Music Review: Buena Vista Social Club, Lost and Found

The Buena Vista Social Club provides a unique testament to decades of Cuban music.

If you caught the movie in the late 90s, or better still you heard Buena Vista Social Club live at Womad recently, you're in luck. Lost and Found is a mishmash (in a positive way) of material found from the sessions that produced Ry Cooder's original Buena Vista releases and other gems.

Surprisingly, given the international success of the movie and the album, there certainly isn't a glut of material from these Cuban legends.

Individuals like Compay Segundo, Ruben Gonzalez and Ibrahim Ferrer did have some enjoyment from their Buena Vista and personal albums before they died in the early 2000s. And of course the incomparable diva Omara Portuondo has quite a catalogue of releases.

Sadly the current renewal of the USA and Cuba relationships have probably come too late for the tourist influx to benefit these musicians.

So, Lost and Found then, is a mix of tracks from the original sessions that haven't seen the light of day, plus tracks recorded in the heyday that followed the movie release, and some live tracks. The quality is a little variable but there's no doubt you're listening to a unique testament to decades of Cuban music.

And then there's an other-worldly bracket of three performances by singer/guitarist Eliades Ochoa from which you can picture the sounds you would've heard at the original Club itself, decades ago.