Over a drumroll reminiscent of a march or religious procession, the massive blue velvet curtains came falling down like a waterfall, and the stage at Madrid’s WiZink Center arena on Saturday turned into a dim lit club, complete with small tables, a bartender, a full orchestra and the evening’s master of ceremonies: the Spanish singer, rapper and songwriter C. Tangana, dressed in a double breasted striped suit and dark shades. “Thank you for being part of the most important gig of my fucking life,” he told the 15,000 fans...
- 3/6/2022
- by Nuria Net
- Rollingstone.com
Buena Vista Social Club have released a new video — featuring previously unseen footage — for their classic track, “El Cuatro De Tula.”
The new clip boasts video taken during Buena Vista Social Club’s 1996 recording sessions in Havana, which were filmed by Susan Titelman. The group’s performance of “El Cuarto De Tula” is inch perfect and features laud player Barbarito Torres delivering his one-take solo in real time.
The “El Cuatro De Tula” video arrives ahead of the release of a 25th anniversary reissue of Buena Vista Social Club’s celebrated self-titled album.
The new clip boasts video taken during Buena Vista Social Club’s 1996 recording sessions in Havana, which were filmed by Susan Titelman. The group’s performance of “El Cuarto De Tula” is inch perfect and features laud player Barbarito Torres delivering his one-take solo in real time.
The “El Cuatro De Tula” video arrives ahead of the release of a 25th anniversary reissue of Buena Vista Social Club’s celebrated self-titled album.
- 8/18/2021
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
Buena Vista Social Club have unearthed a previously unreleased track, “Vicenta,” which will appear on the upcoming 25th-anniversary reissue of the Cuban outfit’s acclaimed self-titled album, out September 17th via World Circuit Records.
Penned by Compay Segundo, “Vicenta” recounts the story of a 1909 fire that destroyed nearly all of the village of La Maya, located outside of Santiago. Buena Vista Social Club’s version of the song is presented as a duet between Segundo and Eliades Ochoa, who was born and raised in La Maya.
“Vicenta” is one of...
Penned by Compay Segundo, “Vicenta” recounts the story of a 1909 fire that destroyed nearly all of the village of La Maya, located outside of Santiago. Buena Vista Social Club’s version of the song is presented as a duet between Segundo and Eliades Ochoa, who was born and raised in La Maya.
“Vicenta” is one of...
- 6/9/2021
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
This piece was originally published as a cover story in the March issue of Rolling Stone Colombia. Translated from Spanish by Diego Ortiz.
November 19th, 2020: C. Tangana is in Madrid. At midnight he receives an invitation from Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler to go into the studio and finish a pending session. The meeting — which coincided with the Latin Grammys, where Drexler was competing for Song of the Year — ended up being the foundation of “Nominao,” a set of hard rhymes to the beat of three chords and a bass drum.
November 19th, 2020: C. Tangana is in Madrid. At midnight he receives an invitation from Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler to go into the studio and finish a pending session. The meeting — which coincided with the Latin Grammys, where Drexler was competing for Song of the Year — ended up being the foundation of “Nominao,” a set of hard rhymes to the beat of three chords and a bass drum.
- 4/2/2021
- by Diego Ortiz
- Rollingstone.com
Madrid trap artist C. Tangana reprises his gangster alter ego in his latest single and video, “Para Repartir,” or “To Give Away.” Produced by previous collaborator, Barcelona’s Alizzz, the new song craftily melds old-school son Cubano sounds with just a touch of Tangana’s signature trap beats.
Directed by Santos Bacana, the new video takes after Tangana’s previous, Old Hollywood-tinged clip for “Un Veneno.” Filmed this past March in Havana, Cuba, Tangana plays a trickster with an insatiable lust for local women, gambling and other peoples’ motorbikes. Donning a black cowboy hat,...
Directed by Santos Bacana, the new video takes after Tangana’s previous, Old Hollywood-tinged clip for “Un Veneno.” Filmed this past March in Havana, Cuba, Tangana plays a trickster with an insatiable lust for local women, gambling and other peoples’ motorbikes. Donning a black cowboy hat,...
