La colección - EGREM CD reissues of the first 15 LPs

EGREM, in its nearly 50-year history, has been entrusted with the historic task of recording, preserving and reissuing some of the most important music ever recorded. They haven't lived up to the task. We continue to encourage readers to write EGREM and try to talk sense to them, but so far they've been utterly unresponsive. Of their feeble attempts at CD reissues, the 15-CD Los Van Van collection is the best. It ignores the many singles and EPs, fails to remaster or even normalize the tracks, and offers almost no documentation, but at least it succeeds in covering LVV's first 15 vinyl LPs in the correct order, with the original track orders and it gives us a year for each one and the composer for each track. The CDs are cleaner than most vinyl transfers, and if you rip them to your hard drive, normalize them, and apply some basic mastering, they sound a lot better. They can seldom be bought as a set and unless you can make it to Havana, the best way to collect them all is to scour amazon.com, ebay.com, prodland.us and your local record stores. It's a big job, but it's well worth it. Volume I and a few tracks on Volume V sound dated, but other than that, it's one great song after another, spanning an astounding range of styles and featuring a gradually changing cast of Cuba's greatest singers and musicians. EGREM has a pretty decent website with more information on the set.

Personnel Note: Almost immediately after Volume I, Blas Egües was replaced by José Luis "Changuito" Quintana. Changuito's rhythmic contributions coincided with Formell's maturation as a songwriter and LVV launched into a six year period which alone would have been sufficient to establish them as one of Cuba's most important bands. LVV's recordings from 1970-1976 are the definite starting point for anyone seeking to learn about the enigmatic genre of "songo".