- Record Label: Nonesuch
- Release Date: Oct 14, 2008
- Critic score
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- By date
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This set is every bit as necessary as the solo albums by the singers, and perhaps even more than the studio effort. It is not only a historical document; it is a living, breathing piece of work that guarantees the transference of emotion from tape to listener, and cements the Buena Vista Social Club's place not only in the Latin music pantheon, but in the larger context of popular music history.
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The recording is immaculate, the performance breathtaking.
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The 16 tracks here aren't just duplicate recordings--with sudden new depth we are able to complete an emotive, triumphant musical triptych.
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This live double album, recorded in July 1998, offers another take on those great songs.
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At Carnegie Hall staunchly carries with it the brand characteristics that launched this cultural exchange.
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Just as exuberant is the part of Disc Two dominated by the jazz-infused playing of pianist Rubén González, whose spiraling solos bring roars from the crowd.
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Even if you are one of the eight million who bought their first album, Buena Vista's long-awaited follow-up is well worth checking out.
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UncutThe complete recording reveals many (until-now) hidden delights that we can enjoy in full. [Nov 2008, p.89]
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There’s still something to be gleaned here, perhaps especially from the frisky pianist Ruben González and the debonair vocalists Compay Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer, all of whom are now gone, having enjoyed twilight acclaim.
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Of course, being an audio document, you miss out on the entertaining high-handed flourishes of González at the piano and Bárbarito Torres showboating by playing the laúd behind his back, but it’s still a stellar document of a special performance, the likes of which we’ll never encounter again.
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Q MagazineTheir joyous music has an even greater emotional weight. [Dec 2008, p.133]
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MojoAt Carnegie Hall, doesn't so much add to the legend as confirm the original was no studio-contrived fluke. [Nov 2008, p.109]
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Even eleven years after their breakthrough success, their music still sounds as fresh and exciting as ever; we are truly lucky.
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Recorded July 1, 1998, a 78-minute double-CD proves how stiff and thin this made-up collective's mysteriously canonical 1997 studio album is.