With age-defying suppleness, Cuban vocalist (and nonagenarian) Compay Segundo helped supercharge the 1997 smash Buena Vista Social Club and, in 1998, his own Lo Mejor de la Vida with his full-bodied voice. Calle Salud, then, comes in 1999 on the tail of both artistic and commercial zeniths and unfolds a series of songs that remains resolutely in the same laid-back realm as Segundo's other late-1990s successes. If anything, Calle Salud is more lush, more embedded in the layers of clarinets that sway as if trying to stay cool on a humid, tropical afternoon. The woody burnish of the licorice sticks, along with the loosely strung guitar and bass and the subtle bed of percussion, makes a pliable cushion for Segundo's rich vocals. He sings with a mixture of cool distance and unflinching commitment to the music's inherent romance. He sings as if at any moment his voice could drop into a full baritone and bellow forth, but instead he lays back with th...