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Sample Track 1:
"Ay, Candela" from Ibrahim Ferrer; Ay, Candela (Cuban Essentials)
Sample Track 2:
"Llora Mi Nena" from Eliades Ochoa; A La Casa De la Trova (Cuban Essentials)
Sample Track 3:
"Dolor Carabali" from The Best of Benny More (Cuban Essentials)
Buy Recording:
Ibrahim Ferrer; Ay, Candela (Cuban Essentials)
Buy Recording:
Eliades Ochoa; A La Casa De la Trova (Cuban Essentials)
Layer 2
CD Review / Compay Segundo and Omara Portuondo
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Shepherd Express, CD Review / Compay Segundo and Omara Portuondo >>

Compay Segundo and Omara Portuondo
"El Compadre Again" and "Sentimiento (Escondida)"

       With the populairity of Buena Vista Social Club came a resurgance for Buena Vistas's contemporaries.  Two of the latest issues from a New York indie label's Cuban Essentials series feature sonically cleaned-up tracks from the 1970s-'90s by bandleader Compay Segundo and singer Omara Portuondo.  Segundo's vicarious yet urbane rhythms, his crack arrangements, harbor songs of joy and melancholy, all of them cooked at low emotional simmer.  By contrast Portuondo - a big star in her homeland - often throws emotional restraint to the wind.  She accomodated herself to a plethora of styles and arrangers.  Many of her tracks display the influence of international pop music of recent decades, Latin flavored and delivered with impassioned vocals that require no translation to communicate the gist of her feelings.

-by David Luhrssen 09/11/05
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