One of the oddest developments in the record industry is the “Greatest Hits” package. Musical artists release their first album, then the sophomore effort and the third release compiles the first two releases and is titled “Greatest Hits.”
Doesn’t “Hit” mean a song that was popular on the radio and generated a lot of money for the record company? If I was appointed the Commander-in-Chief of Musical Aesthetics, nobody could market “Greatest Hits” until their oeuvre consisted of at least ten albums. For example, this is a very fine collection of ¡Cubanismo!’s output although the Cuban band has only released four albums since its inception in 1996, none of them have been played with any regularity on commercial radio stations and two of the best tracks on this disc—renditions of the Wailers’ “Get Up, Stand Up” and “Could You Be Loved”—have never been released.
Thank Jah Rastafari that ¡Cubanismo! turned the Kingstonian songs inside-out, creating something that is not quite reggae, not quite Cuban but totally delightful (another of my dictates, if I was Commander-in-Chief, would be a prohibition against non-Jamaicans tackling reggae and ditto for dreadlocks—except in the case of Ricky Williams).
With the exception of two songs recorded in New Orleans, aided and abetted by New Orleans musicians and vocalists, musical director/trumpeter Jesús Alemañy and company (a very large company) cut these selections in Havana, where the band is the reigning ensemble (the Buena Vista Social Club, despite its popularity with Americans, is considered the Cuban equivalent of say, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band). There is much to admire here—complex arrangements, unexpected rhythms, passionate performances. The brightest star of the entire album is guest New Orleans vocalist John Boutté, singing “Marie Laveaux,” co-written by Mark Bingham and Glenn Patscha.
A song about New Orleans’ legendary voodoo queen would seem to be the sort of cliché-filled territory that no intelligent songwriters would dare traverse. It is, therefore, all the more thrilling that “Marie Laveaux” is such an admirable combination of sophistication, rhythm and cultural miscegenation.
