“They were complete nobodies. They had some local acclaim, but not one of them had ever played anywhere in the world. I was taken by their love for this music and by the fact that they’ve never given up. Even if their old now, they grabbed the only opportunity they ever had to properly record their music possibly have it listened to outside of Cuba. They did everything laughingly, and never took anything too seriously.” These are the words of German filmmaker Wim Wenders, the director of 1999’s documentary film, Buena Vista Social Club. Wenders artfully captured a forgotten generation of Cuba’s brightest musical talents and crafted an ode to a neglected corner of Cuba’s pre-revolutionary heritage, by filming the musicians as if they were heroes in a fictional story, how fictional of a story it came to be, Wenders only realized in the end.
The Buena Vista Social Club was more than a story, it was a fairytale. American multi-instrumentalist and film score producer Ry Cooder had initially come to Havana to record an encounter of musicians from Mali alongside musicians from Cuba in 1996. When Ry got to Havana, he was informed that the African musicians never made it, eventually, Ry decided to just record the Cubans. The outcome could not have been anything more magical and the Buena Vista Social Club was formed that very year. The band consisted of a dozen veteran musicians from Cuba, some of whom had been retired for several years. The old souls of the troupe were true musicians and elegantly highlighted the popular sound of the time, such as son, bolero and danzón, and a jazz-inflected mix of cha-cha, mambo, bolero, and other traditional Latin American styles. In time, the ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ name became an umbrella term of sorts, describing their music has been likened to a label that encapsulates Cuba's ‘golden age’ of music, which stretched from the 1930s to the 1950s.
The extraordinary ensemble's music was recorded over the course of a week in Havana in March of 1996, and the Buena Vista Social Club album was released in September of 1997. The album caught the attention of a handful of well-respected music critics. It received spectacular reviews, creating a surge in sales, but without any concrete advertising campaign, the interest in the record was projected to soon subside. Miraculously, by sheer word of mouth, sales began to rise week by week. Blossoming into a state of international applause, the record transcended the popular sound of the time due to its freshness.
“Buena Vista was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. We knew we’d made a special record, but nobody could have imagined how it would take off,” said British record label executive and organizer of the recording sessions, Nick Gold. The Buena Vista Social Club went on to endure incredible crossover success, selling over eight million albums, and winning a Grammy for Best Latin Album of the Year. The success of the record rocket-launched the careers of many of the bands members and started the sensation of Cuba-mania. Traveling from the streets of Havana to the stage of Carnegie Hall, the success of the Buena Vista Social Club album and film sparked a revival of interest in traditional Cuban music and Latin American music, as well as the creation of thousands of salsa dance classes. Making an unforgettable iconic and indelible imprint on not just Cuba, but the world, he Buena Vista Social Club will forever be remember in the annals of music history.
Questions:
What do you think the influence of Cuban music is on other countries?
If the musicians from Mali did in fact arrive at the first recording sessions, how different would the music have turned out?
Hi Griffin,
ReplyDeleteCuban music has definitely has an extensive impact on other countries. I remember when "Despacito" was playing pretty much everywhere in the Unites States. Salsa is also popular and appears as a category in many competitive dance shows. Some of my friends even like to salsa dance in clubs.
So many Cuban singers were famous in Latin America that their music impacted current generations from Celia Cruz to Pitbull all the combinations and influences of other cultures due to colonization created genres of music that we hear them today in some cases in modern Latin Music.
ReplyDeleteI think that if the musicians from Mali would have arrived the album would've been global!
Cuba has produced some very influential songs in the music industry. Such as the very famous Despacito. One I have listened to a lot back in high school. It was the number one song back then.
ReplyDelete