BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB

[juancho]

I came across Netflix watch movies instantly and came across this documentary. It's about long forgotten Cuban musicians. I recommended.......awesome!!!

[Mike]

This documentary from the late 1990s has been around for a while now.
There has even been a follow up:
"The sons of Cuba - Buena Vista next generation"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvc5w3mVq0Y

[Joseph]

If you like to read, there is a book called "Last Dance in Havana" by Eugene Robinson, an African American newspaper columnist and a Cuban music lover.
He went to Cuba a few years after release of the film "Buena Vista Social Club", when Cuban music (and music tourism) were being (re)discovered by the world at large, in great part by the popularity of the movie.

He meets the Cuban producer of the movie, and his (the producer's) version of how the movie came to be is far different than is portrayed in the movie...a la Ry Cooder spontaneously thinking this all up, after getting stiffed by some other studio musicians.

Robinson then goes in search of what Cuban youth are listening and dancing to, by visiting dancehalls and other venues that the locals attend. Many of these venues are kind of last minute...word of mouth,
usually in a low key location....always jam packed....bumpin' and grindin'.
At times he shows up to find (for various reasons) that the venue has been cancelled.
His conclusion as to what the new generation is listening and dancing to ( !)
........Hip-Hop .....with a lot of AfroRoots....and much better rhythmic breaks than American style.

An interesting read. I stumbled across it at my local library.
Apparently it never burned up the best seller lists, because it can be purchased at Amazon.com for as little as $0.15
(used + shipping)
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Dance-Havana-Eugene-Robinson/dp/0743246225
There are a few reviews on it.

Fair warning: Not strictly about music. Also includes political commentary/observations.

BTW: Loved the movie, especially Ibrahim Ferrer

[guarachon63]

UGH don't get me started about this movie, one of my pet peeves, cultural colonialism at it's worst! Ry Cooder and Wim Wenders had every opportunity to dispel those myths of the "long forgotten musicians" but let them continue. I lost all respect for them both as a result, especially Ry Cooder feeling the need to sit in and add absolutely nothing with his slide guitar noodling and even putting his hippies son in there chugging away on the clay pot...like I said don't get me started!

[Mike]

UGH don't get me started about this movie, one of my pet peeves, cultural colonialism at it's worst! Ry Cooder and Wim Wenders had every opportunity to dispel those myths of the "long forgotten musicians" but let them continue. I lost all respect for them both as a result, especially Ry Cooder feeling the need to sit in and add absolutely nothing with his slide guitar noodling and even putting his hippies son in there chugging away on the clay pot...like I said don't get me started!

Yep, you´re so right about Ry Cooder & his son
I don´t want to get you started, but maybe you are interested in this article
by Eugene Godfried:
http://afrocubaweb.com/eugenegodfried/b ... ritics.htm
Here is a short excerpt:

Thanks to international enterprise, the Buena Vista Social Club has caused many cultural policymakers in Cuba to understand the power of Son. Prior to this, these policymakers were ignoring and marginalizing the soneros, whose African rhythms are fused with European melodic styles. Now they understand that Son is untouchable, as is one of its legendary architects, the African Cuban composer, arranger, and tres – guitar player from Guira de Macurijes, Matanzas, Arsenio Rodriguez, who wrote the original song entitled "Buena Vista Social Club."

[Light Seeker]

Guarachon, I'm sorry, but I want to get you started. Please expand on what you're saying about cultural colonialism and Ry and Wim... was this exploitation? I don't really understand. I thought the album did a lot to turn a whole new generation of non-Cubans onto the beauty that is Cuban music.

[guarachon63]

Guarachon, I'm sorry, but I want to get you started. Please expand on what you're saying about cultural colonialism and Ry and Wim... was this exploitation? I don't really understand. I thought the album did a lot to turn a whole new generation of non-Cubans onto the beauty that is Cuban music.

Hahaha, it's been so long now I really should get over it I guess.

I know none of this really matters in the whole scheme of things, but here goes:

I don't deny at all that it turned on a new generation to Cuban music (although in most cases no doubt the interest went no further than BVSC or it's many spin-off CDs), the musicians benefited from the exposure, etc. All that is great, very happy for them, etc.

