Chávez Ravine

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Release Date
DescriptionExcerpt

With a cast of legendary Chicano musicians, Cooder recounts the story of how a Mexican-American community was destroyed to make way for L.A.’s Dodger Stadium. Rolling Stone calls it “a remarkable song cycle … a brilliant and flavorful film-noir history lesson.” The 2019 two-LP vinyl edition was remastered from the original high-resolution source files and pressed on 140-gram vinyl. The set comes in a gatefold tip-on jacket with a twenty-page, full-color booklet.

Description

Ry Cooder’s critically acclaimed album Chávez Ravine, first released on Nonesuch Records on June 14, 2005, made its vinyl debut on September 6, 2019. The two-LP vinyl edition was remastered by Martin Pradler from the original high-resolution source files and pressed on 140-gram vinyl at Record Industry in the Netherlands. The set comes in a gatefold tip-on jacket made at Stoughton Printing with a twenty-page, full-color booklet. 

The first in his California trilogy, which would include 2007’s My Name Is Buddy and 2008's I, Flathead, Chávez Ravine is "a remarkable song cycle," said Rolling Stone, "a brilliant and flavorful film-noir history lesson." A post World War II–era American narrative of “cool cats,” radios, UFO sightings, J. Edgar Hoover, red scares, and baseball, the album is a tribute to the long-gone Los Angeles Latino enclave known as Chávez Ravine. Using real and imagined historical characters, Cooder and friends created an album that recollects various aspects of the poor but vibrant hillside Chicano community, which was bulldozed by developers in the 1950s in the interest of “progress”; Dodgers Stadium ultimately was built on the site. Cooder says, “Here is some music for a place you don’t know, up a road you don’t go. Chávez Ravine, where the sidewalk ends.”

Drawing from the various musical strains of Los Angeles, including conjunto, corrido, R&B, Latin pop, and jazz, Cooder and friends conjure the ghosts of Chávez Ravine and Los Angeles at mid-century. On this 15-track album, sung in Spanish and English, Cooder is joined by East L.A. legends like Chicano music patriarch Lalo Guerrero, Pachuco boogie king Don Tosti, Thee Midniters front man Little Willie G., and Ersi Arvizu of The Sisters and El Chicano.

A Los Angeles native, Cooder had been working in Cuba since 1998, producing Buena Vista Social Club, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ferrer’s Buenos Hermanos, and Mambo Sinuendo—all Grammy winners; three years in the making, Chávez Ravine marked his musical homecoming.

“Los Angeles was paved over, malled up, high-rised, and urban-renewed, as fortunes were made, power was concentrated, and everything got faster and bigger,” Cooder said upon the album's release in 2005. "But there is a lot I miss now. The texture of certain older neighborhoods, like Bunker Hill, a rural feel in urban places, like Chávez Ravine and the timbre of life there, and just peace and quiet."

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Ry Cooder
Recorded by Rail Jon Rogut at Village Recorders, Los Angeles, CA, and Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, CA
Assisted by Okhi Kim and Pete Martinez
Additional recording by Jerry Boys, Sunny Levine, and Don Smith at Sound City Studios, Orange Stella, and Capitol Studios, Hollywood, CA
Mixed by Don Smith at Drive-By Studio, Los Angeles, CA
Digital Editing by Martin Prader
Mastered by Stephen Marcussen at Marcussen Mastering, Hollywood, CA

