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CD/ Omara Portuondo
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Cranky Crow World Music, CD/ Omara Portuondo >>
For those of you who watched the documentary BVSC will remember Omara Portuondo's duet with the diminutive vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer. Certainly she is memorable because she was the only Cuban woman musician featured in the film and on the CD, but she also has enjoyed an illustrious career as an interpreter of Cuban classics. Her vocals are as rousing and powerful as any flamenco diva (listen to Verdad Amarga and Vuela Pena) and she sings a long list of styles including, sones, boleros (a favorite of passionate and sentimental vocalists), guarachas, rumbas, ballads, chachacha and jazz standards. At times she sounds like the musical equivalent of the South African diva, Mariam Makeba. Don't get me wrong, it isn't lazy journalism to compare the two vocalists, because there is an essence in their vocal phrasing that they share in common. However, Portuondo adds less vibrato to her vocal styling than Makeba. And although, Makeba is a goddess in her own right, I prefer Portuondo's jazz and Latin vocals to Makeba's who covered some of the same musical territory.
Portuondo was born in a popular Havana neighborhood. Her father was a well known baseball player in love with boleros and old Cuban songs. The songs that he performed as a duet with his wife eventually became repertoire for his daughter, Omara who later brought the songs to stages in Stockholm, New York, London, and Tokyo. In her youth she first tried her luck at dance, but after she received her first paychecks as a choir girl at the Tropicana nightclub, she was destined for a career as a vocalist, an illustrious one at that. Her career ventured into many directions and she sung with various vocal ensembles and became known for coloring her repertoire with a palette of emotions. You can watch this emotional palette in action if you watch the scene in the documentary when Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara record a moving duet or when Ferrer wipes tears from Omara's face after performing the same duet in Amsterdam.
"Omara is so popular she cannot cross a single street in Cuba without being immediately stopped by people. Due to her long and successful career, her audience is made up of several generations. Likewise, her repertoire is wide and diverse, with music from all Latin genres." (Liner notes) This wide diversity of genres found its way onto the "best of" CD, Sentimiento. One of the oldest tracks features a 1974 recording of Eso No Lo He Dicho Yo. This song is given a haunting string treatment so popular in the early 1970's and when combined with Omara's soulful vocals tugs, nearly ripping the heartstrings. Certainly the song is worth a stray tear or two. Omara handles her vocal duties with aplomb and she's drives her listeners' emotional reactions to the song. The gorgeous 1973 recording of Vuela Pena features immaculate and passionate vocals with flamenco guitar. Again, the vocalist finds herself in the driver's seat.
While Omara is an expert at handling slow moody material, she can also get her listeners dancing to her upbeat sones, chachachas and other dance floor favorites. The 1996 recording, La Cumbancha, the 1984 rumba Agua Que Cae Del Cielo with its blaring horns and the 1996 Echale Salsita send shivers of joy up and down spines. And one wouldn't want to go away without listening to the very sexy Vieja Luna (Old Moon). The CD features 15 delightful tracks making it challenging to choose a favorite, but at least after listening to the recording, we can see why Omara Portuondo is a favorite vocalist internationally. And with so many fabulous vocalists in the world, that is a huge honor. 11/11/05 >> go there
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