Enlarge imageBy Leila Cobo
MIAMI (Billboard) - Gloria Estefan left her native Cuba when she was just a year old. Her family was allowed to take nothing with them, except the clothes they were wearing and a small bag.
"Phonograph records were out of the question," Estefan says, "so my grandmother would send my mother one record every time she sent a care package." The first record Estefan recalls was by bass player Israel Lopez "Cachao," an album "we listened to nonstop for months."
Four decades later, Estefan sat with Cachao in Crescent Moon studios in Miami and made Cuban music with him, evoking the country she left behind.
Cachao’s contribution, along with those of 25 of Latin music’s top veteran and contemporary musicians, can be heard on Estefan’s new album, "90 Millas," whose title refers to the minuscule distance separating Cuba from the U.S. mainland. Due September 18 on Sony BMG-owned Burgundy, it’s the first Spanish-language album from the year-old boutique label, which specializes in such established acts as Chaka Khan, Aaron Neville and America.
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The album’s theme is not new to Estefan, whose previous Spanish-language recordings have delved into traditional tropical themes. Other major artists have released albums exploring Latin roots rhythms as well.
But she has never expressed her Cuban roots this pointedly before.
SEASONED ARTISTS
"90 Millas" marries vintage Cuban and Caribbean rhythms with modern arrangements, aligning Estefan’s voice -- usually associated with pop -- with more than a dozen tropical Latin music veterans, including Cachao, flutist/bandleader Johnny Pacheco, pianist Pappo Luca and saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera.
Also included in the mix are Carlos Santana and Jose Feliciano, who are featured on the first single, "No Llores," as well as salsa singer La India and Cuban rapper Pitbull.
The CD’s release, during Hispanic Heritage Month, will coincide with screenings of a one-hour "90 Millas" documentary that Estefan’s manager/producer and husband, Emilio Estefan Jr., describes as "50 years of Latin music in the United States." The film features interviews and footage of Estefan and the more than two dozen acts that appear on her album.
"Getting this caliber of musicians together is almost impossible to do again," he says.
Together, these artists represent an important slice of Latin music history that rarely -- if ever -- has been put to use for a single album or film. The full documentary is slated for screenings at film festivals and universities (already scheduled are showings at Boston’s Berklee College of Music and a film fest in Dubai). The CD will include an abridged, 20-minute version.
In addition to the many veteran names brought into the project, Estefan requested Feliciano and Santana, "because in every interview I’ve done since the beginning, they always ask, ’How do you feel about opening doors?’ And I always say, ’There are two men who opened the doors for all of us, and they were Feliciano and Santana.’"
LONG REACH
Estefan is one of a handful of artists who can successfully straddle mainstream and Latin markets. But her international reach and longevity -- more than 20 years as a successful recording artist alternating between Spanish and English albums -- enable her to reach market segments that younger acts simply couldn’t approach.
Domestically, Estefan’s album sales have fluctuated from millions of copies (for albums like "Mi Tierra" and "Into the Light," among others) to hundreds of thousands. Her last album, 2003’s "Unwrapped," sold 170,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
What many forget, though, is that Estefan started as a mainstream pop artist who incorporated Latin beats and sometimes words into her music. That mix gave Estefan unique appeal overseas as a mainstream artist who was nevertheless exotically Latin. It wasn’t until 1993, after selling more than 30 million albums in and out of the United States, that she ventured into Spanish with "Mi Tierra," which has sold 1.2 million copies in the states, according to SoundScan.
"90 Millas," which follows a four-year hiatus from recording, evokes visions of the Cuba of yore, although all the material here is original, penned mostly by Estefan, her husband and writer/producer brothers Ricardo and Alberto Gaitan.
"What we didn’t want to do was ’Mi Tierra Part 2,’" Estefan says, "because that album was so special. Yes, we wanted to do a Cuban album, but didn’t know exactly in what vein. And, as it grew, it grew into a more modern thing. It was as if we had continued to bring this music along with the years."
The hardest thing, Emilio Estefan says, was the concept, "combining the old and the new without losing the authenticity," he says. "The simple solution, of course, would have been to record covers."
But "emotionally it wouldn’t have been the same. We left Cuba as children: Gloria was 1, I was 14. So, there is a part that does exist in nostalgia, but at the same (time) there is another part that is contemporary music that we’ve made all over the world."
GROUNDBREAKING MARKETING
The album will be the first release by a major Latin artist to be distributed in Starbucks stores. Wal-Mart will feature Estefan as the cornerstone of its Hispanic heritage promotion, and AT&T will use "No Llores" as the theme for one of its national value campaigns, making this the first time that it has integrated the lyrics of a commercial single into an ad’s creative concept.
"It’s groundbreaking for us," AT&T Hispanic marketing director Marcus Owenby says.
Estefan plans major shows in the Netherlands (for the 75th anniversary of the Port of Rotterdam) and Madrid (at the Las Ventas bullring), both of which will be televised. The artist, who two years ago played what she said would be her last U.S. tour, is in conversations to take a "lower-key" version of her show to Europe and Latin America, where she hasn’t toured since the 1980s.
Of "90 Millas," she says, "What I wanted to be on this album is me, with everything I’ve experienced so far."
Only one thing, she concedes, is missing. "The phenomenal Celia Cruz," Estefan says. "But although she couldn’t be here physically, I felt her presence throughout the entire recording of the album. It’s still impossible for me to feel like Celia’s gone, simply because she is still so alive to me through her music and the friendship we shared for so many years. There were moments during this recording that felt to me like she was directing me to a degree or giving me ideas for where to go with the song."
For Cruz, who was never able to return to Cuba in her lifetime, it would have been like going home.
Reuters/Billboard
