Mambo Sinuendo

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Mambo Sinuendo
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  1. Audio CD: Release Date 2003-01-28
  2. Publisher: Nonesuch
  3. Artist: Ry Cooder, Manuel Galban, Manuel Galban
  4. Sales Rank in Music: #7894

Product Review

As Cooder has written - ''You can look at this as a road trip through different worldless fantasy landscapes. Sometimes you're in bright daylight, sometimes the streets are dark & empty. You're riding with the Conjunto Sinuendo - drummers Jim Keltner & Joachim Cooder, Conga-player ''Anga'' Diaz, & bassist Cachaito Lopez, to hold you on the road. High performance Twang!'' Slipcase. Nonesuch. 2003.

Amazon.com

If there's a certain instant familiarity to this collaborative celebration between U.S. guitar icon/musicologist Ry Cooder and Cuban fret legend Manuel Galbán, it's only testimony to how deeply the island nation's rich musical heritage permeated American pop music in the '50s, '60s, and beyond. Cooder and Galbán (a key compatriot in the American guitarist's Buena Vista Social Club project) invent a back-to-the-future sound--twin guitars fronting a Cuban rhythm section of two drum kits, congas, and bass--whose dreamy swing quotient is matched only by its sense of mirthful abandon. Thus tracks like "Dru Me Negrita" and "Los Twangueros" manage to evoke everything from Link Wray, Duane Eddy, and the Ventures to Mancini and Esquivel, while Cooder and Galbán twirl a standard like "Patricia" and the nervy title track around dueling poles of tradition and experimentation with deceptive grace. It's joyous, mercurial stuff that the two musicians conjure at their fingertips. --Jerry McCulley
Title Tracks for Mambo Sinuendo

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (69 customer reviews)

105 of 110 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Ry Cooder's greatest achievement, January 28, 2003
Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mambo Sinuendo (Audio CD)
Has any musician, dead or alive, appeared in a wider variety of musical settings than Ry Cooder? None comes to mind. The amazing thing about his cross-culturalism is how effectively he picks up the basic vibe of the music he's exploring while still putting his own stamp on the proceedings, all the while maintaining a deep (yet not slavish) respect as he playfully deconstructs and reassembles it.His latest, Mambo Sinuendo, a dual project with Cuban guitar legend Manuel Galabán, strikes me as the finest Cooder record to date. I've listened to this remarkable album many times, and each listen has revealed something new: Cooder's tuba-like sound on "Bodas de Oro"; the nimble acoustic bass of Orlando "Cachaíto" Lopez, always establishing the perfect rhythmic underpinning; the deep swing melded to relaxed yet intense interaction that suffuses the whole record; the tricky rhythmic shifts that relocate a piece from Latin America to the American Southwest to Hawaii. It's...Read more


47 of 48 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A music experience that is like a much needed vacation, February 8, 2003
R. Klein (Gulf Breeze, Fl United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mambo Sinuendo (Audio CD)
Being a longtime fan of Ry Cooder, I know that any project that he emerges with will be well worth the wait and result in something special. From the beginning project with 1997's Grammy winning "Buena Vista Social Club" project, the world has come to know the richness of Cuba's almost forgotten music. Each musician has come to record a solo project from these sessions.
This new project, "Mambo Sinuendo" features a small combo sound, a sound that was alive in the late '50's, early '60's. This setting does not showcase the big Buena Vista Social Club brass or vocals. This project is a stripped-down, seductive twangy guitar sound, featuring the guitar work of Manuel Galban up front & center. Manuel Galban is a masterful Cuban guitarist, whose style is like American guitarist Duane Eddy, one of Ry Cooder's influences.
Ry Cooder plays the harmony guitar parts, weaving dreamlike rhythms and occasional hawaiin steel guitar and organ throughout, adding texture. The drums &...Read more


42 of 44 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Latin rhythms with Ry's guitars, January 29, 2003
William Merrill "eclecticist" (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mambo Sinuendo (Audio CD)
Often when Western musicians pair up with "world music" artists, the results sound like the Western person is almost completely submerged within the musical identity of the "world" person. That happened with Henry Kaiser & David Lindley's Norway & Madagascar albums, and with various things Michael Brook has done. Not here. Ry Cooder's rootsy guitar is just as much a character in this music as Manuel Galaban and the different Cuban musicians he worked with on Mambo Sinuendo. The tunes all have a Latin flavor, but filtered through various American mid-20th Century styles. I was reminded of Esquivel as well as some of the Los Lobos side projects like the Latin Playboys and Los Super Seven. The album is a real pleasure to listen to. I probably would have enjoyed it even more if there were a few more cuts with vocals. The female background vocals on the chorus of the title track are real cool.

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