The Revisiting series features albums from the past that played a significant role in Latin Jazz history. The purpose of this series is to introduce new Latin Jazz listeners to important albums and look back at these albums in historical perspective. Each entry will jump to a different point in Latin Jazz history - this week we jump ahead to 1979.

Despite the fact that Cuba sits ninety miles south of the United States, politics push America’s view of the island’s vibrant music scene into the background. Laws bar Cuban musicians from performing in the United States, and travel restrictions stop American citizens from attending shows in Cuba. America’s economic embargo restricts the sale of Cuban recordings in the United States, and also prohibits American music companies from recording Cuban artists. An amazing possibility exists for collaboration and mutual growth between musicians in the United States and Cuba, but they are blocked at every turn. Latin Jazz and Salsa musicians use their own lines of communication to bypass political policy, but the general public remains ignorant of Cuba’s musical development. These cold realities make quick glimpses of Cuba’s musical landscape important; they occasionally burst through political barricades and sometimes disappear just as quickly.

In the late 1970s, United States president Jimmy Carter wished to open talks with Cuba and the music world longed to hear the island’s modern music; all this set the stage for Cuba’s premier band, Irakere, to make their American debut. The band had been refining their sound for several years, and the resulting combination of jazz, Afro-Cuban folklore, rock, and blinding virtuosity shot them to the top of Cuba’s musical scene. They performed across Cuba, as well as abroad in Communist friendly countries, developing a reputation for their cutting-edge sound and impressive abilities. When several representatives from Columbia Records arrived in Cuba looking for contemporary musicians, they were quickly directed to Irakere. After hearing the band, the company successfully negotiated financial details with the government, and the Irakere band members traveled to the United States. They toured the country, playing to enthusiastic crowds and mingling with American musicians. Their performances in New York were recorded and released by Columbia as Irakere. The band followed that with a studio recording entitled Irakere II. For many people, these recordings and performances served as an introduction to the post-1950s Cuban music scene and sparked an intense interest in Cuba’s modern musical direction.

The Best of Irakere compiles the majority of the tracks from Irakere & Irakere II, capturing a unique moment in Latin Jazz history. The live tracks constitute the album’s most intriguing material, with the centerpiece being “Misa Negra (The Black Mass).” This seventeen-minute epoch represents Irakere’s ability to communicate their deep connection with Cuban folklore through the jazz language, all in the context of a multi-movement large-scale composition. “Adagio on a Mozart Theme” highlights one of the band’s main soloists, Paquito D’Rivera, assertively fusing bluesy licks with baroque ideas. The band maintains a funky foundation behind jazz melodies and intense improvisations on “Ilya,” until they break into a traditional 6/8 song. The studio recordings unfortunately mask the true vitality of Irakere in waves of strings and pounding disco beats, drowning the band in a commercial sound. The musicians still deliver stellar moments as well, such as the gentle trumpet interplay between Arturo Sandoval and Jorge Varona on “Ciento Años de Juventud” or the heartfelt improvisations from Sandoval and pianist Chucho Valdes on “Claudia.” These tracks showed the world Irakere’s early incarnation; a passionate group of musicians that brought several genres together into a ferocious wall of sound.

Irakere’s American debut quickly impacted the United States’ music world, but their presence was short lived. A new generation of Latin Jazz and salsa musicians became die-hard Irakere fans, frantically searching for their Cuban recordings and investigating Cuba’s other hidden musical treasures. The Recording Academy awarded Irakere a Grammy Award for their Columbia recordings, recognizing their outstanding musicianship. A year later, Ronald Reagan became president and cold war political thought prevailed. Artistic exchanges with Cuba were forbidden, which stopped Irakere’s travel and recording in the United States. Tired of the Cuban government and inspired by his taste of the United States, Paquito D’Rivera defected in 1981, and a few years later, Arturo Sandoval followed D’Rivera’s lead. Irakere changed regularly throughout the years, but when Clinton era politics allowed them to tour the United States in 1993, they returned with their familiar intensity. George W. Bush’s administration once again revoked exchanges with Cuba, but music mail order companies, European record labels, and the internet age has made following Irakere possible. Their early history remains clouded for many American listeners though, making The Best of Irakere an essential glimpse at the development of Cuba’s foremost Latin Jazz group.

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