One of the first Cuban live bands I ever saw was a concert by the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club on their farewell world tour at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Seeing Omara Portuondo, Guajiro Mirabal, Barbarito Torres and Jesus “Aguaje” Ramos performing live and watching them create the music that I still use in my salsa classes today has been one of the best experiences I have had since I started my salsa journey. After 16 years of touring the world and mesmerising their audience around the globe I was thrilled to get the chance to watch them live before they retired in 2015 and they were nothing short of spectacular. Omara Portuondo’s performance at 84 years is something I will never forget and the ballads extending across most of what Afro-Cuban music has to offer was a delight to hear from this 12 piece band despite the fact that only few of the original band members were performing at the farewell tour.
Some of the songs made famous by Buena Vista Social Club have become instantly recognisable around the world even among non-dancers and people who have no particular interest in Cuban culture. They were among the first songs I recognised in my initial salsa classes and I continue to listen to them today despite the fact that they have been somewhat overplayed on occasion.
The name “Buena Vista Social Club” has become a brand that encompasses a number of things and it is confusing for most people to know what exactly it is that the term is referring to. Originally, the term described a member-only club in Havana with membership being determined by ethnicity in style of a Cabildo (African ethnic associations in Cuba that declined in the 19th century). Later on, the name became associated with a band (Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club), a documentary by Wim Wenders, an album released by the label World Circuit Records and the name of a song on that album written by Orestes López Valdés. There is also a famous CD called “A Buena Vista – Barrio de la Habana” by the Soneros de Verdad which is led by Luis Frank Arias Mosquera who had close ties to the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club being himself a former member and went on to record some of his greatest hits with another one of the Orquesta’s musicians Pío Leyva. This CD contains one of Luis Frank’s greatest hits confusingly called “A Buena Vista” to add another similar sounding song name to the list and many other songs exist that have used the term in their lyrics or titles making it very difficult to determine the boundaries of this brand name.
A musical named “The Bar at Buena Vista”, has become a worldwide success in recent years and has added to the hype surrounding this brand featuring Cuban stars like Siomara Avilla Valdes Lescay and Maestro Rubalcaba, known in Cuba as “The Hands of Gold”.
