Identify this Latin (Cuban?) Song Performance

October 5, 2009 9:49 AM

I heard a song playing on the sound system in a restaurant that I would like to track down if I can identify it. It was sung in Spanish, in a Cuban musical style (similar to the more ballad-like tracks on many of the Buena Vista Social Club artists' records). The vocalist was most likely male, singing in that kind of 1930's/40's croony sound with a high tenor with lots of vibrato, or possibly a woman with a lower voice. What was distinctive about the track is that it prominently featured a cello, which is not something I'm used to hearing in Latin music. I do not know if it was actually an old song or a modern pastiche, and I didn't get any lyrics.
posted by matildaben to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

It wasn't Caetano doing his version of a mariachi tune, was it?
posted by dr. boludo at 10:01 AM on October 5, 2009

Cello figures prominently in Lhasa de Sela's music. You wouldn't mistake her voice for a man's, though. De cara a la pared blew me away when I first heard it. Had to get the album. That was twelve years ago, and it still gives me shivers.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:12 AM on October 5, 2009

Lhasa's De cara a la pared has a high crooning voice and cello. Her music is fantastic, btw- highly recommend her album "La Llorona".
On preview: oops.
posted by twistofrhyme at 10:27 AM on October 5, 2009

Try going back the the restaurant and asking them what they play.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 10:33 AM on October 5, 2009

Response by poster: Regarding going back to the restaurant, it's a local independent chain (Chow Foods, they have about 6 restaurants in Seattle), so they probably get their music mixes from headquarters, and the staff wouldn't know what they were playing. It was definitely a mix, not a whole album.
posted by matildaben at 11:25 AM on October 5, 2009

Gema y Pavel, a contemporary Cuban duo do some boleros (that's probably the song genre you're thinking about if you're talking about the ballad-like tracks from BVSC) but I think it'd be hard to mistake them for a 1930s/40s aesthetic. Still...they use a fair amount of cello on this album. Maybe one of those?

Or, further afield...Afro-Peruvian, rather than Cuban, but maybe this?
(I'm a cellist and a grad student specializing in Latin American music, and I'm going nuts that I'm coming up short here)
posted by dr. boludo at 2:19 PM on October 5, 2009

OK, if it was a Chow place, they do menus and themes, right? The themes are curated - by all means ask!
posted by mwhybark at 9:39 PM on October 5, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks, Mike, I emailed them and they were very responsive, but they said there were over 900 tracks on the playlist so they couldn't narrow it down. It wasn't any of the suggestions above, either.
posted by matildaben at 1:29 PM on October 6, 2009