Rating: NNNN
While most septuagenarian musicians are looking forward to retirement, their contemporaries in the Buena Vista Social Club can still be anticipating their solo recording debut. Fiery Tropicana Club trumpeter Manuel “Guajiro” Mirabal, a junior member at age 71, is finally ready for his close-up, and the concept of paying tribute to the innovative late-40s big band work of Arsenio Rodríguez is an ideal place to start. Not only do Felix Chappottín’s rousing horn charts provide an excellent platform for a blowing session, but Mirabal clearly went to school on the stuff. You can hear echoes of Chappottín in the blaring force of Mirabal’s gutsy attack. Producer Nick Gold’s decision to bring in younger timba singers with no feel for the era was a bad call, but luckily it’s not catastrophic.
