Album: Ry Cooder / Manuel Galban

Mambo Sinuendo, Nonesuch / Eastwest

For all his faults, the world has much to thank Bill Clinton for – not least the year-long exemption from America's Trading With The Enemy Act he afforded Ry Cooder, enabling the guitarist to continue his musicological expeditions to Cuba, which had unearthed the Buena Vista Social Club. The licence allowed Cooder to record a second album with the vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer and this one with the guitarist Manuel Galban, the musical arranger behind the Cuban vocal group Los Zafiros. Recorded in Havana with Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez on bass, Anga Diaz on percussion and Jim Keltner and Cooder's son Joachim on drums, Mambo Sinuendo is a lively, occasionally humorous, always elegant return to the kind of pop-jazz crossover sound of such as Perez Prado that originated in the Fifties when infectious Latin American rhythms collided with brash North American jazz and the ebullient guitar twang of Duane Eddy. Prado's cha-cha-cha standard "Patricia" is here, with newer numbers such as "Los Twangueros", on which Galban's bold, swooning phrases swoop devilishly over the percussion bed, highlights accented by touches of vibes. There are echoes of the Fifties guitar classic "Miserlou" in the languid slide guitar of "Bolero Sonambulo", while the ominous congas and shuffling mambo groove bring a distinctly Gris-Gris vibe to "Dru Me Negrita". Another superlative job by Cooder.