Search - Omara Portuondo :: Gracias

Not only nostalgia !

Marie deVarenne | Boston, MA and Leeds, UK | 12/12/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It hardly seems like twelve years since the music of Cuba was everywhere. On TV, radio and, irresistibly, on tour.

The release of the Ry Cooder-inspired Buena Vista Social Club album and Wim Wenders' gorgeous film Buena Vista Social Club, placed Cuba, and a core of wonderfully talented but largely unknown musicians in the world spotlight.

Sadly, several of those late-blooming artists - Ruben Gonzalez, Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, for example - are no longer alive.

However, the one woman to emerge with Buona Vista Social Club, the principal chanteuse Omara Portuondo, is thankfully still with us and a new album from her has just been released.

"I wanted to bring everyone together to celebrate 60 years. I've done lots of records; this time I wanted to work with songs I've done before but make them more contemporary, more actual", she says.

"I selected these tracks because they are very popular and people know them in Cuba. I like all of these songs and I wanted to work with younger people who play modern music which is still rooted in tradition".

Indeed, the backing band for this 13-track disc features the likes of jazz bass virtuoso Avishai Cohen and rising Cuban star Roberto Fonseca on piano. Other guest appearances include the Cuban singer-songwriter Pablo Milanes, the Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu, the sweet-voiced Richard Bona from Cameroon, the veteran pianist Chucho Valdés and the Brazilian crooner Chico Buarque.

From cabaret dancer in decadent pre-Castro Cuba to vocalist of intimacy and passion in the world-famous Buena Vista phenomenon, Omara has been a performer and entainer for six decades.

Her new album marks out her territory of sweet, sentimental nostalgia in favourite songs from all the eras she's lived through.

Her voice is not as supple as it used to be, and she struggles to hit the high notes, but Omara packs a good deal of emotion into this tender nostalgia-fest.

She's now 78, but her singing is still personal, distinctive and gently passionate. There are moments, as with the duet with her granddaughter, when she is in danger of switching from the charming to the slushy. But the set is dominated by thoughtful ballads, with suitably sensitive backing by the likes of pianists Roberto Fonseca and Chucho Valdés.

Quality production values and musicianship are everywhere, as in the samba "O Qu Ser" with singer/guitarist Chico Buarque in one of a scattering of Brazilian numbers, and an adventurous Afro jazz duet with percussionist/bassist Richard Bona.

With Jorge Drexler, the Uruguayan singer-songwriter who won an Academy Award for composing the song "Al Otro Lado del Rio" (The Other Side of the River) for the 2004 Che Guevara biopic The Motorcycle Diaries (Full Screen Edition), she harmonizez on the record's title track.

"It was very beautiful, because he's a very agreeable person, very gentle", Portuondo says.

Have a pleasant listening experience.

Peak of the album: "Cuento Para Un Nio" and "O Qu Ser"



Mi Sueño

Zamazu

Tiki

Carioca"

A life in song

S. Soloff | Santa Monica, CA United States | 02/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD has the feel of an autobiography. The music, along with photos of Omara at different ages, has the feel of being transported to the times and places in which she lived. There is a sentimental quality to this music but the lyrics and rhythms carry you from place to place so that it never feels saccharine or contrived. It would help if you spoke Spanish, or, if you don't you might be motivated to learn just so that you could totally wallow in these songs -- that are sure to have more appeal for people of a 'certain age.' If she had written a book about her life in Cuba and listed all her stage performances and gossiped about every detail one could read it, enjoy it, and then put it away or pass it on, but you can play this CD over and over and marvel at what it must have been like to be Ms. Portuondo at every beautiful age."

A very special album

Alessandro Filippini | Pistoia, Italy | 10/11/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This great artist has realized a very sublime album; I Strongly suggest to buy it."