Rating: NNNN
There’s more to Guantanamo Bay than a not-so-secret U.S. military base and an internment camp for suspected terrorists. It’s also a thriving community of Guantanameros with a unique cultural identity separate from Cuba, including their own form of music, changüí, which is a funky precursor of Cuban son. But Jane Bunnett didn’t go to Guantanamo with the idea of making a field recording she came with fellow jazz aces like saxophonist Dewey Redman, tuba honker Howard Johnson (who served at Gitmo in the 60s), New Orleans soul shouter Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone and T.O. guitar star Kevin Breit and recorded a roof-raising studio jam in collaboration with locals Grupo Changüí. What they come up with has elements of New Orleans brass band bounce and ancient Afro-Cuban ceremonial incantations but doesn’t sound like anything out of Cuba or Louisiana. They hit on something in between, as though it originates from an uncharted tropical island off the coast of Belize. Let’s have volume two.
