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The Community Music Forum, 2004
Music for Falling in Love: Cascada de Flores
Reviewed by Ernie Tamminga
During the day preceding the evening when we most recently experienced the band Cascada de Flores live in concert, my wife and I had attended a couples' retreat that culminated in a ceremonial renewal of our wedding vows. One of the topics of discussion at the retreat was the experience of, and the many ways of, falling in love. Some aspects of falling in love are eternal, based on deep, complete acceptance of one person for another. Other aspects, especially the early ones, are based mainly on intoxicating phenomena like chemistry, persona, charisma, and the stirring of strong emotion.
That evening, at the concert at a dinner club in Santa Barbara, I recognized some of what we had been talking about that day: I've seen Cascada in concert half a dozen times now, and every time, I fall in love with these people. Not at all in the same way as I love my wife, but it's love nonetheless -- love of that intoxicating, usually temporary, kind whose transience makes it no less real. Even in full consciousness of the fact that it's a transient thing, falling in love for an evening is one of life's grand experiences.
Cascada de Flores is Arwen Lawrence de Castellanos on guitar and lead vocals, Sabra Weber on harmony vocals, flute, and percussion, and Jorge Liceaga on lead guitar and supporting vocals. Offstage, they are all attractive and charming people. But in performance, something truly magical happens, as those mysterious miracles of persona, chemistry, and emotion emerge and create something transcending the sum of the individual parts.
Many years ago I studied Spanish for several years, and became capable of constructing and understanding compound and complex sentences. In recent years, though, I've relapsed to knowing maybe 23 words in Spanish. And yet, when Cascada performs -- the vocals 100 percent in Spanish -- the emotion is so up-front that you feel the songs deeply and directly, regardless of whether you understand the language of the lyrics. Indeed, Jorge's guitar sings directly to your heart, even when there are no words at all.
The voices of Arwen and Sabra intertwine so perfectly, and their phrasing is so exquisite, that often it sounds as if there is a single voice singing two parts at once.
The band has released two CDs so far. The first is the eponymous Cascada de Flores, featuring songs from several musical traditions of Mexico. The second is Puente a la Mar, which (quoting the notes in the CD booklet) "…tells the story of music makers of Cuba, Mexico, and Puerto Rico and the continuing exchange of their musical ideas in the first half of the 20 th century. It is a bridge which reflects the absence and longing that inspires its construction, the joy of building it and the pain of its inability to connect."
Both albums are well worth recommending. But the second one, for me, comes closer to capturing the astounding depth of feeling that Cascada de Flores achieves in live performance.
My favorite songs on the album, because I so cherish emotional expression, are the traditional La Llorona, and the amazing Perdon (Mi Pobre Corazon). In the latter song, Jorge's crying melodic line on the "tres" (an instrument somewhat resembling a guitar) introduces the shape and color of the song, and then the two women's voices sing in conversation, the two parts often different from one another in structure and content, both urgent with emotion all the more powerful for being controlled in pace and expression, each driving the other in an inexorable build-up that, in live performance, never fails to bring me to tears. The absence, longing, pain and inspiration spoken of in the album's notes are beautifully realized here.
On the CD Puente a la Mar, Cascada is joined by several supporting guest musicians, whose textures blend beautifully into the overall tapestry. For non-Spanish speakers, the album booklet provides commentary and lyrics in English as well as Spanish.
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