Kiki Valera is one of Cuba’s foremost cuatro-guitar virtuosos and a fourth-generation member of La Familia Valera Miranda, the pioneers renowned for more than a century as creators of Eastern Cuba’s Son tradition. Over the last century, this style of traditional Cuban music has contributed to many other musical genres, including jazz, cha-cha-cha, mambo and salsa. Cuban Son is the music that made the Buena Vista Social Club worldwide stars in the late 1990s, but Kiki Valera comes from a family of musicians whose involvement with Son pre-dates the BVSC by decades. Now based in the United States, Valera’s ensemble features many of Latin America’s most outstanding musicians including lead vocalists Carlos Cascante (Spanish Harlem Orchestra) and Victor Castillo (Giraldo Piloto y Klimax) and trumpeters Alexis Baró (Cubanismo, Omara Portuondo) and Pete Nater (Salsa Legends and Masters Academy). The core band is just Kiki Valera (cuatro cubano, guitar, bass, clave, maracas and coros), Pedro Vargas (congas, bongos and coros) and Steve Guasch (coros) plus four different singers and six different trumpeters across the 12 tracks.

I must confess to say I have not heard much Cuban music, although like anyone who has followed Ry Cooder’s career, I did come across Buena Vista Social Club and their wonderful debut album more than 25 years ago. This means I am completely out of my depth when it comes to reviewing this as not only do I not understand any of the lyrics, the musical form is somewhat strange to me. Mind you, I spent many years attending my youngest daughter’s dance competitions, so the cha-cha-cha and salsa are quite familiar to me given she used to compete in Latin. This feels very much like a Summer album, as it is full of lightness, loads of percussion instead of normal drums, and very much the feeling is that this is music to dance to. It is not music to be played gently on headphones but is set to be the centre of the party where the alcohol is flowing, and people are up on the floor strutting their stuff.

There is an honesty here, the knowledge that this is coming from a tradition which Kiki is determined to keep going as he is a guardian to the sound as opposed to someone looking for the latest and greatest craze to get their five minutes of fame on the radio. Kiki is a wonderful guitarist, but he often puts the trumpets front and centre in the arrangements, and I often found myself being reminded somewhat of early Santana who was obviously influenced by this style as opposed to the other way around. This is available on Bandcamp so if you are intrigued I recommend you give it a try.

Rating: 7/10

Links:
https://www.kikivalera.com/
https://www.circle9music.com/