Gilles Peterson’s Havana Cultura Band – Havana Club Rumba Sessions (Brownswood Records, 2016)
The British DJ, record label owner and producer Gilles Peterson is mastermind behind such recordings as the Jazz Juice Street Sounds recording series, Acid Jazz and Other Illicit Grooves, Black Jazz Radio, Gilles Peterson Digs America: Brownswood USA and Gilles Peterson Presents Sonzeira Talkin’ Loud, as well as countless other recordings including remixes Raphael Gualizzi ‘Reality & Fantasy,’ Seu Jorge ‘Burguesinha,’ Meshell N’Degeocello Friends and Chambao Duende Del Sur. If that weren’t enough, Mr. Peterson has worked with such artists as Mala, Ghostpoet, Lefto, Simbad and helped advance the careers of Jamiroquai, Roni Size and Erykah Badu.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Mr. Peterson has launched a new series called Havana Cultura, this three CD set comes complete with a feature length documentary directed by Charlie Inman. Opening the series with Havana Club Rumba Sessions, out on his own Brownswood Records label, Mr. Peterson kicks off this series with a kickass selection of remixes that is savagely cool.
Remix fans get more than the standard worked over tracks where the soul of the original is lost. No, these remixes walk that razor’s edge of maintaining original integrity and fashioning something new. Exploring the guaguanco, yambu and columbia roots of the rumba, Havana Club Rumba Sessions pools a collection of tracks by some of Cuba’s premier rumberos and turns them inside out with an equally impressive set of remix artists. Of course with the Cuban percussion supplied by the likes of Joel Driggs Rodriguez, Barbaro “Machito” Y. Crespo, Ramon Tamayo Martinez, Yovani Diaz and Lucumi, it’s hard to go wrong.
Opening the sultry and delicious “Yambu” with vocals provided by the lovely Dayme Arocena and remixed by Japanese masters Daisuke Tanabe and Yosi Horikawa, the Rumba Sessions delves deep into the meaty richness Cuban music has thrived and flourished on with its dazzling array of African rhythms and roots.
Motor City Drum Ensemble takes on “La Rumba Experimental” that is just crazy good with sleek jazzy sensibilities and plushy keyboards. Havana Club Rumba Sessions just gets better with additions like quick paced, vocal studded remix of “La Plaza” by Poirier, the thrumming goodness of “Havana Sessions” laid down by Pablo Fierro and the sizzling “Rumba Version” by Al Dobson, Jr. Tenderlonious’s remix of “Rumba Tierna” is indeed a standout, as is the richly worked “Yuka Music” by Mo Kolours.
Havana Club Rumba Sessions makes the masterful remix a thing a beauty. These remixes bridge the gaps between tradition and innovation without losing a single thread of the music’s very roots, where the past’s musical roots are propelled into the future without losing the very music traditions that was so captivating in the beginning.
Havana Club Rumba Sessions allows for the Cuban to shine through brilliantly against the riches the remix artists bring to the table and the combination is stunning.
Buy the digital version of Havana Club Rumba Sessions
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