Package Design: Tracey Shiffman
Front cover illustrations by Michael C. McMillen

Nonesuch Selection Number

79877

Number of Discs in Set
1disc
ns_album_artistid
217
ns_album_id
578
ns_album_releasedate
ns_genre_1
0
ns_genre_2
0
Album Status
Artist Name
Ry Cooder
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
Ry Cooder, vocals (1-3, 10, 11), guitar (1, 3-8, 10-12, 14, 15), organ (1), tres (1, 9), laud (2), bajo sexton (4, 12)
Juliette Commagere, vocals (1, 7-9, 15), vocal chorus (2, 3)
Jim Keltner, drums (1, 6, 8), bongos (3)
Mike Elizondo, bass (1-6, 9, 10, 12-14)
Joachim Cooder, timbales (1, 3, 8), percussion (2), drums (4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15), sampling (5, 9, 15)
Carla Commagere, vocals (7), vocal chorus (2, 3, 8)
Little Willie G., vocals (2, 8, 15), vocal chorus (5)
Joe Rotondi, piano (2, 4, 6-8, 14)
Gil Bernal, tenor saxophone (2, 6, 8, 14)
Mike Bolger, trumpet (2, 7, 14), organ (7, 8), valve trombone (7, 14)
Ledward Kaapana, guitar (2, 13, 14)
Jon Hassell, trumpet (3)
Lalo Guerrero, vocals (4, 6, 13), guitar (13)
Flaco Jimenez, accordion (4, 12, 13)
Ersi Arvizu, vocals (5, 12, 15)
Jacob Garcia, vocal chorus (5)
Chucho Valdés, piano (5)
Jared Smith, bass (7, 8, 15), keyboard (9)
Rudy Salas, Michael Guerra, vocal chorus (8)
Dan Totsi, vocals (9)
Sunny D. Levine, drum programming (11)
Jacky Terrasson, piano (11)
Rosella Arvizu, vocal (12)
Bla Pahinui, vocals, guitar, ukulele (14)
David Hidalgo, guitar (15)

reissues?
reissues
Cover Art
UPC/Price
Label
LP+MP3
Price
30.00
UPC
075597924886
Label
MP3
Price
9.00
UPC
075597924909
Label
FLAC
Price
10.00
UPC
075597941104
  • 79877

News & Reviews

  • Congratulations to all the winners at tonight's Grammy Awards, including Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, whose debut album, Crooked Tree, won Best Bluegrass Album; Wilco, Best Historical Album (compilation producers Cheryl Pawelski & Jeff Tweedy and mastering engineer Bob Ludwig) and Best Album Notes (Bob Mehr) for the 20th anniversary super deluxe edition of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder, Best Traditional Blues Album for GET ON BOARD: The Songs of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, with Joachim Cooder; and Caroline Shaw & Attacca Quartet, Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance for Evergreen.

  • Congratulations to all of the Nonesuch nominees for the 65th Grammy Awards: Molly Tuttle for Best New Artist and Best Bluegrass Album for Crooked Tree with Golden Highway; The Black Keys for Best Rock Album for Dropout Boogie and Best Rock Performance for "Wild Child"; Dan Auerbach for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical; Cécile McLorin Salvant for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Ghost Song and Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals for "Optimistic Voices / No Love Dying"; Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade's LongGone for Best Instrumental Album; Brad Mehldau's Jacob's Ladder for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album; Punch Brothers' Hell on Church Street for Best Folk Album; Caroline Shaw & Attacca Quartet's Evergreen for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance; Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder's GET ON BOARD for Best Traditional Blues Album; Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition) for Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes for Bob Mehr; and Astor Piazzolla: The American Clavé Recordings. for Best Album Notes for Fernando González. 

  • About This Album

    Ry Cooder’s critically acclaimed album Chávez Ravine, first released on Nonesuch Records on June 14, 2005, made its vinyl debut on September 6, 2019. The two-LP vinyl edition was remastered by Martin Pradler from the original high-resolution source files and pressed on 140-gram vinyl at Record Industry in the Netherlands. The set comes in a gatefold tip-on jacket made at Stoughton Printing with a twenty-page, full-color booklet. 

