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La Última
Afro-Cubism at Stern Grove
Tom Ehrlich reporting for La Última
Eliades Ochoa had already hatched the idea for the Afro-Cubism project when the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon swept him onto the world stage in 1997. Now, 15 years later, his original vision has finally been realized: master musicians from Cuba playing son with master musicians from the African country of Mali playing traditional Malian music. I was thrilled to photograph the historic collaboration on a magical afternoon of music at Stern Grove Park in San Francisco. Click here the full gallery. [Tom Ehrlich]
AfroCubism
Hmmm, Afrocubism o "sobre la lista"? Decisions, decisions.
Afrocubism it is.
Tom's gallery inspired me to pull out the Afrocubism CD, which I picked up several months ago and enjoyed a lot but never talked about that much. A Mali-Cuba match wouldn't necessarily be on the short lists for a lot of people to think about, but the CD (I haven't seen the live rendition of the material) actually works quite well. There is some absolutely wonderful balafon work (think of a xylophone having a manic episode, but in a good way, and you'll get close to what's happening), some electric guitar work that made me think a little of Senen Suarez' late period stuff, some acoustic guitar work from Eliades that gave me a new appreciation of what he can do and just a nice blend of Malian and Cuban music. This is one of the rare times I think I have to stoop to humoring the label "World Music" because it's not really jazz and it's also neither pure Malian or Cuban.
Earlier on in what has been called the "World Music" genre, there was an abundance of mix and match stuff that didn't always work, but I think we are in a period now where an increasing number of musicians have cracked the code on what works well. Perhaps this is like cooking. Keep playing with spices, and once you get past the mixes that taste a little weird, you stumble across some wonderful blends now and then. This one was pretty tasty. It's not a turbo dance floor thing, but it's great to kick back and listen to it. Wish I had been there for the live gig; it must have been fun.