From the streets of Havana to Emmet Place in Cork’s City Centre, the Buena Vista All-Stars bring to the 2024 Guinness Cork Jazz Fest a rare glimpse into the authentic sounds of Cuba, presented in the stunning environs of the Cork Opera House.
By now, the feel-good story of the Buena Vista Social Club’s improbable late ’90s success is well known. The Grammy Award-winning album (and film) reintroduced the world to the joys of Cuban music, a deeply rooted subtropical family tree with intoxicatingly fragrant blossoms. But inevitably, the very concept on which the group was based — a reunion of greats of an earlier era — led to its final adios in 2015 as the elder statesmen of the group moved on to the celestial conjunto of the hereafter.
Not officially related, but a successor of sorts to the Buena Vista Social Club, the All-Stars have used the musical foundation of that original group — a veneration of traditional Cuban standards — as a base for fresh exploration from some of the finest modern purveyors of Afro-Cuban music the Caribbean island has to offer. With this infusion of youthful energy to the solid underpinning provided by their elders, the group adds an exciting forward-looking approach to the old-school sound of the traditional lineage. As bandleader Ibrahim Ferrer, Jr. (son of Buena Vista Social Club founder Ibrahim Ferrer) put it in an interview with El Sol de Mexico earlier this week, “You cannot continue with tradition without incorporating something of youth and merging popular international rhythms and genres, because that is what music is nourished by — and what we all are nourished by.”
The group’s acclaimed world tour, titled Una Noche en La Habana (One Night in Havana), promises to be a transporting evening filled with the addictive rhythms of Latin America and timeless guarachas, boleros, and sons, mixed with a little jazz and well-placed nostalgia, giving audiences a taste of the Havana of yesteryear, from its grand dancehalls to intimate late-night jam sessions. Aficionados can expect the band to interpret classics like Chan-Chan, Dos Gardenias, Siboney, Candela, Carretero, and more.
The ripples of these Afro-Cuban classics have influenced generations of musicians worldwide, and this show is a unique chance to hear them straight from the source. “This concert will be an experience,” continues Ferrer, “I cannot say ‘mystical,’ but it will be unique, in which the vision, colors, sounds, and sensations of Cuban rhythms and current events will merge.”
THIS SHOW IS NOW SOLD OUT!
