The Grammy Award-winning 1997 phenomenon Buena Vista Social Club is the biggest-selling world music album of all-time, with more than eight million records sold to date. The Cuban musicians from the album played a sold-out, one-night-only concert at New York's Carnegie Hall on July 1, 1998. That show became the climax of the acclaimed 1999 Wim Wenders documentary about the musicians, also called Buena Vista Social Club.

In 2008, that evening's historic performance was finally released as Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall, meticulously mixed, edited, and mastered by Ry Cooder and World Circuit label head Nick Gold (who also executive produced the 1997 album). Only the second ever release from the fabled group, it features amazing performances by the original Buena Vista Social Club musicians including Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, Ruben González, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, Cachaíto López and Guajiro Mirabal. Though all of these musicians subsequently went on to resurrect great solo careers, the intervening years brought the loss of Ferrer, Segundo and González.

"The concert was more than a musical occasion. Musicians from Cuba in their 70's, 80's and 90's, some emerging from retirement, were making their United States debuts at no less than Carnegie Hall. With the bittersweet delicacy of a classic bolero, the Buena Vista Social Club simultaneously celebrated the vitality and virtuosity of its musicians and mourned the era they embody." - The New York Times