| Can I Come Look At These Items? | | This online store is in association with Amazon.com, so these great, high-qualiy products will come from their warehouse or from other partners. Thanks for shopping! |
|
|
|
Chavez Ravine | 
 enlarge
| Artist: Ry Cooder
Label: Nonesuch
Category: Music
List Price: $20.98
Buy New: $14.77
You Save: $6.21 (30%)
New (46) Used (13) from $8.18
Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 6136
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 79877
UPC: 075597987720
EAN: 0075597987720
ASIN: B0009353IW
Release Date: June 14, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
|
| Tracks:
| • | Poor Man's Shangri-La | | • | Onda Callejera | | • | Don't Call Me Red | | • | Corrido de Box Eo | | • | Muy Fifi | | • | Los Chucos Suaves | | • | Chinito Chinito | | • | 3 Cool Cats | | • | El U.F.O. Cayo | | • | It's Just Work For Me | | • | In My Town | | • | Ejercito Militar | | • | Barrio Viejo | | • | 3rd Base, Doger Stadium | | • | Soy Luz Y Sombra |
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Ry Cooder might have been tempted to bill this as the Chavez Ravine Social Club. After generating such popular and critical interest in Cuban music of decades past with the Buena Vista Social Club, Cooder applied a similar approach closer to home, extending his fascination with the Mexican-American culture that flourished in 1940s and '50s Los Angeles. The result is an CD that sounds like it's aspiring to be something far more ambitious: a DVD, a theatrical production, even a time machine. Cooder and a cast of seminal Chicano artists present a song cycle that conjures an era of UFOs, the Red Scare, and political machinations that leveled the Chavez Ravine barrio to lure the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. In his celebration of a vibrant community that doesn't know it's on the verge of displacement, Cooder enlists Thee Midnighters vocalist Little Willie G. (whose songwriting collaboration with Los Lobos's David Hidalgo on "Onda Callejara" highlights the album). and Pachuco patriarchs Don Tosti and Lalo Guerrero, with the latter reviving his dancefloor favorite "Los Chucos Suaves." The accordion of Flaco Jimenez adds conjunto flavor to "Barrio Viejo." Throughout the album, Cooder plays a typically tasteful, understatedly virtuosic guitar, assumes a variety of vocal roles--including a cool Chet Baker homage in duet with pianist Jacky Terrason on "In My Town"--and provides the provocative social context. --Don McLeese More Ry Cooder 
Buena Vista Social Club (producer and performer) | 
Mambo Sinuendo (with Manuel Galban) | 
A Meeting by the River (with V.M. Bhatt) | 
Paradise and Lunch (solo) | 
Music by Ry Cooder (film music compilation) | 
Into the Purple Valley (solo) |
Album Description
Ry Cooder's Chavez Ravine is-a post-World War II-era American narrative of "cool cats," radios, UFO sightings, J.Edgar Hoover, red scares, and baseball.Using real and imagined historical characters, Cooder and friends creates an album that recollects various aspects of the poor but vibrant hillside Chicano cummunity, which was bulldozed by developed in the interest of "progress."
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
 Greasy handoff... April 15, 2008
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.
chavez ravine in the south of France October 2, 2007
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?
 Where have I been? April 24, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Out of it in Japan, actually. I only learned about this excellent album while reading a review of Mr. Cooder's My Name is Buddy and I'm not even sure why I was reading that, never having been much of a fan. Mistake. Every song on this album is a winner; the beautiful Soy Luz y Sombra even got me choked up in the middle of traffic out on the ugly-as-sin 'hatchi go sen' (that would be Hwy 8). Each song has a quite distinct emotional and musical life while the 'concept' is artistically embellished and embroidered. Mr. Cooder orquestrates a very 'simpatico' ensemble. In addition the music not only entertains but educates as well - a look at midcentury LA before the Dodgers - and improves your spanish (o tu ingles!) as it comes with a nicely done booklet of lyrics and translations, 52 pages worth! One can imagine the good times and love that went into this production; the music certainly reflects that. A keeper. Impressive. Thank you.
Ry Cooder is a musician's musician March 19, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an elegantly produced album the captures an LA sound that deserves the treatment given. Each cut grows on you with every play -- the mark of good music.
 Ry Cooder March 19, 2007
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
Although the first and second track were my favourite, it is a good album and Would recomend if you want a chill out music.
|
|
|
| |
News 
