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Title A Night In Havana Subtitle A Collection Of Cuba's Coolest Music Artist Various Format: Double CD Cat. No.: METRDCD522 Barcode: 698458702227 Playing Time: over 2 hours

Cuba may be a land of political paradox - but there's no two ways about her musical magic. What's more, there's a cool Caribbean breeze caressing the Malecon tonight - so come taste a century of solid “sabor” with Havana's brightest stars and most celebrated music-makers. Treat yourself to a night in Havana!

Track List 1 Omara Portuondo - Echale Salsita 2 Beny Moré - Babarabatiri 3 Compay Segundo - Filiberto 4 Ibrahim Ferrer - Cucuruchito De Coco 5 Omara Portuondo, Pio Leyva, Puntillita & Teresa Garcia Caturla - Deja Que 6 Omara Portuondo - Yo Como Candela 7 Beny Moré - Tratame Como Soy 8 Compay Segundo - Maria En La Playa 9 Omara Portuondo - Dos Gardenias 10 Beny Moré - La Maricutana 11 Ibrahim Ferrer - Compositor Confundido 12 Orquesta Riverside - Ritmando El Cha Cha Cha 13 Manual Licea “Puntillita” - A Toda Cuba Le Gusta 14 Omara Portuondo - La Ultima Noche 15 Compay Segundo - Francisco Guayabal 16 Ibrahim Ferrer - El Platanal De Bartolo 17 Septeto Nacional & Ignacio Piñeiro - Crei Que Eras Mia 18 Tito Gomez - Lagrimas Negras 19 Merceditas Valdes - Elube Chango 1 Omara Portuondo - Mi Son Caliente 2 Omara Portuondo - Agua Que Cae Del Cielo 3 Eliades Ochoa Y Cuarteto Patria - La Comadre Catalina 4 Eliades Ochoa Y Cuarteto Patria - Allí Donde Tú Sabes 5 Eliades Ochoa Y Cuarteto Patria - Se Acabaron Los Guapos En Yateras 6 Ñico Saquito - Me Tenían Amarrado Con Fe 7 Ñico Saquito - María Cristina 8 Orquesta Aragon & Elena Burke - Son Al Son 9 Celeste Mendoza - Como Duele Eso 10 Compay Segundo - San Luisera 11 Ibrahim Ferrer - Estoy Seco Y Me Quiero Mojar 11 Ibrahim Ferrer - Estoy Seco Y Me Quiero Mojar 12 Beny Moré - San Fernando 13 Compay Segundo - Un Jardinero De Amor 14 Ibrahim Ferrer - Ahora No Puedo 15 Ñico Saquito - Adiós Compay Gato 16 Adriano Rodriguez - Perla Marina         Sleevenotes   The celebrated writer Ernest Hemingway once described Cuba as ‘a country of many paradoxes’. A dictatorship that, in April 2003 incarcerated 75 independent journalists, librarians, human rights activists and authors for up to twenty years apiece under the arbitrary provisions of the infamous ‘Law 88’ (which nominally punishes contact with ‘foreign powers’, but effectively stifles independent press criticism of the Cuban government) is the same liberal leadership that once encouraged the annual Festival of Protest Song at Cuba’s Casa de Las Americas. So, er, that’d be protests against everyone except the Cuban government, would it? Or this one: in May 2003, Cuba’s first Ephemeral Art Festival lasted an hour in Havana after butter paintings and ice scupltures melted, children ate one sculpture made of cakes, and a grand piano went up in flames. The organisers were shocked. But it was supposed to be ephemeral, so who’s complaining? Two completely different events, obviously, and of radically differing degrees of seriousness; but both with their own crazy internal logic. It’s a logic that has, throughout Cuba’s history, extended not just to the making of music but also to the very meaning of music in Cuba and its place in Cuban society. During the twentieth century, Cuban music made two major forays into the North American popular entertainment industry, until the 1970s, the world’s only serious pop industry. Both entrees were equally decisive in the gigantic influence of Cuban music throughout the world today. The first foray was voluntary. In the late forties a number of stupendously talented Cuban performers, arrangers and composers landed in New York, discontented with the artistic and financial limits effectively imposed on their talents by the clichéd expectations of an embryonic Cuban tourist trade. The bandleader Machito had soon forged a completely new way of presenting Afro-Hispanic dance music, using African percussion and European band instruments. Machito’s arranger and brother-in-law, overwhelmed by the power of swing (especially in the shape of Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton), matched elements of traditional Cuban music and rhythm with big-band chart hits. On a smaller scale, but no less significantly, the blind singer and Cuban tres guitarist Arsenio Rodriguez found a similar, but different match to Cuban Son in the arrangements of the R&B ‘jump’ bands that had spread to New York from places like St Louis. Cuban music’s synergy with Afro-American styles extended beyond blues and jazz, and within twenty years, had made another indelible mark – this time on Soul music, as boogaloo and latin soul. Out of that came the Fania group of labels, and Salsa. And, for the avoidance of doubt and no matter what anyone tells you, Salsa is American swing and jazz melded with Cuban Son. But Cuba’s second foray into the North American musical heartlands was more a case of making a virtue out of