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At the time of writing, the Cuban singer is seventy eight years old and when she wants to, she can still belt them out. There just wasn’t much cause to do so this evening.

Before a rather small crowd in Brussels’ crummy Cirque Royale, which these days shares more in common with Morley Con Club than it does with the Big Top, Portuondo tried to raise the temperature to lukewarm and more or less succeeded to the relief of many slightly embarassed spectators.

Her band, who could have well have done a residency at the Morley Con Club, was very patchy and seemed unrehearsed. Consistently incapable of matching Portuondo’s improvisational approach to standard songs, they struggled as individual musicians to pull together. The pianist bashed away at his Steinway, not without skill, but hopelessly without context; the guitarist and percussionist were equivocal at best; the double-bassist, to be fair was a swan surrounded by ducks. The gum-chewing drummer, plucked from Ipanema and probably handy with a beach ball if not a drumkit, was so self-absorbed that he may as well have been playing at a different gig.

Omara Portuondo, wearing what looked like a pink dressing gown and pyjama combo, seemed so disconnected at times that it felt like visiting your slightly mad granny. Either the star of Buena Vista Social Club was coasting through a tough night and a wooden crowd, or she needs to sack the band and take a well-earned holiday. And I for one wouldn’t blame her at all.

The more observant of my readers will no doubt have noticed that the number of parts in this series has now grown to five articles.

We’ve been busy since we returned from the States, so apologies for the tardiness in publishing these images.

Photos of Key West after the jump! Check them out…

J and I returned last week from our winter holiday in the United States.

Here’s the first instalment of photos, all of which were taken during the first few days of our trip at Miami Beach in Florida.

I’ll be releasing the remaining four instalments in the next few days, so watch this space! As I’m sure you’re waiting with bated breath, I suggest you subscribe to my RSS feed.

In the meantime, heeeeeeeeere’s Miami! Check out the South Beach photos now!

• Director: Wim Wenders
• Germany, 1999
• 

Ry Cooder visited Cuba in 1996 to record sessions for an intended Afro-Cuban collaboration. The Africans never made it out of Mali leaving Cooder and World Circuit’s Nick Gold high and dry. What followed was pure serendipity: within three days Juan de Marcos González managed to put together an extraordinary collective of musicians whose output became the Buena Vista Social Club album.

Cooder has been a frequent collaborator on Wenders’ films and the latter agreed to shoot the documentary on digital in 1998, with the former becoming a sort of central character. One might argue that with such colourful subjects against the dilapidated, colonial Havana backdrop, the film could have made itself.

The digital format gives the documentary a welcome rawness and interviews with each of the main Buena Vista players sets the scene for a triumphant coda in which these humble old gents gaze in awe at New York, most having never before left Cuba. A deserving Oscar winner even if rather uneven at times.

Harrogate, that most venerable of stuffy old Yorkshire towns, pulled off a real coup this week by having the wonderful Lila Downs over to do a concert for its International Festival. This weekend, it was the turn of Cuba’s Sierra Maestra, followed by timba band Manolito Y Su Trabuco.

Grupo Sierra Maestra has been around since the late 1970s.It was founded by Juan de Marcos González, the man responsible for bringing together a diverse group of musicians later known as the Buena Vista Social Club.

Sierra Maestra’s members had been students at the University of Havana. In forming the band, it was their intention to revive the old son tradition that had defined the golden era of Cuban music and formed the bedrock for most modern styles. De Marcos left in 1996 to work on the Buena Vista project and his new outfit Afro-Cuban All Stars.

The group probably weren’t at their best. It didn’t help that the sound at the International Centre was decidedly poor and the lighting system appeared to have baffled their technician judging by the rather messy display. But the crowd was easy enough to please, with a number of couples getting up to dance salsa from the front rows.

Timba is a tough style to pin down - it’s the Cuban adaptation of salsa, but aficionados will tell you that timba is significantly different and certainly not a subset of salsa. In any event, the sound of Manolito Y Su Trabuco was rather cloying, delivered by a tight band and three rather daft looking singers. I guess it’s a case of you win some, you lose some.

In my second year at University, among others I shared the house at 69 Harcourt Road with Bing, a Maths undergraduate of a certain culture who ate a lot of tinned salmon.

Bing and I both frequented the Showroom Cinema opposite the railway station. One day he returned from one particular screening raving about what he’d seen and insisting I get down there sharpish and catch it.

That was the first run of Wim Wenders’ Oscar-nominated documentary Buena Vista Social Club and I didn’t catch it. Nor did I catch the second run.

It would be eight years more before I finally picked up the original World Circuit album and inevitably a number of those ageing musicians had passed on: Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Pio Leyva, Ruben Gonzalez, Manuel Puntillita Licea.

Four of the original members are currently on tour in the United Kingdom. All of the dates I’ve seen advertised are sold out.

This time I was not prepared to miss out so easily and I booked the tickets three months in advance. It was more than worth the wait, and those four original Buena Vista members (Manuel Galbán, Orlando Cachaíto López, Jesús ‘Aguaje’ Ramos, Guajiro Mirabal) were joined by a fifth, namely nimble-fingered laoud player Barbarito Torres.

The venerable greats were joined by members of an emerging younger generation. Pianist Ronaldo Luna evoked memories of Gonzalez’ beautiful solos. Following in Ferrer’s footsteps came Carlos Calunga, whose extraordinary vocal range was ably backed by Idania Valdès, the daughter of original Social Clubber Amadito.

The set list included elements of son montunos, danzón, cha cha cha, boleros and Cuban jazz. Alongside Social Club favourites such as Candela and Dos Gardenias, there was a lively rendition of Chanchullo and even a tender Somewhere Over The Rainbow, providing a beautiful contrast to the more raucous numbers.