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Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club

From Cuba

The world's favourite Cubans

Just as the multi-million-selling Buena Vista Social Club filled homes and hearts across the world with song, so too - rather sadly - have the original members filled the obituary pages during the intervening years. The likes of Compay Segundo, Rubén González, Ibrahim Ferrer, 'Cachaito' López and Anga Díaz have all passed on to that great descarga session in the sky. But a few key figures from those initial recording sessions with Ry Cooder in Havana are still around, most notably the graceful singer Omara Portuondo and the thrilling guitarist Eliades Ochoa. This pair lead the 2012 version of the collective, a 13-piece gathering who invest as much passion and virtuosity into the songs as their antecedents did so triumphantly back in the day. In these younger musicians' hands, the styles and traditions are in the safest of hands - a celebration not just of a remarkable project, but also of the timeless, indestructible beat of Cuba.

(Biography written by Nige Tassell 2012)

Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan (Pécs - Hungary)

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