Cuban albums of 2019 (chosen by critics)

In Magazine AM:PM it fills us with joy to repeat an experience that already becomes a tradition to inaugurate the year. Summon a group of journalists, music critics, music lovers in general and ask them to send us their favorite albums, those of which they could not detach in 2019, was only the starting point to form this list, which arrives today with those Essential phonograms that made us vibrate during the last 365 days.

As you will notice, some of these record productions were reviewed in our magazine, which fills us with pride.

Joaquín Borges Triana, Leannelis Cárdenas, Estanislao Cordero, Darsi Fernández, Diana Ferreiro, Carlos Fornés, Yansert Fraga, Luis Alberto García, Pepe Gavilondo, Rafa G. Escalona, Marcel Lueiro, Rosa Marquetti, Raúl Medina, Carla Mesa, Pistacubana, Rogelio Ramos, Gisela Saís, Lorena Sánchez, Carmen Souto, Rafael Valdivia and Alejandro Zamora participated in the preparation of this list..

Sonocardiograma, Daymé Arocena (Brownswood Recordings)

The spirits of the world populate all things, lively and inanimate, and very early human beings learned that no vehicle like music to communicate with them. Daymé Arocena has become in half a decade a priestess of this communion, with her electrifying voice, with her appropriation of genres and styles of Cuban raigal, returned with a rabid news. Synthesis of all this is Sonocardiograma, those beats in the form of songs in which the singer is escorted by a luxury band composed by Rafael Aldama on bass, Marcos Morales on drums and Jorge Luis Lagarza on piano (as well as music producer of the album ). This album sounds like a longing, a son who arrives loaded with love, a tribute to all those physical or spiritual voices that have nourished Daymé and to which he returns all his gratitude in the form of music, how could it be otherwise.

Live Saxophones Session, Cuban Sax Quintet (Egrem)

Five assembled saxes can be a normal occurrence. What is not normal are these virtuous saxes in live session, saxes of different generations and making a repertoire where there are no limits to demonstrate what they are and what can be an excellent and timeless

to break the coconut, Alexander Abreu, Alain Pérez and Mayito Rivera (Egrem)

This album adds good and recognized performers, arrangements that link the old to the most current; Recording and timely mixing. An anthology of old songs that is danced as if they were hits this week..

Italuba Big Band, Horacio “El Negro” Hernández (Bis Music)

A DVD where good aesthetic-musical taste, virtuosity and talent are no accident.. Horacio “El Negro” Hernández has been able —from his experience— to offer us a proposal that results from the most complete productions of this year, a material that is a ray of light in the contemporary Cuban music scene.

Amor Edición Deluxe, Haydée Milanés (Bis Music / Digital Cassette)

A double album that makes us fall in love from the first song.. At the beginning, Haydée with her father, Pablo Milanés; later, Haydée in duet with some of the most important voices of Latin America. Sixteen songs to listen carefully and that make up a round phonogram. Topics like You see (feat. Silvia Perez Cruz), By my side (feat. Pancho Cespedes), the love of my life (feat. Edgar Oceransky), all eyes are watching you (feat. Chico Buarque) and Identity (next to the Ibeyi and with the percussion of Osaín del Monte and the piano of Cucurucho Valdés) - to name a few - are, without doubt, of extreme beauty, capable of being included in any playlist.

SublimeAlex Cuba (Caracol Records)

Intimate and fun, bright and minimalist, Alex Cuba delivers with Sublime a disc that you do not give up easily. Predestined to shine with its own light, totally universal, it suggests other ways to make song for Cuban music.

Real Project-GES, Real Project (Bis Music)

The fiftieth anniversary of the Icaic Sound Experimentation Group was not only a pretext for Real Project to dust off the ten songs that make up the album, where the band plays with more electronic sounds and also takes us along the paths of the bossa nova, jazz, rumba, rock and roll and bluegrass. The virtuosity of musicians such as Ruly Herrera, Jorge Luis Lagarza, Roberto Luis Gómez and Rafael Aldama now includes the guests: Daymé Arocena, Yusa, Polito Ibáñez, Cimafunk, Roberto Perdomo, Niurka González, Yasel Muñoz, Rubén Bulnes, among others . The result: a beautiful album, the best tribute to those who, a while ago, renewed Cuban popular music.

A Journey Through Cuban Music, Aymée Nuviola (Top Stop Music)

If anything we can quickly identify with Cubanness is this musical journey that Aymée proposes for our roots (son, rumba, cha cha cha, changüí, Cuban point, conga and counting). Tremendous in his voice and in the selection of the repertoire he has also made some incontestable travel companions: Omara Portuondo, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chucho Valdés, El Septeto Santiaguero, Alexander Abreu, Alejandro Falcón, Samuel Formell, Pancho Amat, Mayito Rivera , Los Muñequitos de Matanzas and La Conga de Los Hoyos.

Lo que dice mi cantar, Trio words (Muxía Music) 

This phonogram is a trip to the traditional trova from the artistic rigor and the sense of elegance of the Words Trio. He reveres a handful of old songs, not as vitrola classics, but as renewed songs with much to say yet.

Yesun, Roberto Fonseca (3éme Bureau / Wagram Music)

It is the metaphor of the water that runs clean, spreads and seeps everywhere. In this sense, from Cuba, no image would be more powerful than a synthesis between Oshún and Yemayá, hence the pun that gives title to the album. Roberto Fonseca achieves a continuous flow, both inside the compositions and in the way of combining them to order the album. A lot of experience is experienced, but it is a cause of astonishment how one travels with clear naturalness between geographically distant rhythms and sonorities, maintaining a conceptual and spiritual unity in each composition. Yes, Yesun is tender and spiritual, as the pianist has accustomed us. But it is also a call in several directions. It is no longer about "breaking schemes", but about shaking and urging us to create a new vision of music, to create new languages. The combination of electronic sounds, native rhythms, retro instruments, reggaeton, etc., would not be an end in themselves, but merely a pretext, simply, for the music to be made.

Other relevant Cuban albums of 2019:

Ours, Yelsy Heredia (Bis Music)

Duologue, Alfredo Rodriguez and Pedrito Martinez (Mack Avenue Records)

Sinco-pa Changuiza, Ernesto Oliva (Hummingbird Productions)

urban, Barbarian the Urban Vargas (Barbarian Urban Vargas)

rain and fire, Isaac Delgado (Tropix Music Group)