|
Puerto Plata
Mujer de Cabaret
(iASO)
First Appeared in The Music Box, February 2008, Volume 15, #2
Written by Douglas Heselgrave
Wed February 27, 2008, 06:30 AM CST
The fingers of Puerta Plata, the 84-year-old guitarist from the Dominican
Republic should be protected and declared a cultural treasure. Plata is the last
surviving practitioner of the acoustic guitar style that defined the rural music
from his country for decades. If he is showing any signs of slowing down, it’s
impossible to hear on any of the 11 tracks on Mujer de Cabaret, his
staggering new outing for iASO Records.
At an age when many people are struggling simply to function, Plata’s fingers
dance up and down the fret board of his instrument with a level of fluidity that
many younger virtuosos would have difficulty replicating. Plata’s guitar style
is based on the Cuban Son form, and with it, he conjures images of a world gone
by as merengue and bolero phrases effortlessly glide along the strings and out
into the air. The service that Ry Cooder did to the world music community over a
decade ago when he introduced the Cuban sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club to
a larger international audience cannot be underestimated. Although it long was
considered novelty music outside Latin America, the recent availability of good
quality recordings by artists like Plata has allowed the public to develop a
solid understanding of the region’s traditional songs.
Plata’s early life wasn’t easy. He spent his teenage years with the United
Fruit Company rather than in school. After a few years of laboring as a
carpenter, however, he found that he had saved enough money to buy a guitar, and
he soon relocated to Santiago, where he began to play music professionally in a
trio. Under the right-wing dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, it was difficult for
guitarists in the Dominican Republic to find work. Trujillo was fond of
orchestral meringues, and he fiercely hated the guitar because he felt that it
contributed to the backward impression that most outsiders held of his country.
As such, guitar music was banned from the radio, and musicians like Plata had to
earn a living by playing in the brothels and bars that were frequented by the
urban poor.
It is possible to listen to Mujer de Cabaret in the background: The
songs are pleasant and uplifting, and they are filled with glorious melodies and
wonderful vocals. However, the rewards of listening closely to the material are
immediately apparent when Plata stops singing and allows his guitar to speak for
him. His performance is lyrical, inventive, and complex, and throughout the set,
he displays a technique for improvising on a melody that would make Miles Davis
and Jerry Garcia sit up and listen. The playfulness with which he not only
reinvents chord sequences but also dances around a composition’s structure
recalls the exuberance of a young Stephane Grappelli, when he first began to
play with Django Reinhardt at the Café de Paris.
It’s easy to become jaded when thinking about the state of the music
industry. It can seem not only like everything has been done before but also as
if there is nothing new on the horizon worth hearing. The endless recycling and
repackaging that has characterized popular culture for the past several decades
has not encouraged the creation of sounds that are unique, challenging, or
enchanting. Mujer de Cabaret, however, is a breath of fresh air; it is a
tonic for tired ears.
Plata’s style of playing the guitar is so breezy and free that the songs on
Mujer de Cabaret seem to play through him rather than be played by him.
Each track’s instrumental passage reveals a dance of the spheres to the listener
that is completely unfettered and unencumbered by the physical limitations of
fingers plucking strings on an instrument’s neck. The fluidity of Plata’s
performance simply defies belief and to consider that this album represents the
work of a man well into his ninth decade is hard to fathom. This is music that
will make you smile and feel better, even if nothing was bothering you in the
first place. What greater recommendation can there be for an album than this?
There is no finer way to get through the cold, winter months and face the coming
spring than by listening to the entrancing, life-affirming material on Mujer
de Cabaret. 
Mujer de Cabaret is available from
Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please
Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2008 The Music Box
| 
