In the world music world, popular phenomena ebb and flow, following the same basic theory as the pop scene, in which today’s revelation may be tomorrow’s washout. One might expect such a market curve to affect the Buena Vista Social Club, the sensational coterie of elder son musicians from Cuba brought to the global fore by producer Ry Cooder a few years ago. Suddenly, the group’s music was everywhere, and a new group of Cuban stars was born. Buena Vista’s staying power is contingent on the fact that these were hardly young flashes in the pans, but veteran musicians with lived-in wisdom and warmth-the stuff that lasts.
Now, enter Buena Vista Social Club Presents Omara Portundo (World Circuit/Nonesuch 79603; 40:45), the latest lovely entry in the group’s saga. With a stately sensuality in her delivery that makes comparisons to Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday valid, Portundo’s debut is a quiet stunner. Horns and strings beautifully outfit the CD, along with guitar parts from Compay Segundo and Eliades Ochoa and background vocals by Ibrahim Ferrer. Engineer Jerry Boys gets a particularly ambient sound, as well, evoking a palpable, almost cinematic, sense of great musicians generating friction in a funky, charming old studio. Attitudinal B.S. or digital after-effects are not invited to the party.
Who could have guessed that one of the most sublime sounds in the world today would be a pre-Castro musical style rescued intact from the musty annals of history?
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