Customer Reviews

Revento

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

 

 

Hector Lavoe, Despues de casi una decada de su muerte, no se le ha olvidado a los verdaderos salseros, que es y siempre sera el Cantante de los Cantantes! Este disco "Revento", como todos los discos de Lavoe, te va a dar muchos consejos de la vida, te va a entretener, y mas que todo te va a poner a Bailar de a monton con su voz unica!

By the time this album was released in 1985, Salsa's popularity was at its lowest point and Fania Records had become a mere shadow of whgat it had once been. Although Hector Lavoe was still a top priority for the label, this album was very poorly promoted and lacked a desperately needed hit single with which to increase its sales. While never released as a single, Hector's heart-rending, soul-stirring and emotionally earth-shattering rendition of the classic Bolero "Don Fulano de Tal" is the album's centerpiece and it proves unequivocally that Hector was still a force to be reckoned with in the Latin music world. Other key cuts include the Charanga/Pachanga-flavored jam "Dejala Que Siga", the slightly philosophical "La Vida Es Bonita" and the simultaneously sarcastic and humorous "Cancer" (the latter tune talks about how everything is supposed to cause cancer these days). The album's other songs are nothing special and are somewhat disappointing in comparison to most of the material found on Hector's previous releases but hey...any artist who ever was successful realizes that there will come a day when he or she can no longer expect to top the charts. In any case, "Revento" was not a commercially successful album but that was simply due to changing public tastes as well as Fania Records' state of ongoing decline at the time.

This 1985 Héctor Lavoe release is in my opinion, a totally un-exciting album that features a GREAT two-Trombone band with many of the usual Fania Records and Willie Colón band members, but that has (to my liking) a BIG stylistic problem within the style of the tunes as they're more commercial, less rooty, and PARTICULARLY WAY LESS INTENSE AND RHYTHMIC in order to suit more the fashionable style of Salsa that was beginning to evolve in that decade...




Song 1 (what size is your love) is an example of a rather annoying Salsa-SONG that ONLY has emphasis on the singer and on the lyric, rather than on the band and the music which are TOTALLY "put to the side"!...
All this tune offers is 4 musically uninspiring short parts in the rhythm of Bomba that have choruses, but that are still repetitive!...
What's even more annoying is that there is no Montúno part here (which is the 2nd part of a Salsa song where the pianist comes through with the "continuous rhythmic pattern", where the singer expresses himself through vocal improvisations in between the choruses, and where the musicians can also express themselves through various styles of solos and horn arrangements!
That's basically the MAIN point of Salsa music, as well as it's most enjoyable and danceable part!...



After a BAD start, we get a VERY MUSICALLY UNDERWHELMING and UNINSPIRING Brazilian Samba tune!... At least we can say that the song's got a positive lyric about how life is beautiful, but then again, the emphasis is ONLY on the lyric...

I can also say that this is not the most intelligent choice for a Salsa music audience, as it's not exactly the same target market we're talking about here, and for what concerns the Salsa dancers, they may have a hard time trying to work out how to dance to Samba if they even bother to play the tune!...



To not improve things AT ALL, we get a Bolero on the following tune!
It may lyrically and musically be very emotional, but at the end of the day, it's just like a BORING Ballad to me...



What I can surely say at this stage, is that we're already through 40% of the album's content, and WE STILL HAVEN'T HAD A MONTÚNO YET!...



Eventually after some "ZEDDING THROUGH", we get a "wake up call" with Héctor's La Fama.
FINALLY we get the "Montúno" (2nd part) I was going on about earlier on, and the lyric is also deeper as he talks basically about what being famous is about for him, and how people just pay to watch him make them happy while they can't understand/see his personal emotions/problems...

This tune could've been this album's 1st tune, introducing a softer style of Héctor Lavoe recording followed by a better quality song selection than on 1st three tunes here!...



Anyway...

We now come to this album's STRONGEST moment with the VERY NICE and MUSICAL old-style Charanga tune Déjala Que Siga!
Once the rather nice singing 1st part is over, we get A NICE, MELODIC and TYPICAL Piano Montúno, more vocals from Héctor, some very decent Trombone arrangements, and also a VERY NICE musical passage with Johnny Pacheco featured on Flute!
REALLY NICE stuff!...



Cancer, a Cha-Cha-Chá rhythm tune, is a very sarcastic tune with a very good sense of humour about how we can't do anything anymore as everything is supposed to give cancer!
Even though the tune is a little bit repetitive and linear, Héctor still keeps the fun until the end with his improvisational skills, BUT the big highlight here is guest Ricardo Ray's DISTINCTIVE and AMAZINGLY UNIQUE STYLISH Piano solo!... (A REALLY ENJOYABLE laid-back tune to listen to!)



Porque No Puedo Ser Felíz is perhaps another of the songs that should not have been recorded.
One of the forces of Merengue music (a Dominican rhythm) is that it's normally a very happy and festive style of dance music, and while the tune here is danceable, neither the lyric, nor the music are very joyful by any means!...
It talks again about Hector's life, and I thought that his own tune La Fama did enough from that aspect!...





[I would like to inform customers that this recording, the WONDERFUL MUST-HAVE Héctor Lavoe El Sabio (which I previously reviewed), and the MUCH BETTER 1987 follow up Héctor Lavoe Strikes Back are all available on his 4-Cd package `The Complete Studio Albums Vol.2'.]




This specific Cd got Remastered in 2006 by: Digital Domain (Bob Katz, I imagine.) 9/10. Sound quality REALLY seemed EXCELLENT from what I've heard on the Internet!

This 1985 Fania release is one of Hèctor Lavoe's great recordings,even more so when "Salsa" was being extremely challenged in the air waves and everywere by the "Merengue" and dumb romantic balads. Apart from the usual suspects members musicians like, "Profesor" Joe Torres on piano, Sal Cuevas on bass, Milton Cardona on congas, Lewis Khan and Leopoldo Pineda on trombones, pianist Ricardo Ray and flautist Johnny Pacheco appeared as guest, playing solos on ("Cancer") and ("Dèjala Que Siga") respectively. Bongo player and Lavoe's fellow band member from the Willie Colòn days, Josè Mangüal, also appears on the chorus section. All seven recordings on this beautiful production, hit the "Salsa" world like an explosion. "Dèjala Que Siga" and "La Fama", are my personal favorites.