Albums
Venissa Santi: Big Stuff—Afro-Cuban Holiday
Just what is so special about the vocalastics of Venissa Santi—just what is so singularly unique—is so eminently clear on Big Stuff—Afro-Cuban Holiday, the brilliantly innovative follow-up to her 2009 Sunnyside Records debut, Bienvenida. If at first blush this record appears to be a mere tribute to the great Billie Holiday, it is clear that first impressions can be somewhat deceptive. True, this is Ms. Santi’s homage to the legendary singer. However the music on this record comes from the very depth of Ms. Santi’s soul that this is so much more than a tribute: it is more like an anguished cry rich in the metaphor of Afro-Cuban-Blues, cry of sisterhood that is lifted up in elevation to the celebrated ghost of Ms. Holiday. Just as she was on her first album, Ms. Santi has once again channeled her ideas through percussion-colourist and long-time band mate François Zayas, who is responsible for the majestic arrangements of twelve songs with which Ms. Santi, in turn, re-imagines the heartfelt repertoire of Billie Holiday in an idiom that melds the heartbeat of bata and offbeat of clave with African-American deep song. Also joining the vocalist on this musical odyssey are trumpet and flugelhorn players Tim Thompson and Chris Aschman, the late guitarist Jef Lee Johnson, pianist John Stenger and bassist John Fraticelli. Special appearances are also made by bassists Paul Klinefelter and Madison Rast, clarinetist Jon Thompson and percussionist Cuco Castellanos.
The origins of this music are vividly recalled by Ms. Santi, who remembers how Danilo Perez invited her to share the stage with such luminaries as Kurt Elling, Sheila Jordon, Liz Wright and Claudia Acuña among others on a gig that was designed to present a series of homages to Billie Holiday in May of 2010. For Venissa Santi to be included in a playbill that comprised of such stellar artists was both a privilege as well as a chance to do something truly special. She and her favourite doppelgänger, Mr. Zayas, went to work on selecting an appropriate Billie Holiday repertoire; then transferring it to the landscape of danzón, guaguancó and bolero. All this happened about a year from May 2010. Next came learning the challenging arrangements that François Zayas came up with, swirling from out of the fiery cauldron of Afro-Cuban music. This took the musicians close to six months to master; a memorable effort that, together with the fact that this homage was written in Afro-Cuban idioms, made the project so distinctive. The memory of a gig that played in Billie Holiday’s birthplace of Philadelphia, and was later broadcast on the local radio station on Mother’s Day a couple of weeks later lingered long and hard in the memory and Ms. Santi and François Zayas came to the conclusion that this was music worthy of a longer life on a record that would preserve both the beauty and authenticity of this Afro-Cuban odyssey into the heart and soul of Billie Holiday.
Getting into character for the next stage of the project—which was this record; an expanded version of the gig of 2010—was not easy for Venissa Santi. But then, “Life happened,” says Ms. Santi, “and in the journey of putting these songs together… real life was happening while I was delving into the lyrics and repertoire that I (had) started checking out when I was fourteen years old,” she continued. “Then I paid a visit to Cuba, which was both special and enabled me to come face-to-face with something bordering on danger… and also went into a dark place, also while working on the lyrics and François Zayas’ arrangements and the music started to hit home,” Ms. Santi says. “What emerged was an-almost four-year labor of love that overflowed onto this record,” she adds.
Nothing can really prepare the listener for the transcendental melancholy of Billie Holiday’s music like “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” which is deliberately set as the gateway to the album, in a prelude to dimming the lights and before entering the world of Lady Day, who virtually changed the way a song ought to be interpreted. The festive nature of the guaguancó rhythm is offset by the minor variations that dapple the instrumental introduction and Ms. Santi’s wordless vocals that go with that sequence. Then Ms. Santi’s reading of plaintive reading of the main body of the lyric together with the instrumental break featuring the guitar of Jef Lee Johnson followed by Ms. Santi’s vocalastics provides a bleak, almost blurred and moodily yearning interpretation of a song that Billie Holiday covered in 1941; featured here as the song which cracks open the sternum and enables Ms. Santi to bare the heart of Billie Holiday’s music. The brighter aspects of the song are done in a “clave de sol” kind of rhythm. Ms. Santi adds, “This was inspired by a walk I had with my son, in the cold, taking the sunny side in the morning,” Ms. Santi says. “And I came up with the [melodic idea] that plays with a repeating bridge, using a “coro”. It’s kind of a musical conversation (that I have with myself),”she adds.
