Abelardo Barroso, Golden Voice of Cuba’s "Cha Cha Cha"

11/17/2014

It’s late spring in Havana, 1955, and the legendary Benny Moré is thrilling the audiences at La Campana nightclub with his music. Everyone’s arriving to listen, to see and be seen. But when Rolando Valdés, the leader of Orquesta Sensación, pulls up, it’s not the music inside that catches his attention, but the man outside, playing his guitar and singing.

He knows that voice. When he was still a teenager, he’d played percussion in the band accompanying him. It’s Abelardo Barosso, a man who’d already been a huge star twice and seen fame slip away each time. As Valdés comes closer, the singer recognizes him and smiles. “Pal,” he says hopefully. “I’ve been wanting to see you! I want to record a bolero with you.”

In that moment, a new chapter of Cuban musical history began, documented on Cha Cha Cha, with fourteen of the greatest songs recorded by Abelardo Barosso and Orquesta Sensación (World Circuit, the label that brought the world the Buena Vista Social Club; release: November 17, 2014).

With a classic line-up of flute and violins, and invested with powerful groove and swing courtesy of a dream rhythm section, the recordings Barroso made with Orquesta Sensación for Puchito Records found the singer at the very peak of his powers. Although known primarily as a cha cha cha band Barroso and Sensación put their unique stamp on other Cuban styles.

These lush and elegant recordings – among the most exquisite in Cuban music and now remastered for the first time in 60 years—are the subject of Abelardo Barroso with Orquesta Sensación – Cha Cha Cha. The project has been a personal passion for World Circuit’s Nick Gold, a long-time admirer of Barroso’s voice and his classic recordings with Sensación. This set joins World Circuit’s other classic re-issues of bands such as Orchestra Baobab, Los Zafiros and classic cumbia recordings.

Available on CD, 180 gm vinyl and as hi-resolution download, the album includes in depth liner notes, full lyrics in Spanish and English and rare photography.
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