Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club ®
Farewell to Cuban music´s most emblematic orchestra
The orchestra has made the “son” and other traditional Cuban music styles internationally popular
When Ry Cooder landed in Havana in 1996, summoned by the British producer Nick Gold, in order to record a session with African and Cuban musicians, he couldn’t imagine that what proved to be failure in the beginning, due to the fact that the Mali musicians couldn’t travel to the island because they didn’t get their visa, would end up becoming one of the most successful records in Cuban music history.
Yes, because when they decided to improvise an album with senior local musicians, they would have never imagined the amazing success that those sessions would reach under the name of Buena Vista Social Club, paying homage to a private Havana club that closed its doors in the forties of last century.
The album, released in 1997, had an impressive list of names amongst which were Orlando “Cachaito” López, Eliades Ochoa, Rubén González, Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo, revisiting classics of the son, bolero, guajira and descarga. The success was so huge that since then, the name of the orchestra is etched in the mind of Cuban music fans.
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