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The Kirsty MacColl web site
History of Cuban Music
Kirsty's snapshot history of Cuban music, recorded with Jan Fairley and a BBC Radio team in late 2000.
In these pages we hope to provide a further boost to the Cuban music which Kirsty loved by providing additional information and links to the artists' websites for your further explorations!
Broadcast
on BBC Radio 2, 31st January 2001
In the first of this eight part series, singer/songwriter Kirsty MacColl soaks up the atmosphere in a bar in Havana's Cathedral Square as she begins her exploration of the island whose biggest export is its music. There's music from the Buena Vista Social Club, which rocketed Cuban music to the world's attention, the Afro-Cuban All Stars, Los Van Van and Cuba's current Number One 'Soy Malo' - I'm Bad. Ry Cooder and musician Juan de Marcos Gonzalez describe their role in making the Buena Vista and travel writer Simon Calder describes his love affair with Cuba.
In
1996, composer, producer, and guitar legend Ry Cooder entered Egrem
Studios in Havana with the forgotten greats of Cuban music, many of
them in their 60s and 70s, some of them long since retired. The resulting
album Buena Vista
Social Club became a Grammy-winning international
bestseller, with a vital cast of aging performers whose energy and
passion belie their years, including Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez,
Omara Portuondo, Isreal "Cachaito" Lopez
and Compay Segundo.
Buena Vista Social Club / World Circuit CD 050. Composed by Francisco Repilado (Compay Segundo)
The Afro-Cuban
All Stars spans 4 generations of musicians ranging
from the age of 81 to 13: Juan De Marcos González, the Quincy
Jones of Cuba, has a mission to show the world the wealth, diversity
and vitality of Cuban music.
Habana de Este / World Circuit WCD 047. Composed & arranged by Juan de Marcos Gonzalez
Celina
Gonzalez is one of the great vocalists of Afro-Cuban music - she
has been a major star since the 1940s when she shared a duo with her
late husband, Reutillio Dominguez. In the decade before the Cuban Revolution,
Gonzalez and Dominguez developed a large following for their vocals
harmonies and lightly-arranged, guitar and percussion, approach to
musica campesina, a rural style of salsa.
Fiesta Guajira / World Circuit WCD 034. Composed by Celina Gonzalez
Gerald
Alfonso was one of the best Cuban singers to emerge in the 80s. With
singers like Silvio Rodriguez and Milanese Pablo (founders of the New
Trova movement in the late 60s) still around, he did well to stand
out in Cuba, bringing in rock and Brazilian influences while keeping
the essentially Cuban heart of the music.
Cuba: I Am Time / Blue Jackel [correct spelling] BJAC50102. Composed by Moncho.
The
musical concept at the heart of Timba, combining Cuban music with modern
creative songwriting, began in the 60s with Los
Van Van. Juan Formell,
former musical director of Orquesta Revé, absorbed the influences
of jazz and the explosion of creativity in rock and R&B in late
60's/early 70's en route to forming Los Van Van - Cuba's most popular
group ever since, with music stemming from his fusions of Cuban rhythms
with synthesizers, all types of rock, rap, Brazilian music, merengue,
and just about anything else that caught his interest.
The Best Of Van Van / HEMISPHERE 7243 521390 2 6. Composed by Juan Formell.
Carlos
Manuel y Su Clan appeared on the Havana Timba scene a few years ago
and gradually became more and more popular in the clubs and dance venues
on the island, until now he has risen to the top of the world's hottest
salsa scene. Carlos gets the best from the three great genres of Cuban
music (the classic, the post-revolutionary vanguard and the post-Cold
war alternative scene) and takes it to new, unprecedented heights.
But, even though Nueva Trova took lyrical magic and musical freedom
to new levels of creativity, that movement lacked dancefloor energy.
On the other hand, the nueva generación of raperos only make
indirect references to the more traditional soneros. Carlos Manuel
has the best of both worlds, plus an original, in-your-face approach
that has turned him into the personification of the New Cuban Sound.
Malo Cantidad / Palm Pictures (promo).
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