Segundo Brings Joy to Rich, Melodic Cuban Music

Compay Segundo is probably the handsomest 92-year-old you are likely to meet. On Thursday at the Conga Room, the veteran Cuban troubadour, a member of the celebrated Buena Vista Social Club project, brought the spirit of vintage son back to life with his weathered smile, tiny expressive dance steps and buoyant musicality.

In contrast to salsa, which finds its identity in ecstatic polyrhythms and big-band brass, traditional son bases its charm on melodic understatement. Segundo began his two-hour show with a sparse quartet of upright bass, guiro (a gourd used for percussion), acoustic guitar and his invention the armonico, an unusual combination of guitar and tres (a small, high-pitched guitar).

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Soon the quartet became a sextet with the arrival of a percussionist and a singer, and in the second half of the show it was further enriched by a three-piece clarinet ensemble that turned these austere sones into a musical creme bru^lee.

The clarinets are ever-present in Segundo’s latest album, “Calle Salud,” which adds a whiff of Italian folklore to the Buena Vista aesthetic. The wonderful “Saludo a Chango” exemplifies Cuban music’s head-on collision between the lilting melodies of Europe and Africa’s soulful drums and chants.

Of course Segundo couldn’t leave the stage without bringing the house down with a new version of his composition “Chan Chan,” the Buena Vista anthem.

The evening wasn’t marked by overwhelming displays of technical prowess or by the dance floor drive one has come to expect from Cuban outfits. Segundo’s performance was remarkable for its absence of any extraordinary musical statements.

But a few rootsy sones and the singer’s enjoyment of his own music warmed the heart in a way that was anything but transitory.