tue 05/11/2024

The Creole Choir of Cuba, Barbican | reviews, news & interviews

The Creole Choir of Cuba, Barbican

The Creole Choir of Cuba, Barbican

A revelatory gig combining innovation and tradition

The Creole Choir of Cuba burning brightly on behalf of their ancestors

As a world music critic one gets used to the stream of superlatives that generally arrive in the wake of whatever big new act is being plugged. World music promoters have a particularly hard job because they don’t just want to preach to the converted; they also want to try to get some new listeners to widen their musical horizons a little. So even before I’d heard a note of the Creole Choir of Cuba I knew that they’d gone down a storm at the Edinburgh Festival, that Jools Holland’s producer wanted them for Later..., and that they were booked to do various BBC radio sessions.

As a world music critic one gets used to the stream of superlatives that generally arrive in the wake of whatever big new act is being plugged. World music promoters have a particularly hard job because they don’t just want to preach to the converted; they also want to try to get some new listeners to widen their musical horizons a little. So even before I’d heard a note of the Creole Choir of Cuba I knew that they’d gone down a storm at the Edinburgh Festival, that Jools Holland’s producer wanted them for Later..., and that they were booked to do various BBC radio sessions.

‘When those 10 voices came together to create one blazing pitch-perfect chord it was as if two hands had come down hard on the keys of a sizeable church organ’

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