Chavez Ravine [2019 Remaster]

In the wake of the tremendous impact of the BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB album, film, and tour, it is easy to see Ry Cooder as a historian, a cultural ambassador, and a gifted humanist interested in revitalizing all people through music. If this sounds like an overstatement, you probably haven't heard 2005's CHAVEZ RAVINE yet. Like BUENA VISTA, CHAVEZ RAVINE locates itself in a cultural and musical context, this time in a vibrant, culturally rich Mexican-American community in post-war Los Angeles.
With help from musicians associated with the era and location (including Don Tosti, Lalo Guerrero, and Thee Midnighters' Little Willie G.) and studio musicians Jim Keltner, Jon Hassell, and legendary Tex-Mex accordionist Flaco Jimenez, Cooder has created a musical novel that richly celebrates the music, life, and lingering mythos of Chavez Ravine, an L.A. neighborhood razed by the city in the interest of big business (namely to build a stadium for the soon-to-be L.A. Dodgers). Stylistically, the album, performed in both Spanish and English, encompasses Latin folk forms, swing, atmospheric ballads, rhumba, and R&B. Yet the whole feels so rooted in history, so packed with real characters (like boxer Carlos Chavez) and stories (like a Pachuco-slang-speaking UFO sighting) that it plays as an organic whole. Playful, poignant, historically significant, and thoroughly enjoyable, CHAVEZ RAVINE is a stunning achievement.