Achy Obejas. Chicago Tribune. September 10, 2000
The folks behind the Buena Vista Social Club have created something of a myth around their rediscovery of a handful of important but under-appreciated senior Cuban musicians.
Now the Buena Vista producers have come along with an entry featuring Omara Portuondo, probably Cuba's most significant songstress. The new record is much more nostalgic than any of Buena Vista's previous releases, with a more melancholic touch. The songs -- "La Sitiera," "Veinte
Anos," a sublime version of "The Man I Love" -- evoke the Havana of earlier years with its gentle tropical rhythms and a much more overtly American-style swing.
But, in Portuondo's case, the Buena Vista saved-from-oblivion line is just dead wrong. In 1997 -- the same year the original Buena Vista was recorded -- Portuondo released the wondrous "Palabras" on the Spanish label NubeNegra. A collection of exquisite, throbbing ballads, the record
is classic "filin," a romantic musical movement Portuondo helped spark in the '50s and early '60s.
Since 1945, Portuondo has had a gig of some sort at Havana's famous Tropicana nightclub -- first as a dancer, then as a singer, for years now as a headliner. From 1952 to 1967, she was part of Cuarteto Las D'Aida, an all-female group that reshaped female vocals in Cuban music. (The group was
featured when Nat King Cole played there.) She released her first solo album, "Magia Negra," in 1959 -- the same year as the Cuban Revolution -- that included both Cuban and American jazz standards.
In the '70s, Portuondo toured with Orquesta Aragon. And in the '80s, she collaborated with a young Adalberto Alvarez, who helped pave the way for today's Cuban music renaissance.
Truth be told, Portuondo, 70, has been singing pretty much non-stop -- and with very appreciative audiences in Cuba, Latin America and Europe (especially the old socialist bloc) -- for about a half a century.
What Portuondo has never had -- because she chose to stay in Cuba at a time when relations between the U.S. and the island broke down -- is an American audience. That's what makes her debut here Oct. 12 with Barbarito Torres at the Chicago Theater, 175 N. State St., so very special. Call
312-443-1130 for information. | 