Bebo and Cigala's "Black Tears" is easily the best new music I have heard in the past year. Ricardo Daura gave Meg a copy a while back, and we fell in love with it right away. Especially because "our" copy became "my" birthday present. It has that "special something" that the Buena Vista Social Club had, although without an acclaimed documentary follow up, I doubt it will get the same focus of attention. Some treasures are best passed by word of mouth anyway. Megcita and I are going to see them in concert June 20th at the Barbican Centre. Here's a little blurb that gives a few more details.
Cheers for Valdes and El Cigala's 'Tears'
By Howell Llewellyn
MADRID (Billboard) - Just what is it about the album "Lagrimas Negras" that has captured music fans in Europe and South America?
UK and North American consumers can find out for themselves next month, when the album appears on their shores.
"Lagrimas Negras" ("Black Tears") features 85-year-old Grammy Award-winning Cuban pianist Bebo Valdes and 35-year-old flamenco singer Diego El Cigala playing traditional Cuban boleros and Spanish coplas.
The album was recorded for the Calle 54 label, which is co-owned by Academy Award-winning Spanish director Fernando Trueba and Miami-based musicologist Nat Chediak. Both produced the album.
The BMG-distributed set sold more than 250,000 copies in Spain and spent nearly 50 weeks in the country's top 20 sales list. It also won a number of Spanish music awards in Latin, flamenco and jazz categories.
"Lagrimas Negras" was a hit in several other markets where BMG released it this spring. These include Argentina, Mexico and France.
BMG will handle the UK and Canadian releases as well. BMG label RCA's custom Bluebird imprint will carry "Lagrimas Negras" in the States. The set bows June 6 in the United Kingdom and June 22 in North America.
"US/Canadian promotion will be on the same 'little-to-more' progression that it was in Spain, where the thing grew bigger than anyone dared hope," BMG Spain international exploitation manager Fran Arbulu says.
"Promo will be aimed at the mainly Latin target audience of urban, cultured music lovers," he continues.
"Nobody says this is another 'Buena Vista Social Club', but it's getting a good buzz from US jazz and Latin critics."
BMG US Latin will help support the CD's promotion, reports Maarten Steinkamp, president of BMG International.
"This is a project you have to build and love," he says, noting that the album is "building very nicely" in Argentina and Mexico. "It will probably take some 18 months to really bring home, and that doesn't matter."
Valdes and El Cigala will play "Lagrimas Negras" material June 20 at London's Barbican Theater. Valdes' son, pianist Chucho Valdes, will make a rare concert appearance with his father. Bebo has lived in Sweden for 44 years, and Chucho lives in Cuba.
El Cigala pays a promotional visit to the States July 10-15. He and Bebo will play concerts in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, beginning in late August.
Those concerts will be fans' only chance to see Bebo and El Cigala play together in the States. Bebo is content to pass his "Lagrimas Negras" role to his son, who has won four Grammy Awards.
"I can't travel so much anymore, and I'm immensely proud to hand over the reins to Chucho," Bebo says. "We played together for the first time in 40 years in New York in 2000 for 'Calle 54,' and we'll seal that link playing 'Lagrimas Negras' in London."
Chucho will perform a concert of "Lagrimas Negras" material May 28 at the Cubadisco music trade fair in Havana. Bebo refuses to visit Cuba because of skirmishes he had in 1960 with the revolutionary government.
Chucho next will join El Cigala on a summer tour of Latin America to present "Lagrimas Negras." They will begin May 30 with three nights in Mexico City. Other stops include Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia.
But it is in the "multicultural melting pot" of the States, Arbulu says, that an album like "Lagrimas Negras" makes most sense.
"The US public is going to wonder, 'What is this? Latin? Jazz? Flamenco?"' El Cigala says. "Well, it's a world-music blend with all three. The important thing is the flamenco expression 'llevar buen palo' -- to play it pure, damn good and clean."
Reuters/Billboard
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