This CD of Boleros -- Cuban love ballads -- by the late Ibrahim Ferrer (of Buena Vista Social Club fame) was just released in the United States.

It was Ferrer's last recording before he passed away, and what a soulful, raw and seductive album it is.

As one online reviewer noted, it is like sitting in a Cuban night club after hours when an old pro does a private peformance in a smoky room, during the wee small hours of the morning.

"Ibrahim Ferrer-The son and bolero master vocalist had a fabled entrance into this world: he was born in Santiago in 1927 at a social club dance. He began his career in the early 1940s with local musical outfits in Santiago. Like most musicians, he had a succession of “day gigs” to make ends meet, jamming by night. In the 50s, he was the lead vocalist for bandleader Pacho Alonso, and also sang for the legendary Beny Moré. At the time of the Buena Vista sessions, Ferrer was living in a decaying apartment in Old Havana; like many of the Buena Vista elders, Ferrer was in semi-retirement, occasionally shining shoes for money. Juan de Marcos González found him taking his daily stroll on the streets of Havana—and the rest is, as they say, history."

-- ThisisRealMusic.com