Cachaito
Buena Vista  Social Clubbassist Orlando Cachaito Lopez busts out of the senior  activity center with an out-there release worthy of a youngster that  draws on five decades of professional cool. Instead of trying to  compress the history of Cuban dance music, Cachaito elongates it into a  shape-shifting amoeba that can swallow and absorb almost any influence.  On "Redencion," reggae-inflected electric organ jabs throw open the  door to dub effects. Massedcharangaviolins stutter and echo as  the bottom drops in and out of the mix. The project gets a jolt from  figures not usually associated with Cuban music, like Jamaican organist  Bigga Morrison, French DJ Dee Nasty, South African flugelhornist Hugh  Masekela, and saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis of James Brown Revue fame. But  it's the Cubans who provide the disc's most unexpected performances.  The pizzicato strings on "Oracion Lucumi" fall like snow in a glass  globe shaken hard by a grittytressolo. Groove-heavy "A Gozar  el Tombao" spills in on Manuel Galban's reverb-laden surf guitar.  Ibrahim Ferrer comes out of nowhere with a short ascending cameo vocal  on "Wahira," the sole noninstrumental track onboard. Cachaito is the  only artist to have played on every track of every Buena Vista Social  Club release. In lightning-rod fashion, he's accumulated so much energy  from those sessions, it flashes all over this gorgeous, mixed-up  masterpiece.--Bob Tarte