Chavez Ravine Music Cd

Ry Cooder - Chavez Ravine

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Chavez Ravine      Artist : Ry Cooder      List Price : $20.98 USD        Your Price : $17.99 USD      ProductGroup: Music      Release Date : 2005-06-14      Studio : Nonesuch      Label : Nonesuch      Avg. Customer Rating : (43 reviews)

Reviews Customer Reviews for Chavez Ravine      Greasy handoff...      Rating:      That's CHA-vez. Just as he provided a venue for aging Cubans before they were gone and forgotten, Cooder, in 15 songs, shines a light on the unknown tale of how a dusty hillside Los Angeles Mexican neighborhood known as Chavez Ravine was razed in the 1950s in a "greasy handoff" to the newly arrived Dodgers baseball team. Think of the movie Chinatown. Crooked red-baiting right wing politicos, innocent citizens believing "it can't happen here," cool cats being beaten up by GIs, and a UFO-driving Space Vato (space guy) who recognizes the Ravine as the hip place to land; these are the players in Cooder's loving 21st century concept album. The beautifully packaged Nonesuch CD includes a booklet worthy of a very small coffee table. The record has a handmade, non-digital feel with an airy sound that hints at L.A.'s El Hoyo Club in 1955. The record's opening track, "Poor Man's Paradise," is driven by Cooder's clean guitar and jazzy harmonies; "El UFO Cayo" is a slow, dreamy, late night swirl of guitars. "Muy Fifi" rocks with a thumping bass under L.A. legend Ersi Arvizu's gutsy vocals. "3rd Base Dodger Stadium," a lovely lament sung beautifully by Hawaiian singer Bla Pahinui, recounts how former residents of Chavez Ravine can pinpoint where their own home plate used to be. We should all be so lucky.     Customer Reviews for Chavez Ravine Cd      chavez ravine in the south of France      Rating:      I first heard this CD last summer (06) while I was on vacation visiting British friends in France. Ironically, I was reading a book about Robert Moses and the wrecking and paving of neighborhoods in New York City while took place around the same time as the bulldozing of the Chavez Ravine community- why I was reading all this in France is beyond me, but there you have it. I thought, and still do think, that "Chavez Ravine" is quite beautiful, if a bit odd; it fits right in with the other Ry Cooder records I've heard which are beautifully played, peculiarly written, and often a bit edgy. He doesn't sound like anyone else, which is all to the good. My favorites on this CD are "Poor Man's Shangri-La", "Chinito-Chinito", and "Third Base, Dodger Stadium"- they are as good as anything Ry Cooder has written that I've ever heard. I don't understand more than a few words of Spanish, so much of the lyrics are lost on me unless I follow along with the translation, but it doesn't hurt the experience. It's beautiful music, and the bittersweet story of what happened adds to it even if you don't get all the words. Besides, it reminds me of France, and of New York where I grew up. How's that for loose associations?