Chavez Ravine

Average Rating:	(See all reviews)
Label:	Nonesuch Records (USA)
Quantity Available:	14

• Personnel include: Ry Cooder (vocals, various instruments, guitar, tres, organ); Bla Pahinui (vocals, guitar, ukulele); Lalo Guerrero (vocals, guitar); Don Tosti, Little Willie G., Rudy Salas, Juliette Commagere, Ersi Arvizu, Rosella Arvizu, Michael Guerra, Carla Commagere, Jacob Garcia (vocals); David Hidalgo, Led Kaapana (guitar); Flaco Jimenez (accordion); Gil Bernal (tenor saxophone); Mike Bolger (trumpet, valve trombone, organ); Jon Hassell (trumpet); Chucho Valdes, Jacky Terrasson, Joe Rotondi (piano); Mike Elizondo, Jared Smith (bass instrument); Jim Keltner (drums); Joachim Cooder (timbales); Sunny Levine (drum programming).
  
• Recording information: Sound City, Van Nuys, California; The Village Recorder, Los Angeles, California (2005).
  
• In the wake of the tremendous impact of the BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB album, film, and tour, it is easy to see Ry Cooder as a historian, a cultural ambassador, and a gifted humanist interested in revitalizing all people through music. If this sounds like an overstatement, you probably haven't heard 2005's CHAVEZ RAVINE yet. Like BUENA VISTA, CHAVEZ RAVINE locates itself in a cultural and musical context, this time in a vibrant, culturally rich Mexican-American community in post-war Los Angeles.
  
• With help from musicians associated with the era and location (including Don Tosti, Lalo Guerrero, and Thee Midnighters' Little Willie G.) and studio musicians Jim Keltner, Jon Hassell, and legendary Tex-Mex accordionist Flaco Jimenez, Cooder has created a musical novel that richly celebrates the music, life, and lingering mythos of Chavez Ravine, an L.A. neighborhood razed by the city in the interest of big business (namely to build a stadium for the soon-to-be L.A. Dodgers). Stylistically, the album, performed in both Spanish and English, encompasses Latin folk forms, swing, atmospheric ballads, rhumba, and R&B. Yet the whole feels so rooted in history, so packed with real characters (like boxer Carlos Chavez) and stories (like a Pachuco-slang-speaking UFO sighting) that it plays as an organic whole. Playful, poignant, historically significant, and thoroughly enjoyable, CHAVEZ RAVINE is a stunning achievement.
  

Down Beat (p.66) - "With each of these evocative tunes, he replaces a brick in a wall that was dismantled long ago. Not a bad way to defend your dream."

Mojo (Publisher) (p.58) - Ranked #6 in Mojo's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2005" - "History lesson as hallucination. The life and death of a Latin community in '30s LA, reimagined by Cooder and veterans of the '40s Latino pachuco scene..."

Mojo (Publisher) (p.98) - 4 stars out of 5 - "Conjunto, corrido and jazz emerge from and mingle with R&B and pop as the band follow the story from innocent beginnings to the tragic, bitter end."

Producer:	Ry Cooder
Format:	CD (1 Disc); Stereo
Country:	USA
Quantity Available:	14
UPC:	075597987720
Studio/Live:	Studio
Release Date:	14 June 2005