Y’all, took a chance on this boxset for $100 at my local today after hearing them play one of the records while I was browsing….
All I can say is wow! Turns out this is a Craft box set from 2018, AAA pressings of some old pre-Castro era Cuban jazz records that have historically been very hard to come by.
These sound stellar and the music has just been next level good. If you love Afro-Cuban music, Buena Vista Social Club, etc etc I highly recommend grabbing one of these.
Some words I found on the music
“The Complete Cuban Jam Sessions 5-LP and 5-CD box sets on November 9, 2018. Compiled here in their entirety and original format for the first time, the five volumes of Panart’s Cuban Jam Session albums were recorded over a span of almost a decade, from 1956–1964. Together these albums encapsulate a stylistic and historic panorama of Cuban music, from big band son montuno to Afro-Cuban rumba, mambo, cha-cha-chá and country acoustic guajira music. At the same time, they attest to Cuba’s long relationship with popular American music and jazz.
The music on these discs provides insights into the development of Latin jazz by legendary Cuban musicians before, during and apart from the Castro regime. As you'll hear, the improvised music has strong, rich rhythms but there's a quaint lyricism as well. It's not as explosively mambo-centric as American Cuban dance music of the period, emphasizing instead individual jazz-inspired soloists and the more subtle and nuanced countryside folk forms popular in Cuba.”
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