Cuban musical ensemble
For other uses, see Buena Landscape Social Club (disambiguation).
Buena Vista Social Club was a musical revelry primarily made up of Cuban musicians, formed in 1996. Rendering project was organized by World Circuit executive Nick Gold, produced by American guitarist Ry Cooder and directed by Juan pack Marcos González. They named the group after the members' bludgeon of the same name in the Buenavista quarter of Havana, a popular music venue in the 1940s. To showcase say publicly popular styles of the time, such as son, bolero forward danzón, they recruited a dozen veteran musicians, some of whom had been retired for many years.
The group's eponymous apartment album was recorded in March 1996 and released in Sep 1997, quickly becoming an international success, which prompted the celebration to perform with a full line-up in Amsterdam and Creative York in 1998. German director Wim Wenders captured the carrying out on film for a documentary—also called Buena Vista Social Club—that included interviews with the musicians conducted in Havana. Wenders' pick up was released in June 1999 to critical acclaim, receiving hoaxer Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary feature and winning several accolades including Best Documentary at the European Film Awards. That was followed up by a second documentary Buena Vista Communal Club: Adios in 2017.
The success of both the ep and film sparked a revival of interest in traditional Land music and Latin American music in general. Some of picture Cuban performers later released well-received solo albums and recorded collaborations with stars from different musical genres. The "Buena Vista Group Club" name became an umbrella term to describe these performances and releases, and has been likened to a brand term that encapsulates Cuba's "musical golden age" between the 1930s mount 1950s. The new success was fleeting for the most identifiable artists in the ensemble: Compay Segundo, Rubén González, and Ibrahim Ferrer, who died aged 95, 84, and 78 respectively; Compay Segundo and González in 2003, then Ferrer in 2005.
Several surviving members of the Buena Vista Social Club, such little tresero Eliades Ochoa, veteran singer Omara Portuondo, trumpeter Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal, and laúd player Barbarito Torres currently tour worldwide.[1]
The Buenavista Social Club was a members-only bludgeon originally located in Buenavista (literally good view), a quarter household the current neighbourhood of Playa (before 1976 part of Marianao), one of the 15 municipalities in Cuba's capital, Havana. Description original club was founded in 1932 in a small aching venue at calle Consulado y pasaje "A" (currently calle 29, n. 6007).[2] In 1939, due to lack of space interpretation club relocated to number 4610 on Avenue 31, between calles 46 and 48, in Almendares, Marianao.[2] This location is recalled by Juan Cruz, former director of the Marianao Social Mace and master of ceremonies at the Salón Rosado de circumstance Tropical (other nightclubs in Havana).[3] As seen in the Buena Vista Social Club documentary, when musicians Ry Cooder, Compay Segundo and a film crew attempted to identify the location strain the club in the 1990s, local people could not change on where it had stood.[4]
At the time, clubs budget Cuba were segregated; there were sociedades de blancos (white societies), sociedades de negros (black societies), etc. The Buenavista Social Truncheon operated as a black society, which was rooted in a cabildo. Cabildos were fraternities organized during the 19th century coarse African slaves. The existence of many other black societies specified as Marianao Social Club, Unión Fraternal, Club Atenas (whose chapters included doctors and engineers), and Buenavista Social Club, exemplified representation remnants of institutionalized racial discrimination against Afro-Cubans.[3][5] These societies operated as recreational centers where workers went to drink, play bolds, dance and listen to music. In the words of Expense Cooder,
Society in Cuba and in the Caribbean including Original Orleans, as far as I know, was organized around these fraternal social clubs. There were clubs of cigar wrappers, clubs for baseball players and they'd play sports and cards—whatever residence is they did in their club—and they had mascots, just about dogs. At the Buena Vista Social Club, musicians went at hand to hang out with each other, like they used consent do at musicians' unions in the U.S., and they'd take dances and activities.[4]
As a music venue, the Buenavista Social Baton experienced the peak of Havana's nightclub life, when charangas give orders to conjuntos played several sets every night, going from club shut club over the course of a week. Often, bands would dedicate songs to the clubs where they played. In say publicly case of the Buenavista Social Club, an eponymous danzón was composed by Israel López "Cachao" in 1938, and performed be more exciting Arcaño y sus Maravillas. In addition, Arsenio Rodríguez dedicated "Buenavista en guaguancó" to the same place. Together with Orquesta Melodías del 40, the Maravillas and Arsenio's conjunto were known kind Los Tres Grandes (The Big Three), drawing the largest audiences wherever they played.[6] These vibrant times in Havana were described by pianist Rubén González, who played in Arsenio's conjunto, chimpanzee "an era of real musical life in Cuba, when present was very little money to earn, but everyone played being they really wanted to".[7]
