Garzón and Guerra: Cuba, Past and Future

Cuban popular music of the '30s and '40s endures on its home island in much the way Broadway and Tin Pan Alley songs endure in the US. Two recent tradition-conscious releases, one by Armando Garzón, a startling newcomer, the other by Marcelino Guerra, a veteran whose songs are pillars of the standard Cuban repertoire, reveal a great body of durable compositions that move listeners decades after they were written.

With his first American release, Boleros (Corason/Rounder), Armando Garzón joins the ranks of great international stars like Brazil's Milton Nascimento and Nigeria's Youssou N'Dour -- singers whose voices transcend language, whose sound alone has the power to move. Garzón's voice has an ennobling quality, a purity of spirit, and a depth of feeling that reach across language and culture. He's a countertenor, which means his voice naturally ranges high (you might even mistake it for a woman's). On songs like "Sublime Ilusión," when he hits a high note without any audible strain, the effect is irresistibly sensuous, startling in its grace, and ravishing in its gentleness and strength. Boleros have longer, more-developed melodies than the short call-and-response phrases common to the more prevalent Cuban son, and Garzón's smooth delivery of classics like "Contigo en la Distancia" and "Quiéreme Mucho" make the songs seem to materialize out of thin air, like a stunning sunset or a cloud.

Throughout Boleros, Garzón is backed by Quinteto Oriente, one of Cuba's very best traditional groups. Lead guitarist Alejandro Enis Almenares is especially deft at embellishing the songs without drawing attention from the album's main attraction -- Garzón's remarkable voice.

Rapindey (Intuition) is the final recording of legendary Cuban composer and singer Marcelino Guerra (he died this past June). Guerra was an unparalleled harmony singer who rose through the ranks of the great Cuban groups of the '30s, including Ignacio Piñeiro's Septeto Nacional and the band of Arsenio Rodríguez. (After he left Cuba for New York in 1940, the art of harmonized singing left with him, according to the CD's informative liner notes.) He also wrote some of the era's classic tunes, many of them featured on this CD, including "Maleficio" and "Sandunguera." In New York, Guerra joined Machito and his Afro-Cubans, the premier Latin orchestra of its day, where he harmonized with Machito and wrote lovely boleros for the band's female singer (and Machito's sister), Graciela.

Rapindey (a nickname that Guerra earned as a boy messenger) features the venerable singer/songwriter returning to his greatest works in the company of old friends and young acolytes. Age may have sapped some of the youthful power from his voice, but his experience compensates for any defects; these are assured, astutely judged performances. His smooth tenor still projects a manly honesty on "Prietita"; the rasp in his voice on "Buscando la Melodía" gives a patina of worldliness that deepens the song. The harmonizing for which he was famous is in brilliant evidence on "Volví a Querer." As career summary and Guerra's swan song, Rapindey is an invaluable document. And even as it shows the strength of Cuban music's past, Boleros points to a continuing brilliance in the future.

-- Ed Hazell