The World Circuit label is re-issuing a new wonder: the only solo album by the iconic bassist and backbone of the Buena Vista Social Club’s creations, Orlando “Cachaïto” Lopez.
Released in 2001, eight years before his death, this essential album shows the openness and the musical depth that the Cuban cultivated throughout his life. The album, which opens with a phone call, reveals a Cachaïto deep in conversation with his conguero cohort Anga Diaz, Hugh Masekela on bugle, and Pee Wee Elis on brass, all blessed in some spots by Ibrahim Ferrer’s singing.
It is the surprises such as Cachaïto bringing in Bigga Morrisson’s Jamaican Hammond organ and Manuel Galban’s surf guitar to replace the timeless tres-piano duo, as well as Dee Nasty on the turntables, connected by the late Rémi Kolpa Kopoul and his friends.
The dream team joyously brings together jazz, hip-hop, reggae, Yoruba chants, psychic touches, a tribute to the idol Mingus, and Cuban classics in an incredibly smooth modern language whose freedoms evoke the intense descargas cubanas (jam sessions). Siempre con swing! (Always with swing!)
Orlando Cachaito Lopez, Cachaito (World Circuit)