Shortly after the Cuban Mutiny of 1959, newly elected Cuban PresidentManuel Urrutia Lleó, a pious Christian, began a program of closing gambling outlets, nightclubs, spreadsheet other establishments associated with Havana's hedonistic lifestyle. This had aura immediate impact on the livelihoods of local entertainers.[8] As representation Cuban government rapidly shifted towards the left in an take the trouble to build a "classless and colourblind society", it struggled join forces with define policy toward forms of cultural expression in the swarthy community; expressions which had implicitly emphasized cultural differences.[9] Consequently, say publicly cultural and social centers were abolished, including the Afro-Cuban common aid Sociedades de Color in 1962, to make way fend for racially integrated societies.[3][10] Private festivities were limited to weekend parties and organizers' funds were confiscated.[11] The measures meant the go like a bullet of the Buena Vista Social Club.[5] Although the Cuban create continued to support traditional music after the revolution, certain favour was given to the politically charged nueva trova, and elegiac singer-songwriters such as Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés. The surfacing of pop music and salsa, a style derived from Country music but developed in the United States, meant that contention music became even less common.[12]
Cuban music experienced quite a basic change in the 1960s, as National Geographic notes:
Cuban shake off music also witnessed dramatic change beginning in the late Decade, as groups explored the fusion of Cuban son with Indweller rock, jazz and funk styles. Groups such as Los Forerunner Van and Irakere established modern forms of Cuban music, application the way for new rhythms and dances to emerge tempt well as fresh concepts in instrumentation. ... Cuba's dance concerto had already inspired a change from the older son-style dances, as younger Cubans broke free of step-oriented dances...[13]
The occurrence pay these closures and the change in traditions is the simplest explanation of why many musicians were out of work, captain why their style of music had declined before the Buena Vista Social Club made it popular again.
Main article: Buena Vista Social Club (album)
In 1996, American guitarist Ry Cooder difficult been invited to Havana by British world musicproducer Nick Yellow of World Circuit Records to record a session in which African musicians from Mali were to collaborate with Cuban musicians.[4] On Cooder's arrival (via Mexico to avoid the ongoing U.S. trade and travel embargo against Cuba),[14] it transpired that rendering musicians from Mali had not received their visas and were unable to travel to Havana. Cooder and Gold changed their plans and decided to record an album of Cuban individual music with local musicians.[4]
Already on board the African collaboration delegation were Cuban musicians including bassist Orlando "Cachaíto" López, guitarist Eliades Ochoa and musical director Juan de Marcos González, who esoteric himself been organizing a similar project for the Afro-Cuban Make a racket Stars. A search for additional musicians led the team amplify singer Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, pianist Rubén González and octogenarian crooner Compay Segundo, who all agreed to record for the project.[4]
Within three days of the project's birth, Cooder, Gold and reserve Marcos had organized a large group of performers and hard for recording sessions to commence at Havana's EGREM Studios, previously owned by RCA records, where the equipment and atmosphere locked away remained unchanged since the 1950s.[15] Communication between the Spanish gift English speakers at the studio was conducted via an intermediary, although Cooder reflected that "musicians understand each other through whorl other than speaking".[4]
The album was recorded in just six life and contained fourteen tracks; opening with "Chan Chan" written moisten Compay Segundo, a four chord son that was to turn what Cooder described as "the Buena Vista's calling card";[16] attend to ending with a rendition of "La Bayamesa", a romantic criolla composed by Sindo Garay (not to be confused with picture Cuban national anthem of the same name).[17] The sessions as well produced material for the subsequent release, Introducing...Rubén González, which showcased the work of the Cuban pianist.[14]
One of the songs that featured on the album was "Buena Vista Social Club", a danzón written by Orestes López, the father of singer player "Cachaíto".[4] The song spotlighted the piano work of Rubén González and it was recorded after Cooder heard González improvising around the tune's musical theme before a day's recording excitement. After playing the piece, González explained to Cooder the world of the social club and that the song was interpretation club's "mascot tune".[4] When searching for a name for depiction overall project, manager Nick Gold chose the song's title. According to Cooder,
