Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79499 in Digital Music Album
• Released on: 2006-01-01
• Running time: 0 seconds

Customer Reviews

Great album by Lavoe...but beware of this reissue!!!
This is Lavoe in top form! His signature tune "El Cantante" is here. Produced by Willie Colon!!!
This remastered edition, although a bit better than the old Fania cd pressing lacks depth and detail. If you have a turntable look around for the Fania LP. No type of remastering will duplicate the sound of a LP.
And another thing--one of the pictures in the tray card is actually not Hector. It seems to be Ray Barretto.

Diving into Hector
Now I didn't give this CD 5 stars due to the lack of close perfection, as opposed to the others, but I definitely love it and play it hard when diving into Hector's music. This album expands his talent to the audience and allows us to see less commercial tunes that take us back to chillin' on the stoop in Spanish Harlem and hearing some good tunes. If you're not a huge Hector fan or lack the albums, I suggest Hector's Gold, or the Live album, only to feel what we fell in love with and hear him in his most famous tunes. Once you feel it, grab this and listen to the different array of tunes. Blades' "El Cantante", original studio recording, is here, as well as "Porque te Conoci". One of my favorite tunes, "Songorocosongo", is a must to hear some hard conga sounds, as well as "Comedia". "Tiempos Pasados" is romantic, and Bandolera runs through the blood. I wouldn't call this a dance album, but rather one that lets me sit back on a weekend and enjoy El Cantante himself.

Underwhelmed again by the "new" Fania
Let's get this out of the way from Jump Street: great music. But this is the 2nd of the "new" Fania reissues that I've heard that sound, well, crappy. Fired up by seeing the movie "El Cantante" (the Acadamy Award is safe but if you dig salsa, I think it's worth your time) my girlfriend and I went out and made a couple purchases. I got Comedia, since I lived with the old LP when it came out and she got the just-issued CD of Lavoe's originals performed in the movie. El Cantante sounds just slightly better on her disc but on both of them there's a miniscule drop-out at about 4:45. And they sound muffled, like the early days of Dolby. So maybe they're just working from masters in poor shape. But when I think of some of the jazz & blues reissues from waaay back that sound so darn good, can't help but wonder if corners were cut. Musically, the album is so lush that it's almost listening rather than dancing salsa, although there's some cookers on here. Interesting samba influence on a couple of cuts. I think I hear Salvador Cuevas on bass and Oscar Hernandez on piano, but I can't say for sure since there's no musician listing on this "new deluxe remastered edition". Hector's phrasing is wonderful and since he always was nasal, can't really say that all that cocaine was a problem here.