|
|
 |
Feature
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Pittsburgh City Paper, Feature >>
Ska Cubano
iAy Caramba!
CUMBANCHA
Maurice El Medioni Meets Roberto Rodriguez
Descarga Oriental: The New York Sessions
PIRANHA
AS SEVEN-YEAR-VETERAN A&R headfor Putumayo Records the world's leader in global-music coffeehouse compilations, and something of its own musical genre Jacob Edgar has seen so- called "world music" go from a niche-mar keted extravagance for the adult-alterna tive set to an inte grated part of the Western music busi ness. So it's little sur prise he's launching Cumbancha, a record label that seems, at least from its ini tial effort, intent on releasing music from around the world without that ever- stigmatizing market ing phrase.
In other words, Ska Cubano's jAy Caramba! is music rooted at once in Cuba, Jamaica and London. But rath er than dwell on its worldliness, Ska Cubano chooses to just get on with making great music.
At Ska Cubano's forefront are South London ska vet eran Natty Bo (presumably not named for Maryland's finest beer), and Cuba- raised Jamaican Beny Billy, who claims through-and-through to be the reincar nation of Cuban singer Beny More. For good measure, the band employs legend ary Jamaican-ska trumpeter Eddie "Tan Tan" Thornton and Cuban bassist Rey Crespo, once bassist for Omara Portuondo, amongst others.
jAy Caramba! effortlessly melds the ska, calypso, rai and just about any other shuffling ska beat with mambo rhythms and the bold, nearly operatic bombast of Cuban son. "Cachita," for example, could be the Skatalites, with its ring- ing cymbal rides and punctuating horn lines. But it could also be Ibrahim Ferrer, as Beny Billy's voice rises and falls with such machismo, such a borderline-harnmy '50s croon.
Of course, what Edgar's Cumbancha label knows now, German label Piranha has known for years: Take away confin ing "fusion" pigeonholes, stop lumping all non-Anglo-American music together, and good musicians will simply produce good music.
Thus, when Piranha's dime landed Algerian pianist and vocalist MauriceEl Medioni in New York City to record under the watchful production and furious percus sion of Cuban musi cian extraordinaire Roberto Rodriguez, there was little need to dirty the waters with talk of "rai and son crossover "FrancophonicAfrican mournful mambo."
Descarga Oriental sounds as natural as could be El 's sweetly sad rai melodies and swirling piano lines mesh with Rodriguez's insis tent and dominat ing Cuban rhythms as though they'd always been linked. This seamless meld ing is especially apparent on the furiously percus sive "Oran Oran** and the gracefully hypnotic "Oh! Ma Belle" (complete with darbuka hand drums lending to the subtle taste of the Orient). Perhaps what we see most in Ska Cubano and the El Rodriguez col laboration is a new era of Cuban music. An era in which that very Cuban-ness becomes less of a musical story; in which Cuba's dominant musical gene is taken for grant ed, and can be set aside as merely another factor in the world's musical progression. That 1950s Cuba melds flavorfully with ska, calypso, rai and just about any other rhythm-base music comes as no surprise. That the music business is finally allowing that melting to happen, simply and subtly, is a joy. Justin Hopper 05/10/06
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