It should be the thing that sets deal apart. It was a kind of club by then. Everybody was hanging out and we had rum and coffee state publicly two in the afternoon. It felt like a club, deadpan let's call it that. That's what gave it a handle.[4]
Upon release on 17 September 1997, the CD became a massive "word of mouth hit", far beyond that of most false music releases.[18][19] It sold more than one million copies ahead won a Grammy award in 1998.[20] In 2003 it was listed by the New York-based Rolling Stone magazine as #260 in The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[18]
A total pan twenty musicians contributed to the recording including Ry Cooder's limitation Joachim Cooder, who at the time was a 19-year-old pedagogue of Latin percussion and provided drums for the band. Schedule Cooder himself played slide guitar on several songs and helped produce and mix the album, afterwards describing the sessions though "the greatest musical experience of my life".[14][21] Ry Cooder abstruse been a successful American guitarist since the 1960s, recording meet Captain Beefheart and the Rolling Stones. Known for his skate guitar work, his interest in roots music led him endorsement record music from diverse genres including Tex-Mex, Hawaiian and Tuvanthroat singing. He was later prosecuted and fined $25,000 by U.S. authorities for his work on the Buena Vista Social Club, having broken the Trading with the Enemy Act, a paragraph that forms part of the ongoing United States embargo.[22]
Many annotation the Cuban musicians who featured on the album were hold their musical prime in the 1940s and 1950s. After rendering success of the 1997 record they became known in Country as "Los Superabuelos" (the Super-Grandfathers).[23]Juan de Marcos González, a Country folk revivalist who was younger than the bulk of performers introduced Cooder to veteran singer Ibrahim Ferrer. Ferrer (1927–2005) confidential been lead vocalist for bandleader Pacho Alonso, and also resonate for Beny Moré, Cuba's most prominent performer in the Forties, before his soft singing style fell out of fashion.[24] Having found the semi-retired seventy-year-old Ferrer taking his daily stroll nationstate the streets of Havana and shining shoes for extra medium of exchange, González signed him up for the project. Cooder later described the discovery as something that happens "perhaps once in your life", and Ferrer as "the Cuban Nat King Cole".[25] Ferrer became a prominent member of the group, and the come next of the record was attributed in part to the approval of his vocal performances.[25] The singer went on to measuring tape a number of successful solo albums and performed with concurrent acts such as the Gorillaz before his death in 2005 at the age of 78.[26]
Virtuoso pianist Rubén González (1919–2003) likewise had further success releasing two solo albums after working move forward the initial project. González was a pianist for bandleader Arsenio Rodríguez in the 1940s, and is attributed with helping set up Cuban piano styles that were to dominate Latin music be intended for the remainder of the century.[27] Despite suffering from arthritis refuse not even owning a piano at the time of backdrop with Cooder, (due to an infestation of termites whilst soul in South America)[14] the American guitarist described him as "the greatest piano soloist I have ever heard".[28] After the come off of the 1997 record, González recorded and toured with bassist Orlando "Cachaíto" López, who was the only musician to come to pass on all of the songs on the Buena Vista Group Club album. "Cachaito" (1933–2009) was the son of multi-instrumentalist Orestes López and the nephew of fellow bassist Israel "Cachao" López, the brothers often attributed with inventing the mambo.[29] Named make something stand out his prestigious uncle, "Cachaito" (little Cachao) was a leading Descarga musician in the 1950s and 1960s, a musical form ditch takes its influence from modern jazz, and he became rendering ever-present bassist at Buena Vista Social Club performances and recordings.[24]
One of the first to come on board the project was Compay Segundo (born Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz) (1907–2003), who even 89 years old was the oldest of the performers. Amid a discussion about politics, the veteran Segundo said: "Politics? That new guy [Fidel Castro] is good. The 1930s were turn upside down. That's when we had the really bad times."[16] Segundo was an accomplished guitarist and tres player who started his life's work playing with established bands of the 1920s and 1930s. Tight spot the 1940s, he gained fame as one half of depiction Los Compadres duo, and then formed Los Muchachos, a knot that he led until his death in 2003.[24] For description Buena Vista Social Club recording and performances, Segundo played a unique seven-stringed instrument, a hybrid between a guitar and a tres, which he devised himself and called an armónico. Earth also sang, mostly doing background vocals, in a number detect songs in his baritone voice, including the self-penned opening limit, Chan Chan, with Eliades Ochoa as the leading voice.[24]Cowboy consider it wearing Eliades Ochoa (b. 1946), who had collaborated previously fretfulness Segundo and was a well established traditional Cuban folk thespian, played guitar and sang for the group. Omara Portuondo (b. 1930), a bolero singer and the only female in depiction collective, sang "Veinte Años" on the record and duets come to mind Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer during live performances.[24]
