When the Hollywood Bowl becomes a cheese factory

Latin Beat Magazine, Oct, 1998 by Luis Tamargo

The Afro-Cuban All Stars (featuring Grammy Award-winning members of the Buenavista Social Club) are coming to L.A. on Saturday October 3, 1998. Their appearance at the Hollywood Bowl shall be regarded as a music history lesson. That is precisely what happens when you get a bunch of marvelous son singers to gather at the same place and at the same time. I prefer to identify them as son singers, instead of soneros, because sonero really means son practitioner, a category that also includes a great number of non-vocal instrumentalists, from trumpeter Chocolate Armenteros to tresero Pancho Anlat.

Under the leadership of Juan de Marcos, the master arranger and tresero froni the ensemble Sierra Maestra, the AfroCuban All Stars are headed by la crema y la nata of the vocal old guard, represented by such veterans as Raúl Planas, Manuel "Puntillitas" Licea, Pio Leyva, and Ibrahim Ferrer. Not to mention the not-so-old (but also impressive) singers Félix Valoy and José Antonio "Maceo" Rodríguez. It is expected, however, that the 65 year-old Raúl Planas will turn his vocal rivals into picadillo (or ground meat, as the natives would say). Furtherniore, one can only hope that all of those legenclary vocalists will show up ar the Hollywood Bowl, along with the wonderful musicians (Rubén González, Manuel "El Guajiro" Mirabal, Miguel "Anga" Diaz, etc.) featured on that universally-acclaimed recording produced by Ry Cooder, a bluesman enchanted by the niost sublime essence of the son.

But even it only half of the abovementioned legends show up, this writer will be as happy as a rat in a cheese factory. Never mind that the side dishes (predictable salseros, formulaic neoguajiros and monotonous raperos) don't have anything in common with the main Cuban jama, with the aforesaid nectar of the gods.