Search - Various Artists :: Trinidad (1912-1941)

Last Days of the Spanish Waltz

Lawrence Waldron | New York City | 12/10/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"These are actually a large range of colonial musical hybrid forms from Trinidad with the hypnotic, African stick fight rhythms surgically removed as to not spook the society dames and bow tied gents who went to the dances in old time Port of Spain. Listening to these tunes gives you that very pre-war, stride piano, jazz age, lets put a good show on for the yankees feeling. Yet, even with that wiff of cultural repression, this is an indispensible recording for anyone who can't bear to leave the missing links in Caribbean music un-collected. It is positively riveting, in a rubber necking sort of way, to hear accomplished Calypsonians doing everything from Spanish Waltzes, called paseos or pasillos locally, to Jack Teagarden and Bix Beiderbeck type ditties. Buy it just to gawk at the cross-cultural spectacle."