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95Chávez Ravine works because, ultimately, it isn't a history lesson or museum piece. It's the sound of musicians, now on the periphery, playing and singing the music they love.
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A ghostly meditation on the culture of forgetting. [8 Jul 2005, p.68]
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Chavez Ravine is easily the most ambitious thing in Cooder's catalog, and it just may be the grand opus of his career.
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It hits very close to musical documentary with very few of the abstraction perils that usually haunt artists in converting ideas to their medium.
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What makes the album so amazing is its ability to balance poignancy and fun.
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90A masterwork of insight and delight.
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Cooder manages to make his work both cynical and idealistic. But most importantly, it's authentic. [12 Jun 2005]
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80Conjunto, corrido and jazz emerge from and mingle with R&B and pop as the band follow the story from innocent beginnings to the tragic, bitter end. [Jul 2005, p.98]
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80With Chavez Ravine he has performed another ethnomusicological miracle, opening a can of worms while drawing us deep into the musical heart of a lost community. [Jul 2005, p.90]
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80A self-contained gem. [Jul 2005, p.112]
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80It's a very clever album, and at times easier to admire than to simply enjoy because there is so much going on.
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Chávez Ravine never romanticizes its subject. It simply makes it seem unnatural that any place where people lived, dreamed, died, and formed a neighborhood could be made to disappear.
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Its seriousness never makes it earthbound. Mr. Cooder brings to it all he has learned from a career delving into odd corners of American and world music. [13 Jun 2005]
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80Though it might not be as rewarding a listening experience as Cooder's Cuban albums, this is still a set that demands repeated hearing, and I doubt there'll be another record as lovingly crafted as this all year.
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Chávez Ravine suffers from an uneven flow due to the varying quality of the material.
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Chavez Ravine drags occasionally, the result of too many serious narratives, but the stories that do work are jaw-droppingly simple and painfully familiar.
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Cooder has delivered a remarkable song cycle that tells the story -- a sort of brilliant and flavorful film-noir history lesson that samples the past freely.
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70The 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.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 18 out of 19
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Mixed: 1 out of 19
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Negative: 0 out of 19
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BillW10Cooder does not disappoint.....great music and a great story.....one of the best "unknown" guitar composer and picker going
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Hein10Masterpiece great concept-album!
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DanielG4