Venissa Santi’s musical intellect that combined with the erudite delicacy of manipulating phrasing and tempo is brilliantly on display in the breathtaking complexity of “Big Stuff,” a song that Ms. Santi turns into a musical equivalent of a darkish expressionist film. The fine line between hope and despair; the blues and frail attempt to triumph over the human condition is brilliantly offset by the raw and jabbering Afro-Cuban “tumba-francesa” rhythm featuring a “coro” quote from the conga tradition in the beginning of the song. Ms. Santi’s angular harmonics in the introduction—played against the rhythm—is one of the highlights of this chart. The footage of a damaged life unravels in the elemental sadness of “What’s New” as Ms. Santi dialogues with the eminently soft, almost vocal work of John Stenger’s piano and so begins the descent into the nourish life of Billie Holiday. Listeners would be remiss if they did not find themselves holding their breaths at this point in the album. The stark portrait of “My Man” appears on a ghostly canvas daubed as if by the magic of a brush dipped in the “makuta” rhythm of drums and bass. The shock and awe of “Stormy Weather” is a moving account as if from yet another episode of the dark, expressionist film, this song propelled by the rhythmic sweep of Central-African “palo” highlighted by a burbling ostinato that churns the melody and harmony into a veritable twister’s vortex before Ms. Santi enters the narrative, breaking the verses of the song with a pirouetting “coro”.
“You’re My Thrill” is perhaps the most sensuous song on the album. Set as a “tango-congo” Ms. Santi caresses the lyrics as only she can. When she serves up her character’s heart on a silver platter to her lover, the song turns dark, yet remains as undulant as the bodies of crepuscular lovers. “Travelin’ Lite” is a cross-hatching collision between the Cuban “guajira” and the second line rhythm so characteristic of New Orleans. “You get a sense of the interpreter (of the song) travelling light because I am only accompanied by the bass at one time; then by the piano; later the trumpet,” Ms. Santi explains, “I’s being accompanied by one musician at a time… It’s called “Travelin’ Lite” but it is hard to play,” she reveals. The stately, shimmering rhythm of the Cuban “danzón” bathes “Involved Again,” with Jon Thompson’s sweet clarinet and the singer who is yearning for a new love in her life, yet realizes that she is a fool for love. This is a chart that Billie Holiday wanted dearly to record, but died before she could do so. Dick LaPalm, Nat “King” Cole’s promoter suggested that Ms. Santi record this song. “It was extremely special to be mailed the lead sheet personally by the composer, Jack Reardon,” Ms. Santi reveals somewhat in awe of being considered as an interpreter of a song that Ms. Holiday herself yearned to do. “That Old Devil Called Love” sashays with the voluptuous ecstasy of “son-Abakuá” and is resplendent in the rich imagery of Afro-Cuban music. “There are codes here which only my (Afro-Cuban) peers will hear,” Ms. Santi says, “including a quote from a famous Cuban song called “El Diablo Tun, Tun,” she reveals, almost as a gentle challenge to anyone ready for it. “I Cover the Waterfront /Monk’s Dream” is another song worked into the cracked rhythm of a Monk-like idiom, worked into the swinging “guaguancó” rhythm, featuring the lonesome clave with the rumble of François Zayas’ cajón. “You’d Better Go Now” is set to a deliciously sexy “yambú” rhythm that is beguiling despite its sad and lonesome lyric.
