Rey Ruiz is not ashamed to admit that for his most recent album he served himself with the big spoon.
“It’s a record with a lot of work,” said the Cuban salsa singer. “It is the most expensive record of my life, and yes it is a whim, but it is a very pleasant whim.”
Ruiz talks about “Insuperable”, the first production of his career that does not belong to the salsa genre. It is a mega-production in which the interpreter recorded songs by authors from various parts of the world in the big band style.
“Actually I sing [también] ballads and many things”, he said. “But many people did not know it until now that they listen to me in a different way; I think sometimes you have to change things.”
For those who don’t know, the artist participated in the theme of a Cuban artist who sings urban music. Although he does not disdain this genre, he said that in that experience he felt as if he were “left-handed”, or as if he was going “against”.
This is Ruiz’s 17th album, and includes songs like “Heart, heart”, by the Mexican José Alfredo Jiménez; “Love is free”, by Argentine Ricardo Ceratto; “Smile” by the American Nat “King” Cole, and “Noche de ronda”, by the also Mexican Agustín Lara. They are all classic songs—eight in all—that have been “reworked.”
Ruiz was inspired by the songs of the big bands that his father used to listen to and that were very popular in the forties, when musicians like Glen Miller dominated the international music scene with the powerful notes of the four sections that made up these combos: saxophones, trumpets, trombones and the rhythm part.
In this adventure, Ruiz worked with the teacher, arranger and trumpeter José Aguirre and with the engineer Humberto Gatica. It is, therefore, the materialization of a project that the Cuban interpreter dreamed of all his life.
Now the artist is preparing to offer in a few weeks a concert in Panama and another in Mexico City, at the National Auditorium, one of the most important performance venues in that nation. Upon his return to the United States, he will begin to set dates in different cities.
As for the name of this album, Ruiz said that it had a lot to do with how happy he and his producer were with the making of this material.
“Not because we wanted to outdo someone,” he said. “Or as a way of saying that no one surpasses us, but because until now I have not done something bigger.”