CD Review: Jerry Rivera - Caribe Gardel

No one brought tango to the world like Carlos Gardel; Jerry Rivera is a great Puerto Rican salsa singer. He took a novel approach to this album, taking Gardel's tango standards and setting them to salsa rhythms. Once you recover from your tango (or salsa) expectations, you'll be charmed at what is a natural, exciting and hot combo. I love this album.

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Puerto Rican Jerry Rivera was once called the "Baby of Salsa", starting his musical career at an early age. Since then, he's gone on to make one hit album after another.

But Caribe Gardel is something a little bit different. Working off the hits that tango icon Carlos Gardel either wrote, made famous, or is associated with, Caribe Gardel takes a salsa turn with the famous songs.

Although I don't know of anyone who's done this before, it makes a certain sort of sense. Many of the salsa romantica tunes start with tango, rumba or guijira before they heat up and move to salsa. It's just that we've never been presented with such a famous repetoire of music that does just that.

So, Rivera tries to do the Gardel big tango voice and he's only partially successful there, lacking a little of the mystery and charisma of Gardel. But, not bad. Interestingly, he sometimes seems to falter when moving into the salsa portion of the music, but not by much.

With this introduction, you might expect a so-so album. But you'll be surprised because the combo of tango, salsa, Gardel and Rivera works so well that this is going to become one of your favorite albums.

With numbers like "Caminita", "Por Una Cabeza", " and "A Media Luz", the melodies are familiar and endearing. Some are more tango than salsa, some go straight to salsa bypassing much of the tango essence, although the rhythm is true to both genres.

The hottest number on the album is "La Comparasita", probably the most famous tango in the world. This one goes straight to salsa and is so good that if the melody wasn't so familiar, you'd doubt this was anything but a great salsa tune.

I can't help but believe that both tango and salsa afficianados will be hooked.