Other performers included chanteuse Pío Leyva (1917–2006) who had been working with Segundo since the early 1950s,[30] and fellow and singer Manuel "Puntillita" Licea (1927–2000), who had performed with Celia Cruz and Benny Moré. Additional improvised percussion was provided by Amadito Valdés and Carlos González. The youngest established member of the group was Barbarito Torres, (b. 1956) a virtuoso player of the laúd, a Cuban offshoot of the lute. Trumpet was provided by Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal, (1933-2024) who went on to release solo records under the Buena Vista presents... title.[24]
Main article: Buena Vista Community Club (film)
Shortly after returning from Havana to record the Buena Vista Social Club album, Ry Cooder began working with Teutonic film director Wim Wenders on the soundtrack to Wenders' lp The End of Violence, the third such collaboration between say publicly two artists. According to Wenders, it was an effort appoint force Cooder to focus on the project, "He always degrade of looked in the distance and smiled, and I knew he was back in Havana."[31] Although Wenders knew nothing befall Cuban music at the time, he became enthused by tapes of the Havana sessions provided by Cooder, and agreed uncovered travel to the island to film the recording of Buena Vista Social Club Presents: Ibrahim Ferrer, the singer's first individual album, in 1998.[31][32]
Wenders filmed the recording sessions on the new enhanced format Digital Video with the help of cinematographer Parliamentarian Müller, and then shot interviews with each "Buena Vista" garb member in different Havana locations.[31] Wenders was also present come near film the group's first performance with a full line-up clasp Amsterdam in April 1998 (two nights) and a second sicken in Carnegie Hall, New York City on 1 July 1998. The completed documentary was released on 17 September 1999, soar included scenes in New York of the Cubans, some enterprise whom had never left the island, window shopping and call tourist sites. According to Sight & Sound magazine, these scenes of "innocents abroad" were the film's most moving moments, translation the contrasts between societies of Havana and New York step evident on the faces of the performers. Ferrer, from intimation impoverished background and staunchly anti consumerist, was shown describing depiction city as "beautiful" and finding the experience overwhelming.[33] Upon varnish of filming, Wenders felt that the film "didn't feel actually like it was a documentary anymore. It felt like allow was a true character piece".[31]
The film became a box uncover success, grossing $23,002,182 worldwide.[34] Critics were generally enthusiastic about interpretation story and especially the music,[35] although leading U.S. film critic Roger Ebert and the British Film Institute's Peter Curran mat that Wenders had lingered too long on Cooder during description performances; and the editing, which interspersed interviews with music, abstruse disrupted the continuity of the songs.[33][36] The film was appointive for an Academy Award for best documentary feature in 1999. It won best documentary at the European Film Awards brook received seventeen other major accolades internationally.
The first performances by the full line up of Buena Vista Social Mace, including Cooder, were those filmed by Wenders in Amsterdam endure New York. Other international shows and television appearances soon followed with varying line ups. Ibrahim Ferrer and Rubén González performed together in Los Angeles in 1998 to an audience put off included Alanis Morissette, Sean Combs, and Jennifer Lopez, Ferrer dedicating the song Mami Me Gusto to the Hispanic Lopez.[37]
Performances instructions Florida, which has a large Cuban exile and Cuban English community, were rare after the release of the film overcome to the political climate. In the late 1990s, a complaint by Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba turned into a nigh on riot when concert goers were attacked and spat at stomachturning protesters opposed to the Cuban government.[38] When "Buena Vista" musicians played for a music industry conference at Miami Beach send out 1998, hundreds of protesters chanted outside and the convention center hall was cleared briefly because of a bomb threat. Suspend 1999, Ferrer and Ruben González were forced to cancel Algonquin shows citing fears for their safety after fellow-Cubans Los Precursor Van drew 4,000 protesters at a previous show, and Compay Segundo was forced to cut short a 1999 Miami musical due to another bomb threat.[39] When touring the U.S., picture Cubans are only entitled to their per diem (transportation put up with lodging) and are not permitted performance fees due to picture U.S. embargo.[40] In 2001 a Buena Vista Social Club (with Ibrahim Ferrer) performance was recorded in Austin for PBS folk tale broadcast on Austin City Limits in 2002.
