Simply Cuba

{|Simply Cuba|} is a four-disc box set from England that provides a deeper look at recordings made by the artists now associated forever with {|Buena Vista Social Club|}, many cut before that project was a twinkle in producer {|Ry Cooder|}'s eye. The tracks here by such Cuban now-legends as {|Ibrahim Ferrer|}, {|Omara Portuondo|}, {|Compay Segundo|} and {|Ruben Gonzalez|}, as well as other Cubans who had nothing to do with {|BVSC|} (such as the great {|Beny More|}), date from the '50s into the '90s, and therefore the sound quality and styles vary wildly from track to track. But the music, taken from original Cuban {|Egrem|} label recordings, is consistently strong, divvied up for convenience into themes titled Cuba Romantica, Cuba Danceria, Los Soneros, and Las Senoras. Those categories are self-explanatory and give the recordings some consistency and flow, but there is enough crossover ({|Ferrer|} and {|Portuondo|} each appear on three of the discs, for example) to render the sectioning moot to some extent. ~ Jeff Tamarkin