- 4/24/2019
- by Suzy Exposito
- Rollingstone.com
Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This August will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Tuesday, August 1
Tuesday’s Short + Feature: These Boots and Mystery Train
Music is at the heart of this program, which pairs a zany music video by Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki with a tune-filled career highlight from American independent-film pioneer Jim Jarmusch. In the 1993 These Boots, Kaurismäki’s band of pompadoured “Finnish Elvis” rockers, the Leningrad Cowboys, cover a Nancy Sinatra classic in their signature deadpan style. It’s the perfect prelude to Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train, a homage to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the musical legacy of Memphis, featuring appearances by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Joe Strummer.
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Tuesday, August 1
Tuesday’s Short + Feature: These Boots and Mystery Train
Music is at the heart of this program, which pairs a zany music video by Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki with a tune-filled career highlight from American independent-film pioneer Jim Jarmusch. In the 1993 These Boots, Kaurismäki’s band of pompadoured “Finnish Elvis” rockers, the Leningrad Cowboys, cover a Nancy Sinatra classic in their signature deadpan style. It’s the perfect prelude to Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train, a homage to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the musical legacy of Memphis, featuring appearances by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Joe Strummer.
- 7/24/2017
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Cuba has just been opened up to Americans, but twenty years ago musician Ry Cooder saw to it that a vanishing music tradition was preserved for posterity. Wim Wenders followed up with this rough & ready documentary that became almost as popular as the best selling album of mambos, boleros and cha-chas.
Buena Vista Social Club
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 866
1999 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 105 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 18, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa, Ry Cooder, Joachim Cooder, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Rubén González, Orlando ‘Cachaíto’ López, Amadito Valdés, Manuel ‘Guajiro’ Mirabal, Barbarito Torres, Pío Leyva, Manuel ‘Puntillita’ Licea, Juan de Marcos González.
Cinematography: Jörg Widmer
Film Editor: Brian Johnson
Written by Wim Wenders, concept Nick Gold
Produced by Deepak Nayar
Directed by Wim Wenders
Looking for something new and invigorating, in the late 1980s Paul Simon collaborated with South African vocalists for a refreshing pop hybrid album...
Buena Vista Social Club
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 866
1999 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 105 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 18, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa, Ry Cooder, Joachim Cooder, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Rubén González, Orlando ‘Cachaíto’ López, Amadito Valdés, Manuel ‘Guajiro’ Mirabal, Barbarito Torres, Pío Leyva, Manuel ‘Puntillita’ Licea, Juan de Marcos González.
Cinematography: Jörg Widmer
Film Editor: Brian Johnson
Written by Wim Wenders, concept Nick Gold
Produced by Deepak Nayar
Directed by Wim Wenders
Looking for something new and invigorating, in the late 1980s Paul Simon collaborated with South African vocalists for a refreshing pop hybrid album...
- 4/18/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Somewhat similar in approach to Stop Making Sense and Storefront Hitchcock, Demme focuses on the uniqueness of the performances of Avitabile's music. A Neapolitan saxophonist and vocalist who creates intricate, multiethnic jazz compositions, Avitabile possesses a level of songwriting genius that exists on a comparable intellectual plane to David Byrne. Like Byrne, Avitabile's greatest strength is in his ability to choose teams of collaborators from around the world, then fuse them together in the recording of a song. Avitabile is well known for his thorough knowledge of world music -- specifically the instruments and rhythmic structures -- and ability to use that information in the development of intriguing collaborations. Whether or not you recognize names such as Eliades Ochoa, Naseer Shamma, Daby Touré, Trilok Gurtu and Amal Murkus does not really matter, Enzo Avitabile is about the magic that happens when Avitable creates music with these talented people.
- 10/17/2013
- by Don Simpson
- SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
Ry Cooder's plaintive, sinuous guitar work has been an indispensable contribution to the films of Wim Wenders and Walter Hill. With "Buena Vista Social Club", gifted German director Wenders returns the favor via a loving, vivid documentary that not only explores Cooder's music, craftsmanship, culture and roots but becomes a meditation on creativity.
The spellbinding work, a special screening at the Berlin Film Festival, should tap an appreciative audience that will respond strongly to its soulful celebration and sense of wonder. "I've been making records for 35 years. I never know how the public is going to respond, but this was most enjoyment I ever had," Cooder says early on. In 1996, during a visit to Havana, Cooder sought out the surviving members of Cuba's vibrant pre-revolutionary music scene to collaborate on an album. "In Cuba", Cooder says, "the music flows like a river." The finished work, "Buena Vista Social Club", was a critical and commercial phenomenon.
