Abuc (W/Book)

2016 release, the eighth album by Roberto Fonseca released under his own name and the first to appear on the Impulse! Label. Teeming with rascally rhythms and burly brass and woven from allusions, souvenirs and contrasts, Abuc is a kaleidoscope of dancing colors with which Roberto tells a story: the great and rich story of Cuban music, from yesterday to today. Ranging from contradanza and mambo to cha-cha-cha, danzon and bolero, and infused with the spirit of the descarga jam and hip-hop, Roberto narrates this story in his own manner; his tale swarms with subtly veiled references to the past, and he enumerates them in contemporary detours that are intriguing. en route, he prances over the keys of a Hammond organ, the sound of yesterday cutting across the sound of today (a touch of electro), and breaks free from the chronological thread to mingle different periods as the albums titles come and go or, at times, even inside one and the same piece. Among many remarkable guests who add their personal colors to this beautiful journey, besides vocalists Dayme Arocena and Carlos Calunga you can also take pleasure in hearing singers Rafael Lay and Roberto Espinosa Rodríguez from the Orquesta Aragon, trumpeter Manuel Guajiro Mirabal, and the famous guajiro singer from the province of Santiago de Cuba, Eliades Ochoa.