 Various Artists This CD is an exercise in how delicate preservation can drain the vitality out of even the greatest of music. Recorded at a 1989 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife program on Caribbean music, Cuba in Washington is such a vivid document of the performances that you feel like you're right there. But I don't mean that in a good way. Did you ever go to your hometown's carnival or fair (i.e. "New Brockton Days" or whatever) and they had a tent set up inside which was a performance … it might have been two Native American flute players or simply elderly folk dancers from the local nursing home … and being ten years old, it seemed very impressive? Then years later, at seventeen, it seemed stupid? And then years later, at forty-five, it seemed impressive again? There's something terribly unnatural about transplanted ethnic music, and even more so when it's presented as an academic display. Cuban music, especially, doesn't need to be catalogued for the museum crowd just yet. I can picture the audience … a mixture of mostly older Latin Americans and preening NPR-listening white people, totally digging this little event. But then looking at the photos in the CD booklet, and seeing the performers in front of the vinyl walls of the tent … it's just to horrible to mention. This was probably a huge deal for these performers, years before Ry Cooder would win a Grammy for the Buena Vista Social Club album. I can't help but pity the performers, offering up an inevitably token representation of the various styles of Cuban music. Three groups are featured, performing a mixture of sons, changuis, guajiras, and what have you. To me, these distinctions are unnecessary and only intellectualize a passionate music that is best listened to with the ears and the feet. The performances are fine, very traditional, and in the last few tracks (by the Cuarteto Patria y Compay Segundo), even quite rousing. Yet I'd still say that this is about number 250 or so on the list of essential Cuban albums to own. Admittedly, I go in for Albita and some of the less traditional (boring) stuff, but even for stick-in-the-mud traditionalists this one's a little dry. The potential audience is people who explore the world through Smithsonian/Folkways records and who never learn to overcome their impotence. They sit in a plush chair working a crossword puzzle and nod along with the music, but they never dance. This would be a nice keepsake for anyone who was actually in attendance. For me, it gave me the unmistakable feeling of walking around with a plastic cup of watered-down Pepsi and looking at bad local art, then stopping in for a few moments of soon-forgotten "culture." Plus, you need seven tickets to ride the fuckin' Gravitron, and that's like three and a half bucks!
Review by Ed Klang |