• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 10 / 31 / 2010

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It became the most successful world-music album in history, but “Buena Vista Social Club” happened by accident. The Buena Vista Social Club performing at Carnegie Hall in 1998 as its Grammy-winning album sold eight million copies.

The original idea for the record, as conceived by Nick Gold of the British label World Circuit, was to bring a group of prominent African musicians to Cuba for an intercontinental jam session. But when visa delays thwarted the Africans’ travel plans, Mr. Gold and his producer, Ry Cooder, improvised by inviting some Havana old-timers into a studio there and voilà. The resulting “Buena Vista” album, recorded in 1996 and released a year later — a slow, romantic stroll through the sounds of prerevolutionary Cuba — sold eight million copies, won a Grammy and spawned more than a dozen solo albums.

Yet Mr. Gold never forgot about the African-Cuban idea (nor did the Africans, who were more than a little envious of what they had missed out on). And now, after 14 years, the deaths of several “Buena Vista” members and changes in the music industry that have made blockbuster success for any album — let alone highbrow world-music projects — extremely difficult, Mr. Gold has finally made the record that “Buena Vista” might have been: “AfroCubism” (World Circuit/Nonesuch), which will be released on Tuesday.

The album unites three musicians who were to have met in Havana in 1996: Eliades Ochoa, the cowboy-hat-wearing guitarist and singer from eastern Cuba; and, from Mali, the renowned electric guitarist Djelimady Tounkara; and Bassekou Kouyate, who plays the ngoni, an ancestor of the banjo. New recruits for the album include Toumani Diabaté, a star on the harplike kora, and the singer Kasse Mady Diabaté, both also from Mali. The full group will play at Town Hall in Manhattan on Nov. 9.

“When the Africans couldn’t arrive, we thought that the album hadn’t been successful, because that was the idea,” Mr. Ochoa said. “But when we managed to do the new album with the Africans, it was victorious.”

“AfroCubism” is a rich yet subtle fusion of African and Cuban sounds, with Mr. Tounkara’s guitar lacework wafting over guajiras and sons, and friendly counterpoint between the kora and the Cuban guitar. One song, “Jarabi,” which Mr. Diabaté has been playing for years, gets a new opening riff lifted from Compay Segundo, the “Buena Vista” singer and songwriter who died in 2003 at age 95.

The sounds may come from distant places, but they have close historical links. Latin music was widely popular in West Africa in the mid-20th century, and during the 1960s the newly independent Mali established close political and cultural ties to Cuba, with the Malian government encouraging its musicians to study and adopt Cuban musical styles. There are also deeper ancestral connections.

“It’s not just about the ’60s,” said Mr. Tounkara, who cut his musical teeth in that era and later melded Latin and traditional African styles with the influential Rail Band, a k a the Super Rail Band. “Cuban music has African roots,” he added. “It’s actually the same music. The only difference is technical — the rhythm is the same.” (Mr. Tounkara, like the other musicians interviewed for this article, spoke through an interpreter.)

Mr. Gold said the surprise success of “Buena Vista Social Club” was a big reason for the delay of the full African-Cuban project. In those days World Circuit had only three employees, he said, and to capitalize on the album’s popularity the label began a franchise of sequels and solo albums that went on for a decade. Meanwhile, the African musicians — whom Mr. Gold worked with on other albums — had their own busy careers yet never stopped reminding World Circuit that they still wanted their chance to make another hit.

“They weren’t exactly banging on the door,” Mr. Gold said, “but every time I saw them they were saying: ‘When are we going to do it? When are we going to do it?’ They hadn’t forgotten.”

Mr. Kouyate is blunt in describing his feelings about “Buena Vista Social Club.” “I was jealous; I was hurt,” he said. “I should have been a part of it. But there was nothing I could do about it. And I have to congratulate Nick, because even after 14 years he kept on the project.”

“AfroCubism” was helped by an accident of timing. Passing through Spain while on tour in December 2008, Mr. Ochoa and Mr. Kouyate had the same week off; seizing the opportunity, World Circuit summoned the others to a studio in Madrid. They had hoped simply to “break the ice,” Mr. Gold said, and get a few raw ideas down. Instead, the musicians recorded 17 songs in five days, with an additional session seven months later yielding nine more.

The musicians tell differing stories of how the sessions went. Mr. Tounkara and Mr. Kouyate said language barriers made communication difficult, and that the African players were obliged to adapt their playing to accommodate the less dexterous Cubans; Mr. Ochoa suggested that everybody had to compromise.

Yet from the beginning, Mr. Gold said, the music clicked. The first song the ensemble recorded was “Al Vaivén de Mi Carreta” (“The Swaying of My Cart”), which had been on the repertory list for the original “Buena Vista” sessions but was not recorded then. A guajira (country song), it has a slow, lilting rhythm led by the acoustic guitar, and in the “AfroCubism” reading it features solos on kora, electric guitar and balafon (xylophone).

“As soon as that started coming together,” Mr. Gold said of the song, “with Djelimady playing electric guitar and Bassekou’s part coming in, the kora and the balafon melding, I was in dreamland. I was sitting there thinking, ‘This is perfect.’ ”

What kind of success the new album will have, though, is far from certain. “Buena Vista,” released during the music industry’s last great sales peak, told a simple and sentimental story about old Cuba, and its generous packaging and sophisticated marketing campaign raised the bar for world music; after Wim Wenders’s documentary about the group was released in 1999, the album’s sales exploded. Craig Pape, Amazon’s director of music, said when he joined the company that year, “almost every box going out the door had a copy of the album in it.”

But with a more complex story behind the new album and a shrunken music market, it’s anyone’s guess. Mr. Pape expressed optimism. “The success could definitely be repeated,” he said. “It’s so much about the quality of the music, and I still think that customers who are generally interested in the new music experience are the types of customers that are still likely to buy music.”

Mr. Gold was less sanguine: “ ‘Buena Vista’ went beyond anyone’s expectations,” he said. “To anticipate any level of success like that would be foolhardy.”

To the musicians, it is already a success. When asked through an interpreter how he felt about the album finally coming together, Mr. Kouyate responded in English: “Very, very happy!”

Source: www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/arts/music/