Search - Various Artists, Bola Denieve, Rey Guerra :: Cuban Lullaby

No fat cigar, not even Cuba's gorgeous sunsets, can register close on the sublimity scale to the country's lush, commercially unsullied music, something lots of folks discovered a few years back when a subtle loosening of regulatory strings let the brilliant, boundary-busting Buena Vista Social Club cross the shore. On Cuban Lullaby, another of Ellipsis Arts' impressively packaged, carefully annotated, and sweet-smelling Lullaby series (the scent of lavender, said to promote heavy-liddedness, comes wafting out once the protective plastic is removed), the tradition-steeped African and Spanish elements that fused the Cuban sound fall in for a 16-track close-up--intimacy, after all, is what lullabies are all about. The music moves from lilting piano ("Drume Negrita," "Berceuse a Jessie," "Drume Mobila") to elegant guitar (a different rendition of "Drume Negrita," "Suenos de Colores") to tribal-sounding bata drums ("Oguere"). The set is by turns sweepingly beautiful, twinkly sweet, and rhythmically soothing--no surprise, considering this record's artist roster. Grammy-winning pianist Chucho Valdes, immortal entertainer Bola de Nieve, and Buena Vista Social Club singer Omara Portuondo raise the talent bar to a dizzying level, the right altitude, it turns out, for drifting off to dreamland. If your little one is the lucky intended dozer, leave the light on and read the liner notes. The English translations of these songs, like "El Amor de Caracol y Lombriz," about a snail-worm romance, and "Nana Animalera," describing a late-night all-animal hootenanny, crack a window on Cuban culture, causing, without intending to, sharp regrets that it's been sealed away for so long. --Tammy La Gorce