Nora
Tratame Como Soy (RMM)
The longtime lead singer of Orquesta de La Luz, Japan’s premier salsa band, Nora debuts her self-titled own eponymous solo album, recorded at Havana’s legendary (and post-Buena Vista) EGREM Studios. In the process, she gets a helping hand from a bevy of Cuban superstars: Chucho Valdes, Isaac Delgado and Pancho Amat Rodriguez, among others. The result is pretty neat, if not a little weird: Here’s salsa sung with perfect diction. Not even the crustiest of Spaniards pronounce Spanish this well, but perhaps because Nora’s got such a terrific set of pipes, it doesn’t much matter. The record, much more Cuban than the more New York-sounding Orquesta de la ? capped earlier Luz, is a collection of classics and a few new ones (including Nora’s own “Descarga Cubana”). But the best is that old standard, “Sabor a Mi,” a vocal-piano duet with Valdes in which he indulges his taste for jazz. The result: Nora gets a superb frame for all her tasteful vocalizing, which is much cooler and controlled than the usual fare. If this makes it sound like she’s can’t let go, exactly the opposite is true: Nora improvises improvs as well as most salsa singers–in fact, younger ones like Marc Anthony and La India probably don’t speak or pronounce the language as well as she does.