cruel necessity. On New Year’s Eve 1958, an apparently strong, but corrupt regime headed since 1933 by a former army sergeant, Fulgencio Batista, simply quit. In January 1959, Fidel Castro and his comrades took the reigns of power and started a long programme of property expropriation, not only against USA corporations and citizens, but also against Cuban property owners who were perceived (rightly or wrongly) as enemies of the new state. Within a few years, an enormous and vociferously anti-Castro Cuban community had grown up in and around Miami, Florida. Musicians in Cuba, and Cuban musicians in Miami should logically have had totally different axes to grind. Stricken with nostalgia, and determined that the then Soviet-style Castro regime should not expropriate their hearts as well as their homes, Miami Cuban musicians devoted themselves to recreating meticulous and authentic versions of vintage Cuban country music, a movement whose full bloom can be seen in the extensive catalogue of Miami-based Cuban record label SAR, whose versions of Cuban classics seem almost more ‘authentic’ than the originals. Yet here comes one more paradox: one would assume that the new Cuban regime, anxious to sweep away any connections with the past, would have placed restrictions on the playing of the ‘old’ repertoire. Not a bit of it: in fact, it was encouraged, alongside more ‘progressive’, politically engaged folksong. And by the late 70s a bassist called Juan Formell had developed a new rhythm, Songo, which owed almost as much to North American styles and instrumentation as Machito’s experiments had, all those years ago in a colder climate. Today, Songo has transmogrified into Timba, and North America’s salseros (including the Miami Cubans) are falling over themselves to master the biggest latin dance craze since salsa itself. So the paradox is this: music is stronger than just about anything. Unlike writing, it can’t be bowdlerised, burned or detoxified. Very few musicians have been imprisoned in Cuba. The possibilities of all this were put to the test by an American guitarist, Ry Cooder, an English record producer, Nick Gold, and a team of liked-minded Cubanophiles. In 1997, when the world first heard the Buena Vista Social Club and its various offshoots, alternate line-ups and solo cameos, it wasn’t just the Euro-American World Music audience who became entranced: it was also the Miami Cubans, the Cuban Cubans, and just about everyone else who suddenly realised anew that music has no boundaries, no internal politics. Either the tunes are good, or not. Either the performers are good, or not. Simple really. This collection includes many unforgettable tunes, many legendary performers. Some are associated, directly or indirectly, with the Buena Vista Club ‘mothership’. Some are of sufficient vintage to have been an inspiration for the BVC (of pretty fine vintage themselves!). And some are just one-off Cuban geniuses, like Beny Moré. Don’t fight the paradox. It’s what makes Cuban music. Featured Artists: OMARA PORTUONDO From her debut album in 1959, ‘Magia Negra’, through her time with the famous female bands Orquesta Anacaona and Cuarteto d’Aida, Omara Portuondo established credentials as a singer equally at home with romantic boleros such as ‘Dos Gardenias’, as with uptempo compositions like ‘Yo Como Candela’ and ‘Echale Salsita’. Omara’s work with the Buena Vista Social Club in the late 90s, both as a group member and featured solo artist, has brought her belated international recognition. BENY MORÉ From an earlier period than Portuondo comes Beny Moré, by popular opinion the most celebrated popular Cuban vocalist of all time. After starting in the 30s Moré received his first substantial residency as a member of Miguel Matamoros’ group, probably the busiest of the many travelling Cuban groups of the 40s. He moved to Mexico in the 50s, where he recorded many of his greatest hits for RCA (the only record company he ever recorded for), such as Colombian bandleader Lucho Bermudez’ classic ‘San Fernando’. He went on to record with mambo pioneer Perez Prado’s orchestra before forming his own big band in the early fifties and evincing a talent for arranging almost as strong as his gift as a vocalist. He stayed in Cuba after the revolution, but died of liver failure in 1963. The other three Beny Moré titles collected here show superbly his talent for working with a big band. COMPAY SEGUNDO Born in 1907, Compay Segundo was one of the pioneers of Cuban popular composition. He invented the ‘armonico’ in the 20s – a guitar with a double 3rd string giving the instrument the flavour of the Cuban tres as well as the standard European guitar. Segundo, too, worked with Miguel Matamoros, giving up music after the revolution in order to make a more regular living as a cigar roller. ‘Francisco Guyabal’ and ‘Filiberto’ have been recorded by countless Cuban artists over the decades, and ‘San Luisera’ has even spawned a charanga orchestra named nominally after