Amazon.com's Best of 1999
Picking up where
Buena Vista Social Club left off,
BVSC Presents Ibrahim Ferrer soothes with the hushed romanticism of Cuba's yesteryear while boasting the talents of one of its greatest singers, Ibrahim Ferrer. Again there's an all-star lineup of musicians led by pianist Rubén González and singer Omara Portuondo creating music at the renowned Egrem studios, whose live room brings the slow lucidity and intense vigor of the Cuban classics to life.
--Karen K. Hugg
From Amazon.com
It should never cease to amaze how spry and dramatically potent a force is the
Buena Vista Social Club. The group--really a gaggle of aging Cuban maestros brought together for stunning all-star performances--keeps its footing in Cuban dance music at the same time as it revels in the lax tempo of layered hand percussion and traditional rhythms. Ibrahim Ferrer stepped to the international fore as the vocalist on the eponymous BVSC CD in 1997 and here furthers his already-obvious command of everything from sultry, horn-swaying ballads to gritty
son tunes like "Mamí Me Gustá." Ferrer's tattered vocal inflections shape the more rollicking tunes so their texture is palpable, especially when belted in antiphonal give-and-takes with the rest of the huge band he totes along here. A 15-member-strong string section steps forward on the bolero tracks, which send off a smoldering passion that's startling in light of the BVSC's heightened, horn-charged charts. But the rich string passages color songs in wide brush strokes, which is to say that they heighten the passion to no end. Ferrer's debut might come in his twilight years, but it's a majorly luminous event.
--Andrew Bartlett