Ray Barretto Que Viva La Musica CD

Produced only a short time after his death, Ray Barretto's A Man and His Music tells the story of a young conguero who went from sitting in on New York's after-hours jam sessions to becoming a Latin music household name, the most influential conguero of his lifetime. It's a long story, spanning better than 45 years and quite a few records, and it's surprising that the Fania label could cram it into a two-disc set. Beginning in his boogaloo years, with famous cuts like "El Watusi" and "Soul Drummers," the collection demonstrates that Barretto's habits of rule-breaking and genre-fusing were obviously formed early. These tracks show a sophistication that the majority of the boogaloo genre did not share. Moving on to Barretto's salsa/Latin jazz experimentation, "Abidjan" and "The Other Road" are a testament to his ongoing creativity. There are, of course, a number of his indispensable hits included, like "Indestructible," "Vale Mas un Guaguanco," and "Guarare." The absence of any of Barretto's genuine jazz work is noticeable and curious, but considering the source of this collection (Fania), that is understandable, if somewhat disappointing. There are guaranteed to be more than a few collections put together immortalizing the late, great master conguero/bandleader. For those who favor his salsa side, A Man and His Music is sure to please. ~ Evan C. Gutierrez

Since Fania began remastering and reissuing its vast catalog on CD, and putting together some of the most killer compilations of Latin jams ever heard, they've discovered an entirely new audience from the beat and crate diggers who could seldom find the original LPs on Tico or its own named imprint. That said, there is a consistently irritating fact that is true with most of those comps: there isn't any documentation in the liners provided for track attribution. They have the sound right, a lot of them look attractive enough, but not knowing where specific tracks came from can be frustrating for those of us music geeks who want to get really obsessive. That rather major complaint aside, they are priced right and sound as good as they can given the technology they were working with in analogue. The Essential Ray Barretto is, thankfully, not a case in point. Spread over two discs, containing 28 monster jams, this is all killer, no filler. Dean Rudland did a fantastic job of compiling these tracks from Barretto's output for Tico/Fania aesthetically rather than chronologically, though it may initially ...