Search - Ismael Miranda :: Historia De La Salsa

An UNBALANCED compilation!!!... BUY the original Ismael Mira

S. | 05/26/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Some of these `Historia De La Salsa' compilation series that began to be released last month in April 2009 by Emusica tend to be UNBALANCED because some feature WAY TOO MANY songs from one or two albums from the artist's discography rather than expanding more throughout the whole of the artist's discography to provide more variety (which is the real point behind compilations in general!)





In the case of this particular Ismael Miranda compilation, it is VERY unbalanced because it features WAY TOO MANY songs from his ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT 1970 album `Abran Paso' with Larry Harlow (which I previously reviewed), as well as from his 4th solo album from 1977 `No Voy Al Festival'!





What I believe may be the case here is that because of the BIG news that Emusica have just sold off their rights of the FULL Fania catalogue to Signal Equity (a New York based company), they're trying to make as much money as possible by putting songs from the albums and compilations that they've already released under their own name as the other albums from Ismael Miranda and etc that they haven't remastered yet may not belong to them anymore as they've just sold the whole catalogue to Signal Equity!...

(Hope that my thesis is correct; if not, I'll re-correct it on this review in future.)









Anyway, the 1st two songs from this compilation Cd are exactly the same 1st two songs from the original `Abran Paso' album, and then, the 4th song from this Cd `Se Casa La Rúmba' is the 3rd song from that same album, and as if it wasn't enough, song 7 `Vengo Virao' is the 5th song from that original album too!

It's 4 songs out of 9 from the original Abran Paso album! WHAT a non-sense!

AND PLEASE DO NOT GET ME WRONG! The 4 songs are ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING as I've said in my review of the original album, but I STILL think that they could have selected more songs from other albums that also got remastered under their own company...

The real problem here is that they've already done 2 Ismael Miranda compilations: `La Herencia' and `Greatest Hits', on top of reissuing a Bolero compilation titled `Romantico' (which was actually originally issued by the old Fania owners Sonido)!...

Therefore, they're OBVIOUSLY going to have a few little problems in selecting songs, as they're already struggling VERY HARD to avoid repetition within the many compilations now available (as you'll be able to figure out for yourselves, if you can REALLY be bothered to check out how many songs are already repeated!...)









Anyway, moving on to the other set of songs from the `No Voy Al Festival' album, the songs in original order are: 8, 10, 6, and 5.

I believe they SHOULD have selected from that recording `A México Con Amór' simply because it's probably MY favourite tune from the album.

Otherwise, song 10 is a Bolero (think Ballad) a genre that I'm NOT fond of AT ALL, and for the other three tunes, song 8 is the original album's title-track, and 6 and 5 are two of the album's FINE songs, so the selection was VERY decent again.

The only BIG problem is that there are once again too many tracks from that album here, (4 out of 10)!









Otherwise, we get song 3 Soneríto from `Así Se Compone Un Son' which can only be a smart addition as it's a GREAT tune that we don't tend to see in compilations so much as that album is SO GOOD that almost ANY other song from it could be selected!...

But since the album is SO good, it gives you an EXTRA REASON NOT to buy this compilation and buy the original album instead!

(I've also written another IN-DEPTH review of that album, telling you why YOU M-U-S-T OWN IT!...)



Song 9 is acceptable and comes from his 1981 album titled: `La Clave Del Sabor' (which I've also previously reviewed).

From that album, I personally prefer the songs No Te Voy A Dejár Ir, and Rubén Blades's Aunque Me Duela.

The song Para Ismael Rivera could have been another option, and the SOLID Galera Tres is another GOOD option but it's already featured on his `La Herencia' compilation...





Concerning the `No Voy Al Festival' album, my problem with it is that it contains 4 ballads just like his previous 1975 album `Este Es Ismael Miranda'.

Otherwise, it's still considerable on the basis that it features some different and fiery style of music with a semi big band sound consisting of 4 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, and 1 Baritone Sax STILL leading you to nearly 30 mins of music, but personally, I'd try to burn the other 6 songs of it just like I've already done with the 1975 album.









While I don't know who remastered this Cd, sound quality seemed VERY GOOD from the sound-clips I've heard on various websites.

What I can assure here is that there are no re-edited tracks like on some of the other compilations they've made!...



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