Took in The Wedding Planner recently, the $1.50 special up at the fabulous Discount Cinema on Wells Branch. Bargain. Watching Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey flirt their perky way around San Francisco proved serious sitcom satiation for gente that doesn’t have cable. Kinda chistoso. No less worthy a laugh is J-Lo (Epic), attempt numero dos at a musical border crossing from Tinseltown’s highest-paid Latina. Great production values, fine (computer-generated?) supporting cast, and a winning performance from Jenny. When she coos to “Come Over” and do the Catholic, hombres will wish The Wedding Planner had been rated Rrrrr… Speaking of madonnas, those who saw Aterciopelados during SXSW 2001 say that while Andrea Echeverri is all skin and tats, Bogota’s “Velvety One” has it. Starpower. Like Colombia’s got gold. Same goes for Gozo Poderosa (BMG), her and partner Hector Buitrago’s fifth LP. “Powerful Pleasure” it is; imagine Stereolab, but replace French with Spanish and some of the space-age bachelor pad effects with indigenous lounge music. Que sauve… The Dominican Republic’s Los Ilegales are just as sexy — in that boy-band shake-it, shake-it way. This trio of chicos could be the Fine Young Cannibals of the Miami set with On Time (BMG), the rumbling Latin rhythms shaking every thing in their paths. Not for hetero Latin males questioning their machismo… Well into his Nineties and still producing little Cubanitos, Compay Segundo keeps siring Buena Vista Social Club spinoffs, the latest, Las Flores de la Vida (Nonesuch), being his third in four years. A bit of a dropoff from 1999’s Calle Salud and Lo Mejor de la Vida before that, but a little ash off Compay’s big ol’ Havana is hardly noticeable. When Siboney’s favorite songwriting son and his tropical folk band sway into “Guantanamera” as Flores‘ swan song, paradise is only a cha-cha away… Nothing but dancing on Calle 54 (Blue Note), the musical companion to Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba’s exploration of Latin jazz styles. With the film’s featured performers recorded by the director in NYC — Tito Puente, Paquito D’Rivera, and Gato Barbieri to name a few — the finished product is as accomplished as Trueba’s Academy Award-winning Belle Epoque. Cuban powerhouse pianist Chucho Valdes teaming with his father Bebo on the set-ender should warrant it a call from the Academy of Recording Arts… Mr. Grammy 2001, Valdes has his own Solo — Live in New York also out on Blue Note, and the segue from the last cut on Calle 54 and the primero on Solo, the gorgeous tribute to the pianist’s mother (“A Mi Madre”), is buenisimo. It almost goes without translating that the rest of the live set by this Promethian pianist, Thelonious Monk, George Gershwin, and Art Tatum rolled into one, is the same… Nothing short of poetic is the soundtrack to Julian Schnabel’s triumphant requiem for Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls (Blue Thumb). Russell Crowe got the Best Actor Oscar this year (for last year’s The Insider), but someone make sure the Gladiator didn’t slay Spaniard Javier Bardem to get it. Bardem is as good an actor as this intoxicating mix of old and new Cuban classics, from “Guantanamera”-esque opener “El Tumbaito” to swaying songs by Orquesta Aragon, Beny More, and Bebo Valdez. Lauded composer and accomplished tres player Pedro Luis Ferrer almost steals the show with his fluttering “Ay Mariposa,” were it not for a transcendental poem — read by Bardem — from the film’s late subject. The Latin beat, pure poesia.
This article appears in May 11 • 2001.
