Please note this is an old page and Fly Global Music has now moved. Please follow this link and search for the entry in the new site.

The nine-piece son band from Havana, credited with being the group who brought the style back into the light before the likes of Buena Vista Social Club, present in Soul of a Nation a retrospective of son from its earliest incarnations to the fuller sounds of 1940s son montuno groups with its brassy horn heavy arrangements and a few self-penned tunes, and combine to create a stunning album.

The arrangements are absolutely tight, the son rhythms are given a kick by the group’s instrumental vitality. ‘El Son no puede fallar’ laying down a solid and thoroughly modern take on son by the group’s bassist and guitarist Eduardo Himley, followed by the originally banned social critique ‘Al Vaivén de mi Carreta’ with its plaintiff vocals bemoaning the lot of the Cuban farmer echoed by a wailing trumpet and mournful chorus. And those are just the first two tracks — to do justice would involve mentioning each individually, as each has a slightly different flavour and emphasis.

The group, who named themselves after the mountain range where the Cuban revolution was seeded, and where the son style originally developed, rely mainly on the old-style son ensemble of tres, guitar, trumpet, bongo, güiro and vocals, straying only slightly from the original arrangements of old son tunes, alterations which mainly take the form of tempo (which takes away nothing from the infectious rhythms, and serves to further modernise their sound). Looking back to the glory days of son in the 1920s and 30s, Sierra Maestra do a sterling job of retaining an authentic son sound, while making it sound as fresh as any sounds coming out of Cuba at the moment.

Despite having recorded fourteen albums, the grooves on Sierra Maestra’s latest offering sound as fresh as were it the group’s first.