This is a very fine set of recordings, mostly string groups, mostly from the mid-'30s. Many of them are by New York-Puerto Rican groups in the fashionable Cuban idioms of the time -- boleros, sones, and so forth -- by major composers like Pedro Berrios and
Rafael Hernandez. These have a lot of charm, but the gems are a handful of truly Puerto Rican forms: seises, aguinaldos, and plenas. A major bonus is a two clarinet-lead danza. The only bummer: The greatest of all early pleneros, Canario, appears just once, playing a commercial bolero. ~ John Storm Roberts