Perhaps the darkest part of the album is “Strange Fruit” a song that Billie Holiday’s infused with the searing imagery of an ugly part of America’s tainted history. Performed as a swaying “bolero” this chart infuses the horror of lynching in the deep south of the United States with a prayer to the Cuban God, “Oya”. “She is the keeper of the cemetery gates and the fierce winds,” Ms. Santi warns about a torch song that she sings with breathtaking power. “It’s a political song. It’s a song about social change. I like repertoire like that,” she says, “I busted my skull over hearing it for the first time. Much of my phrasing is breath work… holding a lot inside and (having to) creep out of a very tight air space with my diaphragm,” Ms. Santi says enigmatically. In many respects “Strange Fruit” is the crowning glory of Big Stuff. It is a song that Ms. Holiday never took lightly and neither does Venissa Santi.
A musician of rare and unbridled genius, Venissa Santi was born to parents who filled her life equally with the music of Celia Cruz, Maurice Ravel and Michael Jackson, and numerous other musicians. Here musical heritage goes further back: to a grandfather, Jacobo Ros Capablanca, a Cuban composer. She honored his memory by playing one of his songs on Bienvenida. Ms. Santi was born in Ithaca, New York, but moved to Philadelphia after she graduated high school. There, through the study of her grandfather`s compositions, she re-connected with her Cuban roots and majored in Jazz Vocal Performance. She was a vocal instructor at the Asociación de Músicos Latino Americanos. She has gigged extensively with a slew of jazz, Latin-Jazz and World Music groups and musicians. In 2008, Ms. Santi won the Pew Fellowship for Folk and Traditional Arts. In 2009 she was signed to Sunnyside Records. She went to Cuba specially to study Afro-Cuban song, dance and percussion as well as to prepare for this very unique Billie Holiday project.
“I haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg,” she reveals with beguiling honesty. “I have not yet got to “God Bless the Child” because I have so many thematic ideas regarding that tune… which leads me to believe that I might do a Billie Holiday suite… a “God Bless the Child” suite…” More Billie Holiday? “It’s sort of intense to think how close I’ve been to this repertoire and Billie’s story,” Ms. Santi adds, “It’s been an extremely existential experience”.
Track Listing: 1. On the Sunny Side of the Street (Guaguancó); 2. Big Stuff (Tumba Francesa); 3. What’s New?; 4. My Man (Makuta); 5. Strange Fruit (Bolero); 5. Stormy Weather (Palo); 7. You’re My Thrill (Tango Congo); 8. Travelin’ Light (Guajira/Nola); 9. Involved Again (Danzón); 10. That Old Devil Called Love (Son); 11. I Cover the Water Front/Monk’s Dream (Guaguancó); 12. You Better Go Now (Yambú).
Personnel: Venissa Santí: Vocalist; François Zayas: Drums, Percussion; Tim Thompson: Trumpet; Chris Aschman: Trumpet, and Flugelhorn; John Stenger: Piano; Jason Fraticelli: Bass; Cuco Castellanos: Congas; Madison Rast: Bass; Paul Klinefelter: Contrabass; Jon Thompson: Clarinet; Special guest: Jef Lee Johnson: Guitar.
Label: Sunnyside Records | Release date: September 2013
Website: venissasanti.com | Buy music on: amazon
For Claudia Acuña, home has never been a fixed destination. It is something carried—in the body, in memory, in language, and in sound.
On Ave de Luz, the Chilean vocalist brings those fragments together with unusual clarity. After three decades in New York, Acuña no longer treats her roots as something to weave quietly into jazz. She places them at the center. Her striking declaration—“I’m coming in with my crown, my poncho, my everything”—captures the album’s spirit perfectly.
Raised in Concepción during Chile’s dictatorship years and later transformed by New York’s jazz scene, Acuña has spent much of her career moving between worlds. Ave de Luz feels like the moment when those worlds stop competing with one another.
A Specifically Chilean Jazz
Acuña has resisted the idea that “Latin jazz” can be reduced to a single vocabulary. Afro-Cuban and Brazilian traditions may dominate the popular understanding of the term, but Latin America contains countless rhythmic, folkloric and indigenous languages.
Her own metaphor is simple: noodles and spaghetti may look related, but they are not the same thing.
That idea shapes Ave de Luz. The album is not merely jazz with Chilean colour added to it. It is music whose identity emerges from cueca, Andean traditions, indigenous sonorities, poetry, migration and improvisation.
