Album Reviews

This triple gatefold, double time capsule captures the rapturous July 1st, 1998 Carnegie Hall Concert also filmed by Wim Wenders and released the next year. The music is old. The players were old—some in their 80s and ‘90s—and some have since passed away, but the old music was fresh to the ears of Americans and others who first heard it thanks to the World Circuit CD produced by Ry Cooder (later issued on vinyl by Classic Records).

Some of the musicians in the large ensemble had been shining shoes or were retired when the original sessions were recorded back in 1996 and here they were a few years later playing Carnegie Hall!

The music, which harkens back to a more romantic, sensual style of mambos and cha-chas (among others) springing from a more romantic, sensual and less explicit time hasn’t lost any of its charm and considerable power more than a decade later. Compared to today’s hard-edged salsa, this musical styles explored by the ensemble weave a more complex, elegant web of shifting, sliding yet precise rhythms, burnished horns anchored by Rubén González’s piano and Ibrahim Ferrer’s vocals.

It’s important to remember that Buena Vista Social Club was never a group, nor was it a touring unit. Rather it’s loose affiliation of musicians and groups that were required to rehearse and plan for the evening and the ensuing tour upon which some of the core members later embarked.

The musicianship is extraordinary, the vibe is exuberant and the recording, whatever the technology, is superb. It cleanly captures the ensemble and the soloists as well as the Carnegie Hall reverb and the audience. There’s a quote from Ry Cooder, who produced and played, about listening back to the “tapes” so it wasn’t Pro-Tools, though it probably was digital multi-track.

Bernie Grundman gets mastering credit but the anonymous well-pressed 180 gram vinyl doesn’t show the “BG” scribe so I assume someone else cut lacquers from files. No matter, the sound is rich, full warm and three-dimensional and the triple gate-fold packaging is a genuine souvenir of an evening most of us wish we could have attended, so this will have to do and it does fine.