Ry Cooder: Mambo Sinuendo : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Transglobal string-instrument fetishist Ry Cooder wants to be a specialist in all styles: He's duetted over the years with the likes of Ali Farka Toure, Captain Beefheart and Taj Mahal. Here, side by side with Buena Vista Social Club alumnus Manuel Galban, Cooder revisits the Havana of fifty years ago, when the traditional island sound was the product of remodeled bits of American jazz. Cooder and Galban play dueling guitars, but their skills are even more impressive when they play in unison, as on "Echale Salsita" and in the lounge attack of the title track. Some of these compositions lack verve and bite, though: Both the familiar groove of "Los Twangueros" and the stately "Bolero Sonambulo" are oddly distant renditions of music that's meant to feel intimate.