The trutruka, charango, zampoña, tormento and Chilean pandero become part of the album’s grammar. They interact with Manu Koch’s piano and keyboards, Carlos Henderson’s bass and Yayo Serka’s drums and percussion without sounding ornamental or exoticized.
Poetry, Memory and Resistance
“Chinga La Ka Chinga” captures one of the album’s most expansive ideas. Festive on the surface, the piece also acknowledges Afro-Chilean and northern Chilean currents, suggesting how celebration can carry history, resistance and cultural memory within its pulse.
Elsewhere, the music turns inward. “Piececitos de Niño,” inspired by Gabriela Mistral, brings poetry and childhood into the album’s emotional landscape, while “Rezo” feels almost elemental: voice, charango, atmosphere and silence shaping a meditation on nature, distance and belonging.
Acuña’s reading of Violeta Parra’s “La Jardinera” is equally significant. Its imagery of planting, tending and healing becomes an apt metaphor for tradition itself. Culture survives not by remaining untouched, but by being replanted. Acuña does precisely that.
The Wind From the South
“Viento del Sur” also carries special resonance, recalling the title of Acuña’s 2000 debut, Wind from the South. Then, the image suggested a Chilean artist arriving in the international jazz world. Here, the meaning has changed.
The south is no longer where she came from. It is something she continues to carry.
That idea finds its fullest expression in the title track. The “bird of light” becomes an image of migration without erasure—a figure moving forward while remaining connected to its place of origin. The metaphor fits Acuña herself.
Her longtime musical relationship with Koch, Henderson and Serka gives Ave de Luz much of its freedom. Years of trust let the ensemble move naturally between folk memory, jazz improvisation and contemporary textures without forcing boundaries between them.
Ave de Luz may be Claudia Acuña’s most complete artistic statement because it no longer asks her identities to compromise.
The crown is experience.
The poncho is memory.
Jazz is the road between them.
And Claudia Acuña travels that road carrying Chile fully into the light.
Album Information
- Artist: Claudia Acuña
- Album: Ave de Luz: Chilean Jazz & Soul
- Label: Delfin Records
- Release date: July 10, 2026
- Genre: Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Chilean jazz
- Format: Digital/streaming
- Final digital release: 7 tracks, approximately 36 minutes
Tracklist
- Chinga La Ka Chinga – (Claudia Acuña, Coch, Hernandez & Serka) – 4:43
- Ave de Luz– (Mario Rojas) – 5:48
- Viento del Sur– (Claudia Acuña & Jason Lindner) – 6:01
- Rezo– (Claudia Acuña) – 3:49
- Piececitos de Niño– (Based on a poem of Gabriela Mistral / Music by Claudia Acuña) – 6:10
- Un Gorro de Lana– (Víctor Acosta) – 4:18
- La Jardinera– (Violeta Parra) – 6:01
Personnel
- Claudia Acuña – vocals, percussion/claps, tormento; producer
- Manu Koch – piano and keyboards (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5)
- Carlos Henderson – bass
- Yayo Serka – drums and percussion
- Pablo Vergara – piano (tracks 6, 8)
- Andrés Pollak – piano, organ; producer (track 7) | organ (track 1)
- Pablo Zárate – accordion, Chilean pandero (track 2)
- Fredy Torralba – traditional Chilean/Andean instruments including charango, trutruka and zampoña
- Paulina García – spoken word (track 6)
- Daniel Kelley-Acuña – vocals (track 6)
Production Credits
Produced by Claudia Acuña and Andrés Pollak. Most of the sessions were recorded at East Side Sound in New York in November 2025, with “Ave de Luz” recorded at TOC Música in Santiago in October 2025 and additional recording completed at Banduria Studio in Santiago. Andrés Pollak handled engineering on the principal New York sessions; Rafael Chaparro engineered the Santiago title-track session with Javier Lizana assisting. Marc Urselli mixed and mastered the project.
With La Malinche, Eva Cortés delivers one of the most ambitious recordings of her career—a project in which history, identity, migration and music converge around one of the most contested figures in the Americas.