    The first in his California trilogy, which would include 2007’s My Name Is Buddy and 2008's I, Flathead, Chávez Ravine is "a remarkable song cycle," said Rolling Stone, "a brilliant and flavorful film-noir history lesson." A post World War II–era American narrative of “cool cats,” radios, UFO sightings, J. Edgar Hoover, red scares, and baseball, the album is a tribute to the long-gone Los Angeles Latino enclave known as Chávez Ravine. Using real and imagined historical characters, Cooder and friends created an album that recollects various aspects of the poor but vibrant hillside Chicano community, which was bulldozed by developers in the 1950s in the interest of “progress”; Dodgers Stadium ultimately was built on the site. Cooder says, “Here is some music for a place you don’t know, up a road you don’t go. Chávez Ravine, where the sidewalk ends.”

    Drawing from the various musical strains of Los Angeles, including conjunto, corrido, R&B, Latin pop, and jazz, Cooder and friends conjure the ghosts of Chávez Ravine and Los Angeles at mid-century. On this 15-track album, sung in Spanish and English, Cooder is joined by East L.A. legends like Chicano music patriarch Lalo Guerrero, Pachuco boogie king Don Tosti, Thee Midniters front man Little Willie G., and Ersi Arvizu of The Sisters and El Chicano.

    A Los Angeles native, Cooder had been working in Cuba since 1998, producing Buena Vista Social Club, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ferrer’s Buenos Hermanos, and Mambo Sinuendo—all Grammy winners; three years in the making, Chávez Ravine marked his musical homecoming.

    “Los Angeles was paved over, malled up, high-rised, and urban-renewed, as fortunes were made, power was concentrated, and everything got faster and bigger,” Cooder said upon the album's release in 2005. "But there is a lot I miss now. The texture of certain older neighborhoods, like Bunker Hill, a rural feel in urban places, like Chávez Ravine and the timbre of life there, and just peace and quiet."

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    Ry Cooder, vocals (1-3, 10, 11), guitar (1, 3-8, 10-12, 14, 15), organ (1), tres (1, 9), laud (2), bajo sexton (4, 12)
    Juliette Commagere, vocals (1, 7-9, 15), vocal chorus (2, 3)
    Jim Keltner, drums (1, 6, 8), bongos (3)
    Mike Elizondo, bass (1-6, 9, 10, 12-14)
    Joachim Cooder, timbales (1, 3, 8), percussion (2), drums (4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15), sampling (5, 9, 15)
    Carla Commagere, vocals (7), vocal chorus (2, 3, 8)
    Little Willie G., vocals (2, 8, 15), vocal chorus (5)
    Joe Rotondi, piano (2, 4, 6-8, 14)
    Gil Bernal, tenor saxophone (2, 6, 8, 14)
    Mike Bolger, trumpet (2, 7, 14), organ (7, 8), valve trombone (7, 14)
    Ledward Kaapana, guitar (2, 13, 14)
    Jon Hassell, trumpet (3)
    Lalo Guerrero, vocals (4, 6, 13), guitar (13)
    Flaco Jimenez, accordion (4, 12, 13)
    Ersi Arvizu, vocals (5, 12, 15)
    Jacob Garcia, vocal chorus (5)
    Chucho Valdés, piano (5)
    Jared Smith, bass (7, 8, 15), keyboard (9)
    Rudy Salas, Michael Guerra, vocal chorus (8)
    Dan Totsi, vocals (9)
    Sunny D. Levine, drum programming (11)
    Jacky Terrasson, piano (11)
    Rosella Arvizu, vocal (12)
    Bla Pahinui, vocals, guitar, ukulele (14)
    David Hidalgo, guitar (15)

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Produced by Ry Cooder
    Recorded by Rail Jon Rogut at Village Recorders, Los Angeles, CA, and Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, CA
    Assisted by Okhi Kim and Pete Martinez
    Additional recording by Jerry Boys, Sunny Levine, and Don Smith at Sound City Studios, Orange Stella, and Capitol Studios, Hollywood, CA
    Mixed by Don Smith at Drive-By Studio, Los Angeles, CA
    Digital Editing by Martin Prader
    Mastered by Stephen Marcussen at Marcussen Mastering, Hollywood, CA

    Package Design: Tracey Shiffman
    Front cover illustrations by Michael C. McMillen