CD Charts
Welcome to The CD Charts, here you will find all the latest and top selling Music cds available to buy online. You can search and locate the best selling Music cd's and have them delivered to the door. We have a large selection of Music all with reviews.
Back to Home Page > Go back a page
Music : Chavez Ravine
See Larger Image |
Chavez Ravine by: Ry Cooder List Price: $20.98 CD-Charts Price: $16.99 You Save: $3.99 (19%)Prices subject to change. |
||||||
|
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Audio CD EAN: 0075597987720 Label: Nonesuch Manufacturer: Nonesuch Number Of Discs: 1 Publisher: Nonesuch Release Date: June 14, 2005 Studio: Nonesuch Sales Rank: 2837 MPN: 79877 Disc 1:
Related Items:      see moreBrowse for similar items by category:
Editorial Review: Album Description: Ry Cooder's Chavez Ravine is-a post-World War II-era American narrative of "cool cats," radios, UFO sightings, J.Edgar Hoover, red scares, and baseball.Using real and imagined historical characters, Cooder and friends creates an album that recollects various aspects of the poor but vibrant hillside Chicano cummunity, which was bulldozed by developed in the interest of "progress." Amazon.com: Ry Cooder might have been tempted to bill this as the Chavez Ravine Social Club. After generating such popular and critical interest in Cuban music of decades past with the Buena Vista Social Club, Cooder applied a similar approach closer to home, extending his fascination with the Mexican-American culture that flourished in 1940s and '50s Los Angeles. The result is an CD that sounds like it's aspiring to be something far more ambitious: a DVD, a theatrical production, even a time machine. Cooder and a cast of seminal Chicano artists present a song cycle that conjures an era of UFOs, the Red Scare, and political machinations that leveled the Chavez Ravine barrio to lure the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. In his celebration of a vibrant community that doesn't know it's on the verge of displacement, Cooder enlists Thee Midnighters vocalist Little Willie G. (whose songwriting collaboration with Los Lobos's David Hidalgo on "Onda Callejara" highlights the album). and Pachuco patriarchs Don Tosti and Lalo Guerrero, with the latter reviving his dancefloor favorite "Los Chucos Suaves." The accordion of Flaco Jimenez adds conjunto flavor to "Barrio Viejo." Throughout the album, Cooder plays a typically tasteful, understatedly virtuosic guitar, assumes a variety of vocal roles--including a cool Chet Baker homage in duet with pianist Jacky Terrason on "In My Town"--and provides the provocative social context. --Don McLeese More Ry Cooder
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Greasy handoff...That's CHA-vez. Just as he provided a venue for aging Cubans before they were gone and forgotten, Cooder, in 15 songs, shines a light on the unknown tale of how a dusty hillside Los Angeles Mexican neighborhood known as Chavez Ravine was razed in the 1950s in a "greasy handoff" to the newly arrived Dodgers baseball team. Think of the movie Chinatown. Crooked red-baiting right wing politicos, innocent citizens believing "it can't happen here," cool cats being beaten up by GIs, and a UFO-driving Space Vato (space guy) who recognizes the Ravine as the hip place to land; these are the players in Cooder's loving 21st century concept album. The beautifully packaged Nonesuch CD includes a booklet worthy of a very small coffee table. The ... Read More: Rating: - chavez ravine in the south of FranceI first heard this CD last summer (06) while I was on vacation visiting British friends in France. Ironically, I was reading a book about Robert Moses and the wrecking and paving of neighborhoods in New York City while took place around the same time as the bulldozing of the Chavez Ravine community- why I was reading all this in France is beyond me, but there you have it. I thought, and still do think, that "Chavez Ravine" is quite beautiful, if a bit odd; it fits right in with the other Ry Cooder records I've heard which are beautifully played, peculiarly written, and often a bit edgy. He doesn't sound like anyone else, which is all to the good. My favorites on this CD are "Poor Man's Shangri-La", "Chinito-Chinito", and "Third Base, ... Read More: Rating:  - Where have I been?Out of it in Japan, actually. I only learned about this excellent album while reading a review of Mr. Cooder's My Name is Buddy and I'm not even sure why I was reading that, never having been much of a fan. Mistake. Every song on this album is a winner; the beautiful Soy Luz y Sombra even got me choked up in the middle of traffic out on the ugly-as-sin 'hatchi go sen' (that would be Hwy 8). Each song has a quite distinct emotional and musical life while the 'concept' is artistically embellished and embroidered. Mr. Cooder orquestrates a very 'simpatico' ensemble. In addition the music not only entertains but educates as well - a look at midcentury LA before the Dodgers - and improves your spanish (o tu ingles!) as it comes with a nicely done ... Read More: Rating: - Ry Cooder is a musician's musicianThis is an elegantly produced album the captures an LA sound that deserves the treatment given. Each cut grows on you with every play -- the mark of good music. Rating:  - Ry CooderAlthough the first and second track were my favourite, it is a good album and Would recomend if you want a chill out music. |
|||||||