the place, but in the popular imagination after the song. IBRAHIM FERRER Born in 1927 in Santiago, singer Ibrahim Ferrer was fronting Pacho Alonso’s famous orchestra by the 50s, later performing with the orchestras of Chepin and Beny Moré. After a considerable period of retirement, he was persuaded back into the studio with the Buena Vista Social Club in 1996. He has since recorded two further albums for World Circuit – this time, as a featured solo artist – and won a Grammy for Best Vocalist in 2000 for the first of those two discs. All the selections here demonstrate his unique way with a good lyric, although ‘El Platanal de Bartolo’ is perhaps the best-loved of all the songs that he has become associated with over the years. ELIADES OCHOA A familiar sight in Cuba with his Santiago-style Stetson hat, Eliades Ochoa has sung with several quartets over the years but is best-known (and most widely recorded) for his work with Cuarteto Patria. Here are three of his very best. ÑICO SAQUITO Born in 1901, guitarist Ñico Saquito is credited with having invented the four-line humorous dance genre Guaracha. In his 81 years he was responsible for a body of work as astonishing for its consistent high quality as for his comparatively rare visits to the recording studio. These cuts, recorded with Cuarteto Patria and Duo Cubano in 1982, were to be his last. CELESTE MENDOZA Known as ‘The Queen of Guaguanco’ (a popular Cuban dance style based on the traditional Afro-Cuban guaguanco drumming patterns), Celeste Mendoza holds forth with one of her signature tunes from the golden days of Cuban music. ADRIANO RODRIGUEZ With 2002’s ‘Corazon de Son’ (on Egrem) as his only solo album release, Adriano Rodriguez will be unfamiliar to all but the most dedicated Cubanophile. ‘Perla Marina’ is a beautiful song and, although very recent, harks back to the 50s heyday of bolero and ‘filin’ music and is very much in the spirit of the Buena Vista Club stable. ORQUESTA RIVERSIDE From the late 30s through to the end of the 50s, Riverside were one of THE big Cuban hotel and show bands, first led by the founder Enrique Mantici and later by tenor saxist Pedro Vila. Associated in the 50s with the jazz arrangements of the mighty pianist Bebo Valdes and the singing of Tito Gomez (whom you’ll see below), they were the model for just about all the larger jazz-mambo outfits that followed in the States, such as those of Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez. SEPTETO NACIONAL & IGNACIO PIÑEIRO A founding father of several aspects of Cuban music, Ignacio Piñeiro formed Nacional in 1927, since when it has survived through dozens of personnel changes, to the present day. Piñeiro is credited with having introduced the trumpet to the traditional guitar/percussion line-up, paving the way for modern salsa and AfroCuban jazz. He was also allegedly he first person to use the word ‘salsa’ when he wrote ‘Echale Salsita’ – check Omara Portuondo’s version on this compilation. ORQUESTA ARAGON & ELENA BURKE Elena Burke, the Queen of ‘filin’ (yes, an approximation of ‘feeling’) – ie romantic ballads with a more international flavour than the Cuban bolero – was another early member of Cuarteto d’Aida, along with Omara Portuondo. Aragon are Cuba’s most famous and long-lived Charanga orchestra (charanga pitches a violin section and flute against traditional Afro Cuban percussion) and, anecdotally, inventors of the cha cha cha rhythm. MANUEL LICEA ‘PUNTILLITA’ & TERESA GARCIA CATURLA ...are two exceptionally able vocalists who were comparatively obscure until they were enlisted for the various Buena Vista Club projects, since when both have recorded solo albums. Teresa joins Puntillita and others in the vocal solo ball-throwing fun of ‘Deja Que Suba La Marea’, whilst Puntillita shines alone in the classic Afro-Cuban All -Stars show-opener ’A Toda Cuba Le Gusta’. PIO LEYVA One of the very greatest vocal improvisers that Cuba has ever produced, Pio was already known to Cubanophiles for his classic, long-deleted album ‘Descargando El Montuno’, before his association with the Buena Vista Club and Afro-Cuban All-Stars brought him exceptional opportunities with two more top Cuban bands of recent years – Caravana Cubana and Maraca Valle’s Otra Vision. TITO GOMEZ An exceptional all-rounder vocal-wise, the late Tito Gomez was best-known as feature singer with Orquesta Riverside. This is a fine reading of one of the most famous boleros in the entire Cuban canon. Not to be confused with the younger salsero Tito Gomez, a Puerto Rican artist based in Colombia. MERCEDITAS VALDES One of the very few female performers to have shone in the traditionally male preserve of religious Afro-Cuban drumming and associated styles, praises the god Chango. John Armstrong A litigation and media lawyer by profession, John has had a parallel career as a DJ, writer and album compiler for more than fifteen years. He also enjoys quality rum and fine cigars.

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