The arbitrariness of the charts strikes again, as the Nuyorican singer to whom Jennifer Lopez is most indebted only appears on this blog now, years after J-Lo made her casual appearance. Linda Viera Caballero, nicknamed "la India" (the Indian) by family because of her darker complexion and straight black hair, had started in a freestyle group in the mid-80s and made a "Latin Madonna" record in 1988, but only really came into her own when she met Latin jazz titan Eddie Palmieri in 1991. Her big but flexible voice and facility with jazz, salsa, and r&b made her one of the great Latin singers of the 1990s, switching between Spanish on dynamic salsa workouts and English on legendary house tracks from local New York and New Jersey producers.
Her 2002 album Latin Song Bird: Mi Alma y Corazón was a kind of capstone on a decade of great work, a summary of her whole repertoire (the next album would be a Greatest Hits), with punchy electronic updates of classic Caribbean sounds from salsa and bolero to merengue and bachata to straightforward romantic ballads and even a Christmas song. "Sedúceme" was the big hit: it was on the album in both salsa and ballad versions, and would also be released in English as a series of house remixes ranging from rote to classic banger.
But the salsa original, which leads off the album and soundtracks the music video, is fully as vibrant and modern as any club mix: much of the salsa instrumentation may be traditional, but synth strings, electric bass, and glassy pianos swirl in the mix much like samples or patches in a DJ's mix. But the star of the song is undeniably her voice, which combines traditional diva power with a jazzy, soulful sense of timing and phrasing. Since most of the female-led salsa we've heard over the course of this travelogue has been from pop singers like Thalía, Gloria Estefan, or Daniela Roma, it's a real pleasure to hear la India's powerful control and rich technique in service of a basic but universal sentiment: love me now, for the moment is fleeting, and I want to carry the memory of your body in mine.
Her 2002 album Latin Song Bird: Mi Alma y Corazón was a kind of capstone on a decade of great work, a summary of her whole repertoire (the next album would be a Greatest Hits), with punchy electronic updates of classic Caribbean sounds from salsa and bolero to merengue and bachata to straightforward romantic ballads and even a Christmas song. "Sedúceme" was the big hit: it was on the album in both salsa and ballad versions, and would also be released in English as a series of house remixes ranging from rote to classic banger.
But the salsa original, which leads off the album and soundtracks the music video, is fully as vibrant and modern as any club mix: much of the salsa instrumentation may be traditional, but synth strings, electric bass, and glassy pianos swirl in the mix much like samples or patches in a DJ's mix. But the star of the song is undeniably her voice, which combines traditional diva power with a jazzy, soulful sense of timing and phrasing. Since most of the female-led salsa we've heard over the course of this travelogue has been from pop singers like Thalía, Gloria Estefan, or Daniela Roma, it's a real pleasure to hear la India's powerful control and rich technique in service of a basic but universal sentiment: love me now, for the moment is fleeting, and I want to carry the memory of your body in mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment