" and finding the experience overwhelming. Upon completion of filming, Wenders felt that the film "didn't feel really like it was a documentary anymore. It felt like it was a true character piece".

The film became a box office success, grossing $23,002,182 worldwide. Critics were generally enthusiastic about the story and especially the music, although leading U.S. film critic Roger Ebert and the British Film Institute's Peter Curran felt that Wenders had lingered too long on Cooder during the performances; and the editing, which interspersed interviews with music, had disrupted the continuity of the songs. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature in 1999. It won best documentary at the European Film Awards and received seventeen other major accolades internationally.


Wim Wenders - Buena Vista Social Club    (avi  787mb)

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The success of both the album and film sparked a revival of interest in traditional Cuban music and Latin American music in general. Some of the Cuban performers later released well-received solo albums and recorded collaborations with stars from different musical genres. The "Buena Vista Social Club" name became an umbrella term to describe these performances and releases, and has been likened to a brand label that encapsulates Cuba's "musical golden age" between the 1930s and 1950s. The new success was fleeting for the most recognizable artists in the ensemble: Compay Segundo, Rubén González, and Ibrahim Ferrer, who died at the ages of ninety-five, eighty-four, and seventy-eight respectively; Compay Segundo and González in 2003, then Ferrer in 2005.

Several surviving members of the Buena Vista Social Club, such as veteran singer Omara Portuondo, trumpeter Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal, laúd player Barbarito Torres and trombonist and conductor Jesús "Aguaje" Ramos currently tour worldwide, to popular acclaim, with new members such as singer Carlos Calunga and pianist Rolando Luna, as part of a 13-member band called Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club.


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The Cinco leyendas collection, made up of original records by Francisco Repilado (Compay Segundo), Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Eliades Ochoa and Rubén González, became the highest-selling Cuban record company in the world.  Legendary figures are full of Cuban music, and therefore on the basis of this title could have armed as many occasional quintets as wanted, but it happens, that these five were not taken at random, but between how much they have in common,  is the fact that they were the names that most managed to shine in the world of the album, after their invaluable contribution to the triumph achieved by what could be considered the most commercial of projects on Cuban music made in the last ten years, the Buena Vista  Social Club. This album gives us the possibility of being able to obtain, once and for all, five compilations made from selected themes of previously published anthologies about these great artists, which presupposes that it is musically "the best of the best," including extensive comments from  prestigious musicologists who are in charge of delving into the history of each of these figures and their significance within the Cuban musical context, which provides an interesting theoretical platform also published in two languages, to the seventy-four jewels that groups this elegant case.

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Born in the eastern town of Songo La Maya in 1946, Eliades Ochoa began playing guitar at the age of six, debuting at a very young age when improvising on the streets of Santiago de Cuba, until he became a member of the Oriental Quintet and  of the Septet Typical.  Recognized for his exceptional qualities as a guitarist, he received the offer in 1978 to direct the Cuarteto Patria, a group that, starting from his entry, would experience a new stage of development, starting a successful career of international presentations and record productions. In 1997 he was one of the participants in the project Buena Vista Social Club, which brought together great figures of Cuban music, achieving the Grammy award, which contributed to the international promotion of his work, which appears in the present  album a representative sample.



BVSC 1 - Eliades Ochoa      (flac  344mb)

01 El cuarto de Tula
02 Estoy hecho tierra
03 En casa de Pedro el Coj
04 Allí donde tú sabes
05 La culebra
06 Rita la Caimana
07 Que lío Compay Andrés
08 Alma de mujer
09 Mujer perjura
10 Qué te parece Cholito
12 La venganza del Perico
13 Entre flores
14 Beso discreto

BVSC 1 - Eliades Ochoa    (ogg  146mb)

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When the veteran defenders of traditional Cuban music with their acoustic formats became fashionable in the last decade of the nineties, they took an enormous advantage in the commercial order to the rest of the demonstrations;  One of the most undeniably sounding themes was the Chan Chan, which, showing an extreme simplicity and unequaled flavors, moved the entire planet in the voice of its composer, Francisco Repilado, the charismatic Compay Segundo.
 Born in Santiago on Siboney Beach, where he was born on November 18, 1907, he was a very young clarinetist from the Municipal Band of Santiago, at the same time that he gave free rein to his troubadour affiliation while simultaneously staying in it with his participation in different groups.  of traditional music.  In the thirties he settled in Havana, entering as a clarinetist in the Municipal Band of the capital under the direction of maestro Gonzalo Roig, which would follow his entry as a guitarist in the Hatuey Quartet of Justa García.  The clarinet was also used to form part of the Matamoros Ensemble, where he stayed for twelve years, and from 1942 he founded the duo Los Compadres with Lorenzo Hierrezuelo, where he stayed until the month of September 1955, then  which founds the group Compay Segundo and their Boys who would accompany him for the rest of his life.  In 1997 he took part in the project Buena Vista Social Club, Grammy winning album, which served to turn his Chan Chan into a hymn, which he later had the opportunity to defend in the main stages of the world. The present album is a compilation of some of the most important themes within his repertoire, which give us the measure of his wonderful talent as a composer and the extraordinary Cubanness of his pen



BVSC 2 - Compay Segundo    (flac  281mb)

01. Saludos Compay
02. Chan chán
03. Voy pa' Mayarí
04. Anita
05. La mujer del peso
06. Sanluisera
07. Yo soy de monte Compay
08. Será cuando tú digas
09. Francisco Guayabal
10. Sigue el paso No. 1
11. A los barrios de Santiago
12. De Jatibonico a Bolondrón
13. Sigue el paso No. 2
14. Sigue el paso en la Nochebuena
15. María en la playa