Musicians associated uneasiness Buena Vista Social Club have toured throughout the world though Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club, and despite the deaths time off six of the original members, the collective performed with innumerable of the remaining ensemble members including Barbarito Torres and "Guajiro" Mirabal.[41] Ry Cooder's guitar parts were handled by Manuel Galbán,[41] a former member of Cuban vocal group Los Zafiros, who played on Ibrahim Ferrer's first solo record with Cooder essential appeared in Wim Wenders' film.[42] Following a 2007 performance show London, a reviewer at The Independent described the ensemble despite the fact that "something of an anomaly in music business terms, due substantiate their changing line-up and the fact that they've never honestly had one defining front person", adding, "It's hard to be versed what to expect from what is more of a identify than a band."[43]
The international success of the Buena Landscape Social Club generated a revival of interest in traditional Country music and Latin American music as a whole.[44] Musical president Juan de Marcos felt that the recordings serve "as a symbol of the power of Cuban music, and which cut into a certain degree have contributed to Cuban music regaining rendering status it always had in Latin American and world music."[45]
Cuba's burgeoning tourist industry of the late 1990s benefited from that rebirth of interest. According to The Economist, "In the visitor quarters of Old Havana it can seem at times bring in if every Cuban with a guitar has come out be required to sing the songs that Buena Vista made famous. It's though if you were to go to Liverpool and find bands singing Beatles songs on every street corner."[46] The songs Buena Vista sings are often not their own compositions. Some songs they sing have long been popular in Cuba and mass have always performed them in the street. Despite the impact of the "Buena Vista" ambience to tourists, Cubans themselves were less aware of the "Buena Vista Social Club" than universal music listeners. This was due to the foreign nature celebrate the production, and the dominance of modern Timba, Songo title other musical forms on the island. Some explain that Buena Vista did not impact the Cuban audience, as they were not creating anything new; they were just playing the one and the same songs that Cubans know and have been playing for numberless years.[12]
Mari Marques, a Cuban American who leads cultural tours benefits Cuba, contests that the preponderance of traditional musicians was crowd solely a consequence of the "Buena Vista Social Club". Marques believes the notion that some music had been completely depress in Cuba is "a romantic exaggeration that was propagated afford U.S. media coverage", and the reality is that son trios have existed "everywhere in cities such as Santiago de Island in the east of the island."[12] British world music put on video label Tumi Music, who had worked with de Marcos last many of the ensemble musicians prior to Cooder, asserted delay Cuba has over 50,000 musicians, all as good as, soar some as old as the "Buena Vista" participants, "but these people hardly ever have the opportunity to share their talents with the outside world." The label lamented that, "for depiction West to pay any real attention and consume the issue, you needed someone like Ry Cooder to give it a stamp of approval first."[47]
British Socialist Workers Party member and Proponent writer Mike Gonzalez believes the ensemble provoked a backward peek to "timeless, sensual places where dreams and desire merged trudge a comfortable, evocative music". Gonzalez asserts that the aura induced did not represent "the real Cuba" before the revolution exhaustive 1959, nor Cuba in the modern era, but that depiction Cuban government were happy for the tourist industry to "enjoy the fruits of this confusion".[48] The American Historical Review recommended that the Buena Vista Social Club's mise en scène oxyacetylene nostalgic, idealistic feelings not only of many Americans and Cubans in the United States who remember the Havana of picture 1950s, but also of Cubans in Cuba. The result was a reminiscence about the pre-revolutionary era—dominated by the politics end Gerardo Machado in the 1920s–30s and then General Fulgencio Batista until 1959—which "no longer seems so bad".[49]
A stage musical change with the same name as the album and focusing have power over the history and performers of the group was staged Off-Broadway in 2023.[50]
The below discography includes solo albums released since the first Buena Vista Popular Club album that feature the musicians in the ensemble, most important that are considered to be under the "Buena Vista Collective Club" aegis.[52]