Customer Reviews

Ya No Hace Falta

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I live in Los Angeles and have been seriously dancing Salsa since 1996. My friend Kay Torres has been educating me about Cuban music for the last 2 years. On January 8, 2000 I saw Bamboleo for the second time in person at the Conga Room. The dancers, especially the ladies, Vanyia and Yordamis, were awesome. The band was tight and sent their clean sound bouncing and rolling off of the walls and ceilings. When I left the concert I wanted to buy one of their CDs immediately. I did not have any of their music and I did not know which songs I had heard at the concert or the CDs they came from. I bought "Ya No Hace Falta" because it was their most recent release...Let me tell you, for 2 months I have been playing this CD at home, in my car and at my office...I AM ADDICTED! Lastly, Timba music can be difficult to dance to for us North Americans because of its speed and complexity but I love dancing salsa/ mambo to this CD because most of the songs are mid tempo but they have great arrangements and wonderful changes of speed and style within the songs. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT NOT BUYING THIS CD!

This Bamboleo album is a total master piece. They have elevated Timba to an even higher level. Timba is Cuban music,like the name Salsa or real name Son Montuno, from the province of Oriente, Cuba. It's a more complex way of playing what we know as Salsa and Bamboleo does a fantastic job.
I recommend La Tremenda, Opening and Ya no hace falta, as my 3 top choices, but the whole album is fantastic.
Look for their soon to be released new album, they have some serious music in it.
Timbero.

This record puts on full displays the glories and weaknesses of the Timba style. The horn lines are intricate and challenging; they are also too often academic, unoriginal, and uninspired. The choruses and refrains are intense, brilliant, and often iresistable (Se Le Fué La Mano) and the versus are often plodding, hackneyed, tossed off, and corny (Se Le Fué La Mano). Bamboleo does not employ their synthesizers well; their synths often just cheese it up (Manicero). The improvisations are often forgettable, and the technical proficiency seems purposeless. And for Heaven knows what reason, they repeat EVERYTHING, regardless of whether anyone would want to hear that section again.

So these three stars, sweet and simple, represent my impression of the relative strengths and weaknesses of this record. It's more good than bad, but not inspired by any stretch. It could be a 4-star record too, but I'll just tick one off since everybody else is so ecstatic about these guys. Th title track, by the way, is a masterpiece.

Bamboleo is the most sophisticated salsa group to appear since... since... well, since anyone plugged in an electric bass. That means better than NG La Banda, Charanga Habanera, Descarga Boricua, Marc Antony, Elvis Crespo, DLG, etc. I cannot describe how amazing this album is. This is a classic, classic album, ranking alongside the best of the old Fania creations.

bamoboleo and this CD and their other CD NO me parescco a nadie are awesome. however it shouldn't be said that bambleo represents the future of salsa, rather, it represents he future of latin jazz as it gets more down into its salsa roots, as Irakere is doing in recent releases such as Babalu Ayé. Bamboleo is hot and very in and deservedly so but I'm dismayed at the disparaging remarks I read in reviews of Jose Luis Cortes and NG La Banda, who pretty much invented Timba, in which style the truly most progressive music of Cuba is being made today. It will be many years before anyone can say that Bamboleo is the equal of NG La Banda, which has put out music with so many different sounds and innovative rhythms over the years, let alone "better than". All these groups have their own strengths and shouldn't really be comapared, but as far as I'm concerned the chatter about the "decline" of NG La Banda is just that. And many of the young hot group leaders and almost all the great young singers in Cuba apprenticed with NG La Banda. ¡Por eso estan La Banda que Manda! That's why they rule!!!!

re: the new bamboleo "dance remix" CD one word, meant disparagingly: commercialismo

Im cuban born and raised, living in the US for a few years. I started dancing timba back in 1992 with NG La Banda. Timba is all I hear, literally.

Having said that, Bamboleo is today as good if not better than NG La Banda. Their sound is to the highest most complex level of music both to dance and to listen to. I highly recommend their music. I also recommend you guys to follow the Timba underground rapidly gaining momentum here in the US of A. Bands like Cuban Timba All Stars and Tiempo Libre are vivid examples. The recent arrival of Issac Delgado will fuel this genre further into the future.

Timba will be the next musical revolution in the American Scene. Wait until the Cuban Bands hit us in the future.

This record is a must. If you like Cuban music only a little, you need this one. The song "Se le fue la mano" is alone worth buying this one for. If I were to be put on a desert island with only one CD, this would be the one I'd take.

4 words to describe this CD..."Timba at it's Greatest"