BVSC 2 - Compay Segundo  (ogg    116mb)

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Ibrahím Ferrer started singing at the age of thirteen, with a group called Los Jóvenes del Son that was dedicated to entertain neighborhood parties, later joining different groups such as Wilson, Surprise and the Wonder of Beltrán, until  enter the legendary orchestra Chepín de Electo Rosell, with which he placed a lot of successes, among which the anthological one is montuno Bartolo's platanal.  In 1953 he joined the group of Pacho Alonso - years later baptized with the name of Los Bocucos - a group in which, starting in 1967, he became the lead singer, and in which he will continue until 1991. In 1997, he was invited to participate in the Buena Vista Social Club, and that same year he returned to the studios to record with the Afro Cuban All Stars orchestra the album All Cuba Like, which the Buena Vista Social title would follow shortly after.  Club presents Ibrahím Ferrer, his first solo album, nominated for the Latin Grammy, where Ibrahím won the title of "Revelation Artist" after sixty years of artistic career. Since then countless concerts were generated in countless countries, which would take him to the most important stages of the world, creating a great demand on his discography, most of which is treasured in the archives of the EGREM, serving as  base for the compilation of compilations like this one in which we can appreciate many of the themes that he turned into hits throughout his career



BVSC 3 - Ibrahim Ferrer    (flac  354mb)

01. El botellero
02. Como la piel canela
03. Fomento
04. Monte adentro
05. En qué parte de Cuba nació el son
06. Así es la vida Compay
07. Todavía me queda voz
08. El son de la santiaguera
09. Cucuruchito de coco
10. Esto se baila y se toca
12. Mi tonada montuna
13. Estoy seco y me quiero mojar
14. Mañana me voy pa' Sibanicú
15. El platanal de Bartolo

BVSC 3 - Ibrahim Ferrer  (ogg  136mb)

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Omara Portuondo is recognized as one of the main exponents of the "filin", a creative movement that was created in the late forties in the Cuban song.  Throughout his career he joined different groups such as the Conjunto Loquibambia Swing, the Musicabana group, the Orlando de la Rosa Quartet and the Anacaona orchestra;  but without a doubt the most important of all was the quartet Las D'Aida, organized by the pianist Aida Diestro, with whom he kept working for fifteen years, until in 1967 he separated and offered a concert at the Teatro  Amadeo Roldán, with whom he began a period of consolidation of his image, in which he completely won the favor of a national audience that witnessed the authentic appearance of an artist endorsed by his talent, which he admired not as  the fashion singer, but as the genuine personification of the Cuban song.
 A successful career of three decades full of foreign tours, participation in festivals and recordings was crowned with the triumph of the Buena Vista Social Club, making Omara one of the great legends of Cuban music with Ibrahím, Compay, Rubén and Eliades;  moment from which it began to appear in multiple compilations that sought to satisfy the appetite of an audience eager to find their recordings. The album that we are putting to your consideration aims to show us a part of so much good music sown throughout a lifetime, unsurpassedly performed by a singer who is a true diva of Cuban music.



BVSC 4 - Omara Portuondo    (flac  305mb)

01. Échale salsita
02. Lo que me queda por vivir
03. Mi son caliente
04. Vuela pena
05. Guitarra en son mayor
06. Nada para ti
07. Vieja luna
08. Te quería
09. Vale la pena vivir
10. Toda una vida
11. Eso no lo he dicho yo
12. Me acostumbré a estar sin ti
13. Y mucho más
14. Nosotros
15. Agua que cae del cielo

BVSC 4 - Omara Portuondo  (ogg  112mb)

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For more than sixty years, Rubén González was professionally linked with the elite of our popular music, until he became a member of the group of veterans who starred at the end of the last century in the adventure of the Buena Vista Social Club. His professional life began in the central region of the country as a musician of different orchestras until in 1941 he made the decision to move to the capital, quickly establishing himself among the most demanded pianists of that time.  He was a member of the ensembles of Arsenio Rodríguez and Kubavana by Alberto Ruiz, of the Senén Suárez group and the Riverside Orchestra, until he joined Enrique Jorrín's orchestra, in which he kept contributing his characteristic "tumbao" for more than  twenty five years.  Simultaneously he was part of the Cuban Cuban Nonto organized by the trombonist Pucho Escalante, with which he was able to unleash his passion as a jazz player.  His first record as a soloist is recorded in 1975 and is titled Indestructible, an album in which although it includes rich sonorous downloads that show his interpretative skills, he places greater emphasis on making a waste of expressiveness from his version of key titles within  from the repertoire of the filin.  In 1996 they invited him to be part of the cast of the Afrocuban All Stars for the recording of his album All Cuba Like, which was nominated for the Grammy Awards, followed by the classic Buenavista Social Club, with which came the opportunity to perform at  the most important international stages, also opening the doors for the appearance of his albums Introducing Rubén González y Chanchullo, edited in 2003 a few months before his death.  This album shows us a compilation of some of its main recordings through which we can get closer to the work of one of the great legends of Cuban culture.



BVSC 5 - Rubén González    (flac  223mb)

01 Yo te enseño Lola
02 Soplete
03 Préstame la bicicleta
04 Date una vueltecita
05 Ambrosio
06 La gloria eres tú
07 Noneto
08 Nuestra canción
09 Moby Dick
10 Todo aquel ayer
11 ¿De qué te quejas?
12 Mil congojas
13 Sancho
14 Ciudad oscura
15 Qué infelicidad

BVSC 5 - Rubén González  (ogg  105mb)

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