What bugs me about it is the myth that was created, due (in my opinion) to many factors but basically the laziness and incuriosity of music consumers in general and the music press and record distributors in particular.

I haven't read the book Joseph recommended, but the relevant pages (which can be read at the link below) pretty much sums up.

http://books.google.com/books?id=PRW7HzOj4L0C&lpg=PP1&dq=%22Last%20Dance%20in%20Havana%22&pg=PA26#v=onepage&q=buena%20vista&f=false

And even that still understates the case a bit. I had many current records by Eliades Ocha and Compay Segundo for years before BVSC. (In fact my son group was already sick of playing "Chan Chan" by the time BVSC came out!) You just had to walk out of the "pop/rock" aisle of any fairly well-stocked record store with an import section and there they were. (And the quality of the performances were generally much better on the originals than on BVSC.)

Yes, some of them were retired, and were struggling to get by along with many other Cubans. But there is also a latent political argument in the myth as well, as if no great musicians ever grow old, struggling in obscurity, in other countries.

Then once the thing got rolling, Ry and Wim both had many chances in many interviews to modify the myth a bit, to kind of tone it down but they never did, that I could see.

And I guess on a more personal level, just the after-effect of having to have the saaaame conversation about it with eeeeevery single person you meet when they find out you like Cuban music. I just had one the other day with someone in the airport in Cancun, and they were all like "Oh, it was so great what Ry Cooder did, to go find this great group who had just been terribly forgotten, etc."

And coming in on the heels of the 1980's when being into Brazilian music meant having to have a conversation about David Byrne, the whole thing was very irritating!

[Joseph]

Funny you should mention David Byrne.

My first exposure to Brazilian music ( I'm an anglo) was in High School NYC in 1967, studying Greek mythology.
Our teacher insisted we see, and bought to the auditorium a reel to reel copy of the film "Black Orpheus", which is a re-telling of the Greek myth of Orpheus & Eurydice, the ill fated lovers...set in Rio de Janeiro 1960, in the midst of Carnaval.
On a big screen....Wow! What a movie...on so many levels.
Opened up a whole new world of music & culture to me.
I fell in love, with all aspects of the movie. ( I'm still in love {lust} with Minha, Orpheus' first girlfriend)... it still rates as one of my all time favorite movies.

Being an anglo, and not immersed, nor involved in Brazilian culture, I kinda lapsed in my interest in Brazilian music.
....until the 80's when David Byrne came along with his first compilation "Beleza Tropicale" (?)
Totally renewed my interest in the genre, and ever since I've been an avid a lover, listener, collector of Brazilian music.

I understand your complaint... that these musics (Cuban Son, Brazilian, many genres) are, and have been valid
(and immensely popular) in their own right, and that they don't need some mass marketed & cooked up bs human interest story of how the American superstar (Cooder, Byrne) came down there and "discovered" all these un-mined gems for the benefit of the world.
.
But I guess that's the nature of promotion and marketing, and if in the end, there are more appreciators, and lovers of the music & culture, I suppose it's a net positive.

Cheers

[Mike]

I understand your complaint... that these musics (Cuban Son, Brazilian, many genres) are, and have been valid (and immensely popular) in their own right, and that they don't need some mass marketed & cooked up human interest story of how the American superstar (Cooder, Byrne) came down their and "discovered" all these un-mined gems for all the world to see.

But I guess that's the nature of promotion and marketing, and if in the end, there are more appreciators, and lovers of the music & culture, I suppose it's a net positive.

Call "the nature of promotion and marketing" world music, and you are close to this monstrous, globally commercialized thingo that nobody could ever stop
On the other hand: the seemingly positive opposite, i.e. non-commercial, authentic popular music is difficult to grapple with too - I wonder where if it exists in pure form ?

[guarachon63]

Net positive, totally agree, I am just an old crank.

[Joseph]

Tambien !

BTW: Guarachon, great use of teh Google. Google books is a great (teaser) resource.