🇨🇺 Israel Cachao López - Guajira Clásica (1990) 🇨🇺

" Israel "Cachao" López, the pre-eminent Cuban bassist, who has died in Miami aged 89, ranks among the 20th-century's most remarkable musicians; his supple rhythms and fluid melodies helped develop Cuban music into the leading Latin American style. He is celebrated as the inventor of the mambo rhythm and a salsa pioneer while his transformation of the bass into Cuban music's lead instrument would inspire much black American jazz, soul and funk.
Cachao was born in Havana. A strong tradition of playing double bass ran in the family yet Cachao's first instrument was the bongo and, aged eight, he joined a children's septet. Within a year he had picked up the double bass and was proving proficient enough to join the band that provided accompaniment to silent films in the local cinema. Earning a living as a professional nightclub musician already beckoned but his parents insisted he study classical music, enrolling him at a Havana conservatory. Cachao adapted his talent quickly to classical music and by his teens he was playing with the Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana. During his tenure with the Filarmónica, he was to play under such guest conductors as Herbert von Karajan and Igor Stravinsky.
While the Filarmónica paid his wages Cachao kept playing with the best musicians in Havana's legendary nightclubs, so developing both the descaraga (Cuban jam session) and the mambo, a rhythm many credit he and his older brother Orestes, the bandleader, with naming in the late 1930s. The mambo grew out of the danzón, a more formal dance, with Cachao pushing a swinging Afro-Cuban rhythm forward so encouraging dancers to let loose.
Initially, the mambo was too radical for most Cubans and the style did not win wide popularity until bandleader Pérez Parado popularised it in the late 1940s. Not that this bothered Cachao and Orestes: they went on to compose more than 3000 danzóns - a 1938 composition was called Buena Vista Social Club and would, more than 50 years later, provide the name for the multi-million selling veteran Cuban band.
When the mambo craze took off, the López brothers returned to the rhythm they had pioneered, so helping to provide the soundtrack to one of the first international dance crazes. "Even when I am shaving I compose mambos," Cachao would boast. A 1957 after-hours recording session lead by Cachao demonstrated descargas at its most potent, the mix of Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz improvisation having a huge influence on how salsa would develop.
Yet Cuba was changing with Fidel Castro now in charge and many nightclubs closing. In 1962 Cachao left Cuba for the United States. His brother Orestes chose to stay in Havana. Cachao settled in Las Vegas, a city with plenty of work for a bassist and bandleader. Here Cachao played with such Latin music legends as Tito Puente and Celia Cruz, yet he also developed an addiction to gambling so squandering his earnings. Eventually, his wife Ester Buenaventura López insisted they leave Las Vegas and the couple resettled in Miami.
Cachao played on many New York salsa recording sessions and was a celebrated figure among aficionados of Cuban music, yet times and tastes were changing and by the 1980s Cachao was a largely forgotten figure. By the early 1990s he was semi-retired. But then Cuban-American actor Andy Garcia approached Cachao, offering to both produce a Cachao album and direct a documentary. Cachao agreed and the album, Master Sessions, Volume 1 (1994) won him both a 1995 Grammy and a wider audience than ever before. This CD and DVD, recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, is Cachao's fourth collaboration with Garcia. The ageless bandleader's deep arco and pizzicato basslines anchor an all-star group, which includes salsa trombonist Jimmy Bosch, timbalero Orestes Vilato, and tresguitarist Neslon Gonzalez.
The 1994 documentary, Cachao ... Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos (Cachao ... Like His Rhythm There is No Other), focused on the recording that produced Master Sessions while allowing Cachao to tell his life story. It won a large US audience.
He continued to record, tour and win Grammies while his music appeared on movie soundtracks, advertisements, even on the computer game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. While the Buena Vista Social Club were key in popularising Cuban music with European audiences, it was Cachao's return that helped many Americans - including Latin Americans - embrace the great musical riches that flowed from his homeland. He played his sole UK concert in April 2007, at London's Barbican Centre, where his musicianship and warm personality won over all who encountered him.
His brother Orestes and Ester both predeceased him. He is survived by his daughter, María Elena López, and nephew Orlando "Cachaito" López, the bassist in Buena Vista Social Club. "

[@vandaagnog1000]

Absoluut mijn favoriete artiest!

[@40maleba]

La pureza del sonido del maestro cachao... Hace poner sus audifonos al mismisimo dios.. Y hacerlo exclamar... Aaaaah !! Mamaaaaaaá !!!

[@martinshannon1339]

Cachao is one of my favourite musicians of all time.....and this song is magic!

[@alla-sensei2642]

Great team play! Who are other players? For example, who is the violin player at around