ROCK • A • RAMA
IRAKERE—Chekere Son (Milestone):: This is the first U.S. release of an album recorded in Havana, then mixed and originally released in Tokyo (?). Irakere were the big noise out of Cuba a couple of years back and the first cuts on each side of this record demonstrate why.
ROCK •A• RAMA
This month’s Rock-a-ramas were written by Michael Davis, Billy Altman, and Richard Riegel.
IRAKERE—Chekere Son (Milestone):: This is the first U.S. release of an album recorded in Havana, then mixed and originally released in Tokyo (?). Irakere were the big noise out of Cuba a couple of years back and the first cuts on each side of this record demonstrate why. “Chekere Son” shows where Santana might have gone if they’d follow Miles Davis’s lead a little more closely, while “La Comparsa” is Latin fusion at its finest: strong themes, hot rhythms and hotter soloists, particularly guitarist Carlos Emilio Morales who could teach that other Carlos a thing or two about getting around a fretboard. Unfortunately, the other tunes are vocal-based Cuban pop: not bad, just not my cup of beans. Still, that’s one half of a hell of.. .or is that one hell of a half of an album. Something like that. M.D.