Buena Vista Social Club, the 1997 studio album that was to become a phenomenon around the world, was, according to All About Jazz's Nenad Georgievski, "brimming with magic and full of songs from the vast trove of musical treasures with which Cuba is plentiful." The group's unforgettable performance at Carnegie Hall the following year, which brought that magic to the stage in a moment captured in Wim Wenders documentary, "remains the pinnacle of the Buena Vista project," says Georgievski, and now, with the newly released World Circuit / Nonesuch recording Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall, it is available "for everyone who was there to remember, and everyone else to enjoy."

Even as the musics of Cuba have long been enjoyed around the world, the article asserts, the original album and its related solo projects "were truly a revolution." Captured at the historical live event, "[t]he music throughout Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall is a deep pleasure: melodic and full of warmth. The songs beg for motion from the listener."

Georgievski concludes:

With high-spirited ecstasy sprinkled throughout this recording, it's a hard album to sit still through, and an even harder one to listen to just once. These songs recapture the magic of the studio record. They shine with the same glow and evoke an era that is long gone.

Read the full review at allaboutjazz.com.