Areíto LD-4053 -- La colección Volume VII

l

12 y 23 is a nice, but tame dance track and Calzada de Cerro, in spite of its very Cuban-sounding title, sounds like a warmed over version of Clare Fisher's over-played Latin jazz lounge standard Morning. But just when one's timba-centric attention span starts to run out, along comes El tata, (source - Vol. VII is currently unavailable), discussed in the previous section, to remind us how deeply indebted timba is to Irakere. It's a very satisfying fusion of batá and the type of Irakere dance groove that most directly pre-dates NG and the other timba bands of the 90s.

The album ends with a trio of tracks based on Arsenio Rodríguez compositions, a jazz ballad based on La vida es un sueño, an abstract solo piano version of Dile a Catalina, and a remake of the 1981 Catalina arrangement, but without the piano intro and with different soloists.