Los Zafiros: Music From The Edge Of Time [Remaster] (CD - 2007)

Though very popular in their native Cuba and Miami, Los Zafiros' very existence remains unknown to almost everyone outside of that region. The 80-minute documentary Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time does much to illuminate their intriguing story, combining outlines of the group's history with scenes of the surviving group members revisiting friends and relatives about 40 years after the peak of their stardom. Dominating the film are the memories of the two surviving Zafiros, Manuel Galbán (better known as part of the Buena Vista Social Club) and co-founder Miguel Cancio who, by the time this documentary was made, had moved from Cuba to Florida, though he visited Cuba to shoot many of the scenes in this documentary. It could actually be said that there's too much emphasis on the emotional reunions and nostalgic story-telling, and not quite enough on Los Zafiros' actual music and career, though fortunately the inclusion of fuzzy black-and-white vintage '60s clips of the group does much to vividly illustrate their charm and appeal, and there are plenty of teary and merry scenes of informal music-making and conversation about the good old days. Too, there are some interesting tangents to the Los Zafiros story that aren't explored beyond the surface or at all, like their popularity among the expatriate Cuban community in Florida; the novelty of being able to perform in Europe and Moscow at a time when traffic to and from Cuba was very limited, and any unusual challenges or difficulties that might have been encountered in professionally performing and recording music so heavily derivative of American doo wop at a time when relations between Cuba and the U.S. were very tense. Several rough comparisons of Los Zafiros' significance in Cuba to that of the Beatles seem stretched, given that the two groups shared few stylistic similarities. If you're willing to indulge the performers and filmmaker's obvious forgiveness of sentimentality for the era and what the group represented, however, it's a window into a music, time, and place of which many outside of Cuba remain unaware.

The DVD also contains a whopping hour and 25 minutes of extras, most of those being deleted scenes and interviews not used for the principal documentary. Although a few of these are interesting (particularly a segment with an original member who left before their rise to fame), frankly these portions are going to be too much to wade through for most viewers, with plenty of informal jams and conversations that don't add any more to the story than similar scenes from the main feature do. There are too many general reiterations of what a great group Los Zafiros were without much specific interesting elaboration, and one interview with a fellow Cuban singer seems to use a brief positive comment about the group as an excuse to feature her own performance and a cappella vocals for several minutes. On the other hand, footage of several archival Los Zafiros performances from the '60s is quite valuable and entertaining, as are some excerpts from other not-strictly-related '60s Cuban television programs, featuring both other musical performers and some Cuban TV commercials from the era. ~ Richie Unterberger

Though Los Zafiros were very popular and recorded a lot of material in their native Cuba in the mid-'60s, many people from the United States who know about the group are only familiar with them through the film documentary Music from the Edge of Time. This CD is not so much a Los Zafiros compilation as a soundtrack to that documentary, particularly as just nine of the 25 tracks are '60s Los Zafiros recordings. The rest of the disc is largely devoted to music performed by family and friends decades later for the documentary, along with some songs by a younger tribute group of sorts (Los Nuevos Zafiros). So it's not so much the recommended introduction to the music of Los Zafiros as it is a complement to the Music from the Edge of Time documentary. It's still a decent compilation of Cuban music, though one that puts Los Zafiros themselves in a larger musical and social context rather than focusing exclusively on the group. The vintage Los Zafiros cuts are still the highlights, as you'd expect, fusing doo wop with Latin music to create a sound somewhat close to groups like the Drifters in some respects, yet more melodramatic and less R&B-rock-oriented. The other, far more recent non-Los Zafiros recordings are more informal, and far less R&B-rock-oriented than even the '60s Los Zafiros cuts, sounding much like Cuban pop-folk being sung at parties or family get-togethers. What makes Los Zafiros' story interesting, in part, is precisely because of that American doo wop/vocal harmony group influence, so they can't help but spark more interest than the more placid supplemental material. Of course, if you want unadulterated vintage Los Zafiros on CD, you can opt for several single-artist compilations, Bossa Cubana being the one that's most well known in the United States. ~ Richie Unterberger minimize