Customer Reviews

Best of Los Jardineros

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If only stuff like this came out more often! A nice big booklet includes lyrics in Spanish and English and detailed notes tracing the development of the great Puerto Rican string band Los Jardineros. The pictures are priceless, including one of a clever advert claiming the group's manager will be publicly hung for selling the most beautiful records in Puerto Rico, which is half true; though he was never actually lynched, he did produce some fine aguinaldos, plenas, décimas, boleros, rumbas, guarachas, pasodobles, tangos, and fox trots- you name it- played not only by Los Jardineros, but also by Sexteto Okeh, Grupo Indiano, and Los Bohemios Puertorriqueños, all variations on a supergroup whose rotating cast included Fausto Delgado, Canario, Heriberto Torres, and Pedro Berríos, among many others, giants all of them, but unknown to most people from Puerto Rico today, the same way most people from the USA don't know who the hell Jimmie Rodgers, Uncle Dave Macon, Will Shade, and Jelly Roll Morton are anymore. Not that they sound at all like these people, but in terms of relative relevance, they are equals.

More music like this is needed and wanted, and I hope Yazoo and other labels keep releasing forgotten Caribbean treasures from the good old days. Cuba also remains underrepresented on CD in proportion to the number of folk records released, despite all the CDs by Tumbao, Harlequin, Arhoolie, Rounder, etc. There are too many important, and even more important than important, downright entertaining and enlightening songs from the Antilles that remain unissued in the CD age, clearly to the detriment of today's music there (and by extension, the people). The only way you can keep this kind of stuff coming out is buying yourself a copy already.

Also check out Lamento Borincano--Early Puerto Rican Music: 1916-1939 and Fausto Delgado's 1929-1942.

Pienso que este cd es una joya para las personas que atesoran la musica tradicional puertorriqueña. Espero que esta compañia se anime a restaurar otras grabaciones de nuestro pentagrama que hoy dia se encuentran en el olvido

Other reviewers have described the contents of this CD package very well. The music is wonderful, especially if you enjoy string band music from the Caribbean. The accompanying CD booklet is top notch as well, in both English and Spanish. But like another reviewer noted, it's nearly impossible to remove the CD from its case without destroying the CD or the case, or both. The release button is very poorly designed. Too bad that an otherwise superb package is compromised by something so small yet so important. Five stars for the music and for the notes but zero stars for the CD case.