Buena Vista Social Club

Conceived in Havana in the mid-1990s, the Buena Vista Social Club project brought together, under the guidance of Juan de Marcos González and American musician Ry Cooder, veteran artists from Cuba’s 1940s and 1950s scene. Inspired by the former social club of the same name, Buena Vista Social Club brought son cubano, bolero, guajira and danzón back to the forefront, in a stripped-down acoustic aesthetic that highlights voices, guitars, piano and traditional percussion. The studio album Buena Vista Social Club, released in 1997 on World Circuit and recorded in Havana, introduced an expanded ensemble featuring, notably, Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo, each contributing their own repertoire and experience from pre-revolutionary orchestras. This core of artists carried over to the stage through a series of international concerts documented in Wim Wenders’ 1999 film Buena Vista Social Club, followed by the live album Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall, recorded in New York in 1998 and released in 2008. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, various orchestral incarnations kept the Buena Vista Social Club name on tour, while the 2015 compilation Lost and Found gathered previously unreleased or rare studio recordings from those historic sessions.