afro cuban all stars: a toda cuba le gusta (remastered)
Francisco Espregueira
Ever since its release in 1996, Buena Vista Social Club has played an integral role in reintroducing the world to Cuban music. But while it’s a crucial entry in Latin music history, the story of Buena Vista Social Club actually begins with a different album — A Toda Cuba le Gusta, by the Afro Cuban All Stars — and a legendary two-week recording session in Havana.
The sessions at Havana’s EGREM studios resulted in three historic albums. The first album would be about the music that echoed through the city in the ‘50s, which is the golden period of Cuban music. This was the faster-paced dance music of pre-revolutionary Cuba, when Havana night clubs, bars, and hotels were packed with tourists and mafiosos. That record would become the Afro Cuban All Stars’ landmark debut, A Toda Cuba le Gusta, with iconic tracks like “Amor Verdadero”, “Habana del Este” or “Clasiqueando con Rubén”
The second album, which became Buena Vista Social Club, would feature the acoustic folk music of east Cuba from the ‘20s and ‘30s. This was the music of the Cuban countryside that praised the island’s natural beauty, spread local gossip, and encouraged people to dance late into the night. Enough music would eventually be recorded that a third album, pianist Rubén González’s opus, Introducing…Rubén González, was also released.
Directed and energized by Juan de Marcos González the album is composed by an all-star team including pianist Rubén González, bassist Orlando “Cachaito” Lopez, vocalists Ibrahim Ferrer, Félix Baloy and Omara Portuondo, and guitarist Compay Segundo.
“Cuando mi madre nació
Nacieron tres flores bellas
Nació la luna, nació el sol
Y la tercera fue ella”
And this fall, World Circuit Recordings will re-release the celebrated debut album by the Afro Cuban All Stars. With its origins in the Buena Vista Sessions, A Toda Cuba le Gusta is a high-energy history lesson in the sultry, irresistible rumba, guajira, and chachachá dance patterns prevalent throughout Havana nightclubs in the 1940s and ‘50s. Now remastered from the original analogue tapes and available for the first time on double 180gm heavyweight vinyl.