Wenders, operating with a small, guerrilla crew (the movie was shot on digital video and Beta camcorder), showcases 1998 concerts staged in New York and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Like Jonathan Demme's "Stop Making Sense", the portrait is deeply humane, evoking detailed texture and an emotionally riveting examination of the 13 Cuban singers and musicians that complemented Cooder's usual sidemen.
Denied overt political or ideological "insights," "Social Club" exists on a deeper, direct level of camaraderie and musical kinship. One feels like an anthropologist bearing witness to a forgotten, buried world.
Wenders' excursion into the exotic, desperate streets of Havana transcends conventional documentary form, providing voice and shape to the compelling personalities. Cooder functions in the background, willingly assimilating his voice into the collective. The dominant figures are two incredible subjects: Compay Segundo ("a Cuban Nat King Cole," Cooder says), an astonishing 91-year-old guitarist and singer with an expressive face and liquid eyes, and chanteuse Omara Portuondo, daughter of a prominent Cuban baseball player, whose deep-lined face and electric voice are magical and transcendent.
In Wenders' fiction films, the road is unstable and rootless, a place from which people are constantly fleeing. However, the Havana that Wenders conjures seems trapped in space, with 1950s shark-fin convertibles and once-elegant facades of crumbling architecture illustrating the elusive, mysterious Soneros music scene.
"Social Club" puts a human voice to a world that for many existed only in the abstract. In deft visual and cinematic language, it transports us to an exciting time that the world should be privileged to experience, at least for one night.
BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
Road Movies
A Wim Wenders film
Producer-director: Wim Wenders
Directors of photography: Jorg Widmer, Robby Muller
Editor: Peter Przygodda
Color/stereo
With: Ry Cooder, Joaquim Cooder, Compay Segundo, Ruben Gonzalez, Ibrahim Ferrer, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal, Orlando Lopez "Cachaito", Barbarito Torres, Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, Raul Planas, Felix Valoy, Richard Egues, Maceo Rodriguez
No MPAA rating...
The spellbinding work, a special screening at the Berlin Film Festival, should tap an appreciative audience that will respond strongly to its soulful celebration and sense of wonder. "I've been making records for 35 years. I never know how the public is going to respond, but this was most enjoyment I ever had," Cooder says early on. In 1996, during a visit to Havana, Cooder sought out the surviving members of Cuba's vibrant pre-revolutionary music scene to collaborate on an album. "In Cuba", Cooder says, "the music flows like a river." The finished work, "Buena Vista Social Club", was a critical and commercial phenomenon.
Wenders, operating with a small, guerrilla crew (the movie was shot on digital video and Beta camcorder), showcases 1998 concerts staged in New York and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Like Jonathan Demme's "Stop Making Sense", the portrait is deeply humane, evoking detailed texture and an emotionally riveting examination of the 13 Cuban singers and musicians that complemented Cooder's usual sidemen.
Denied overt political or ideological "insights," "Social Club" exists on a deeper, direct level of camaraderie and musical kinship. One feels like an anthropologist bearing witness to a forgotten, buried world.
Wenders' excursion into the exotic, desperate streets of Havana transcends conventional documentary form, providing voice and shape to the compelling personalities. Cooder functions in the background, willingly assimilating his voice into the collective. The dominant figures are two incredible subjects: Compay Segundo ("a Cuban Nat King Cole," Cooder says), an astonishing 91-year-old guitarist and singer with an expressive face and liquid eyes, and chanteuse Omara Portuondo, daughter of a prominent Cuban baseball player, whose deep-lined face and electric voice are magical and transcendent.
In Wenders' fiction films, the road is unstable and rootless, a place from which people are constantly fleeing. However, the Havana that Wenders conjures seems trapped in space, with 1950s shark-fin convertibles and once-elegant facades of crumbling architecture illustrating the elusive, mysterious Soneros music scene.
"Social Club" puts a human voice to a world that for many existed only in the abstract. In deft visual and cinematic language, it transports us to an exciting time that the world should be privileged to experience, at least for one night.
BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
Road Movies
A Wim Wenders film
Producer-director: Wim Wenders
Directors of photography: Jorg Widmer, Robby Muller
Editor: Peter Przygodda
Color/stereo
With: Ry Cooder, Joaquim Cooder, Compay Segundo, Ruben Gonzalez, Ibrahim Ferrer, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal, Orlando Lopez "Cachaito", Barbarito Torres, Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, Raul Planas, Felix Valoy, Richard Egues, Maceo Rodriguez
No MPAA rating...
- 2/22/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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