Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan

 


I remember. The first time I heard this incredible, rich, warm, with tons of swing, feeling, Cuban music in the cold winters of 1997 and 1998, working as a cashier in a now defunct record store.

Virgin Megastore at 42 St. Times Square, New York, it was the skinny cows times for your humble servant.  I worked for two seasons as a cashier in the Classical Music Department.

Besides having the pleasure of listening to this masterpiece of Cuban music, I was able to check the jazz also...But most of the time was opera. Bjoerlin,
Franco Corelli, Domingo, Carreras and, Pavarotti and Chippa. 

Sopranos, mezzos and bass-baritone. Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Renata Scotto, Renatta Tebaldi,  Bidu Sayao and Thomas Quasthoff.

The first two tenors in the list Corelli and Bjorling were my favorites, along with Bidu Sayao the Brazilian soprano.

She was the principal at the Met during
1937-1952.  Her interpretation of Bachianas Brasileiras, a composition of Heitor Villalobos is one of the best.  I should have bought that CD.

I believe I mentioned some of this in endemismo. But not with the Chan-Chan intro.  At this time let me write that Cuba, with the blockade has been able to continue developing that incredible music with so many genres, contrary to Puercorico, USA, here regueton, has been the ultimate development for two
decades...


If you are into music, as I am, with the same critical attitude I aproach everything, check those names in youtube. And find your own, develop that curiosity in your spare time...


Apaga i vamonos.