Music Monday Lunes Música: Buena Vista Social Club

Of late I have been reading Jon Lee Anderson's biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. One literary idiosyncrasy I possess is that often when I really become invested in a book (and at over 800 pages, this one in particular demands investment!), I will attempt to immerse myself in the sounds and sites of the book.

One way this can occur is through music.

For example, when reading Kerouac, I'll set an internal "mood" using the cool sounds of Charles Mingus. In this case, for Che, my old CD copy of the Cuba-infused Buena Vista Social Club, a 1996 soundtrack produced by Ry Cooder, has once again found its way into a heavy personal rotation.

Though I speak no foreign language (and as I tell my literature students, I often possess little grasp of English!), I am amazed by the communicative power of music despite this gap in my personal understanding of any lyrics. The only Spanish I speak is that which I "picked up" during a stint teaching inmates/detainees in the corrections system, yet it's challenging not to take in the complex, smooth sounds of the Cuban musicians (and in the case of the accompanying Youtube clip, the visuals) without having Che's fiercely complex spirit evoked, regardless how one feels about his political "body of work"...