New CD's: FERNANDO ALVAREZ ANDDESCEMER BUENOThe New York Times, January 26, 2009

FERNANDO ALVAREZ AND DESCEMER BUENO

''Se Feliz ...''

(Egrem)

Boleros are like monuments, slow and chiseled love songs telling you from a great poetic height howdistinguished people conduct romance. The bolero's importance in the Spanish-speaking world for somuch of the last century didn't arise just because it promoted close dancing, but because it projectedimportance: it contained confidence and cultural nobility and a touch of madness.

It's a form that invites remaking, and some excellent postmodern bolero records have been made overthe last decade: by the Buena Vista Social club associates Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo, bythe jazz musicians Charlie Haden and Gonzalo Rubalcaba, by the Cuban pianist Bebo Valdes with theSpanish flamenco singer Diego el Cigala. Here is another.

Fernando Alvarez, who died in 2002, was a popular Cuban bolero singer in the 1950s and '60s.Descemer Bueno is a resourceful Cuban songwriter and producer, 43 years younger than Mr. Alvarez.They made this album, ''Se

Feliz ...'' (or ''Be Happy'') together in Havana shortly before Mr. Alvarez's death. (You can order itonline at descarga.com)

Pity we had to wait so long for it. It includes other members of the young Cuban-born musicalvanguard, like the pianist Roberto Carcasses and the saxophonist Yovany Terry, and it contains thefateful mood, slow tempos and string arrangement of 1950s boleros. But the record isn't retracing thepast. Into his original songs Mr. Bueno has written some string arrangements with striking harmony; hefavors acoustic guitars used nearly in bossa nova fashion and slide guitars in modern pop fashion.

In his mid-70s Mr. Alvarez's voice had changed; it was narrower and more delicate, without theauthority he had as a younger man. But it was emotionally intact, and he put forth the combination ofstoic longing and tragic insecurity in Mr. Bueno's lyrics, many of which are worth savoring. Forinstance (from ''Dime Si en Si''): ''Siempre habra mil formas distintas de amar/sutilezas.'' (''There willalways appear a thousand distinct ways of loving -- subtleties.'') Or (from ''Ola''):

Y yo, me invento un personaje que quisiera ser

doy vueltas y mas vueltas hasta la ansiedad

y descubro que volar

detras de un pajarillo libre como tu

no se.

(''And I, I invent myself a character that I would like to be; I toss and turn until I'm anxious, anddiscover that I don't know how to fly behind a small free bird like you.'') BEN RATLIFF

By BEN RATLIFF

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2009 The New York Times Company.http://www.nytimes.com

Source CitationRatliff, Ben. "New CD's: FERNANDO ALVAREZ AND DESCEMER BUENO." New

York Times 26 Jan. 2009: C6(L). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 20 May2015.

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