/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC: ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ Revives Interest in Cuban Music

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Aug 10 1999 (IPS) - Forty years on from the Cuban revolution, Havana and Washington are still wary of each other but the success of the movie “The Buena Vista Social Club” shows the love-hate relationship of the people of both countries.

The movie is a documentary of how US guitarist Ry Cooder bought together Cuban sonero stars like guitarists Compay Segundo and Eliades Ochoa, pianist Ruben Gonzalez and vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer – now all in their 70’s and 80’s.

The movie has been a hit with audiences across the United States and interest in Cuban rhythms has zoomed in popularity at music store.

Ever since the Buena Vista Social Club played in New York’s Carnegie Hall in July 1998 to a full house, the story of who they are and how they came together has taken on almost mythic dimensions.

The German movie director Wim Wenders now displays the group in all its glory in his documentary, also titled ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ (distributed by Artisan films). As the film shows, the elderly Cuban musicians who form the Social Club are just as fascinated with US culture as US audiences have been with them.

The documentary, which shows the Club in concert in Amsterdam and New York and at home in Havana, depicts a group of musicians who are as fascinated with the vibrancy of their neighbour to the North as they are of their own distinctive culture.

On their visit to New York, Ferrer and Gonzalez seem dazzled by the bright lights around them, and happy just to be able to see such tacky tourist artifacts as plastic miniatures of the Statue of Liberty and President John F. Kennedy – the man who, ironically enough, began the four-decade embargo against Cuba.

Even in his house in Havana, Ferrer seems just as pleased to display American knick-knacks like Disney-movie toys as he is to demonstrate his skill with Cuban singing styles.

Yet the documentary also shrewdly exploits, and subtly twists, the US fascination with Cuba since Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and established a socialist, and rhetorically anti-US, state.

Wenders shows the same sights of Cuba that are almost a cliche of Western depictions of the island: the classic 1950s cars, easy- going population and crowded, bustling streets. But the Cuba on display is also the Cuba that the elderly Club members represent: proud of its past, dignified and cultured.

The film opens with Compay Segundo, one of the eldest members of the group, asking passersby where he can find the remains of the old Buena Vista Social Club, once one of the more popular music clubs in Havana. Along the way, he receives amusingly contradictory directions and shares his recipes for hangover cures – including one that involves cooking chicken necks.

The film’s magic owes a lot to moments like that: digressive, light-hearted and genuinely engrossing. People like Segundo and Ferrer, Wenders suggests, have won fame late in their lives, and are wise enough to take it easy and enjoy it at its own pace.

The documentary is not perfect: Ry Cooder, the acclaimed US guitarist who sought out the musicians, and found some of them working on street corners and long retired from music, seems slightly pompous as he describes his mission of finding Cuba’s great soneros.

The film also focuses on too many musicians, so some of the most interesting ones – particularly the wistful Ferrer and the sly, witty Gonzalez – don’t get the screen time they deserve.

Still, ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ is uplifting in its depiction of musicians who never gave up, and were rewarded with recognition at a time when they were expecting it would never come. Few moments in modern film are as touching as the band’s proud entry into Carnegie Hall in New York where they deliver a performance that blows away the audience.

Part of the magic of their music is the sense of sorrow that pervades the songs of romantic loss, which singers like Ferrer, who is 92 years-old, perform with heartbreaking clarity.

After decades of being first admired and then forgotten as a Cuban singing legend, Ferrer this year has finally recorded his solo debut album, ‘Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer,’ which also features Cooder, Gonzalez and other musicians from the group that toured Amsterdam and New York.

From up-tempo songs like Benny More’s old hit ‘Que Bueno Baile Usted’ to classic ballads like ‘Silencio’ and ‘Como Fue,’ Ferrer takes the spotlight on the album to display his amazing range and abiding sense of melancholy.

The band also proves that the Cuban styles of the past remain great dance music, even as the rhumba and guaguanco have given way in recent years to more modern styles like hip-hop.

Meanwhile, Ruben Gonzalez and Eliades Ochoa also have albums out, which include collaborations with the likes of the ubiquitous Cooder and David Hidalgo of the Mexican-American group Los Lobos.

Clearly, the musicians of the Buena Vista Social Club have just begun to make its mark – decades after they believed they would languish in obscurity.