Malintzin, also known as Doña Marina or La Malinche, has long been portrayed through conflicting narratives: interpreter, intermediary, mother of mestizaje, victim, survivor and, in later nationalist mythology, traitor. Cortés does not try to settle that debate. Instead, she uses Malintzin as a symbol of cultural transition, displacement and survival.
That choice makes particular sense for an artist whose own life has unfolded across borders. Born in Honduras (Central America), shaped culturally in Seville (Spain) and later immersed in New York’s jazz community, Cortés has always made music from the space between traditions. On La Malinche, that in-between space becomes the heart of the album.
A Music of Crossings
The album brings together flamenco, Latin jazz, contemporary jazz and Indigenous-inspired imagery without turning the result into a forced fusion.
Rather than attempting to recreate pre-Columbian Mexican music literally, Cortés evokes Indigenous memory through percussion, communal voices, repetition and themes of ancestry, earth and maize. Flamenco enters through Spanish guitar, vocal inflection and the expressive grit associated with cante. Jazz supplies the harmonic freedom and improvisational space that allow those elements to interact.
The musicians surrounding Cortés are crucial to that balance. Pianists Pepe Rivero, Jon Cowherd and Zaccai Curtis, bassists Christian McBride, Luques Curtis and Reinier Elizarde “Negrón,” and drummers Antonio Sánchez, Adam Cruz and Georvis Pico give the album both rhythmic strength and harmonic flexibility. Roman Filiú, Paco Heredia, Marvin Sewell, Bandolero and others expand the palette further. The result is music that never feels boxed into one category.
The Voice at the Center
Cortés’ singing remains the album’s most powerful instrument. Her phrasing can be loose and conversational, then suddenly sharpen into something more urgent and flamenco-inflected. She moves between reflection, mourning, protest and defiance without sacrificing musical control.
Most importantly, she refuses to define Malintzin through betrayal. Her interpretation focuses instead on endurance and complexity.
The opening “Abuelita Malinche” immediately makes that clear. By calling her “Abuelita,” Cortés transforms Malinche from a figure of accusation into an ancestral presence. The arrangement blends Latin-jazz movement with flamenco coloration, while her wordless vocal passages move naturally between scat and cante.
“Hij@s del Maíz” extends that idea of cultural mixture. Paco Heredia’s guitar, Pepe Rivero’s piano, Antonio Sánchez’s drums and the accordion create a sound that travels across regions rather than belonging to one. Maize becomes a symbol of Indigenous continuity, while the music reflects the constantly changing character of mestizaje itself.
From History to the Present
The album becomes even more powerful when it connects the past to contemporary realities.
“Letters to Heaven” and “Remember Me” introduce themes of Indigenous loss and the disappearance of women from both historical memory and present-day communities. “Sur Global” shifts toward resistance, combining rhythmic drive with a broader reflection on colonialism, migration and inequality.
Then “Spanish Harlem” brings the journey firmly into the present. Horns, flute, tumbao and call-and-response place Cortés within New York’s Latin-jazz tradition, completing a musical path that stretches from ancestral memory to the modern city.
A Major Statement
La Malinche is more than an album built around a historical figure. It is a meditation on who controls history, who gets remembered and how identity continues to change across generations and borders.
Cortés turns her own musical hybridity into the album’s central idea. Jazz, flamenco and Latin American traditions do not simply coexist here—they help tell the story.
The result is one of her strongest and most focused recordings to date: emotionally direct, musically sophisticated and deeply rooted in the ongoing conversation between memory and transformation. La Malinche is not about recovering a pure past. It is about reclaiming the right to reinterpret it.
Album Information
- Artist: Eva Cortés
- Album: La Malinche
- Label: Truth Revolution Records / TRRcollective
- Release: June 2026
- Official press release date: June 5, 2026
- TRRcollective Bandcamp release date: June 19, 2026
- Format: CD / Digital
- Number of tracks: 11
- Total running time: 51:53
- Genre: Jazz / Latin Jazz / Flamenco / Afro-Latin
- Recorded in: Madrid, Spain, and Little Falls, New Jersey, USA
Tracklist
- Abuelita Malinche — 4:35
- A Tribo do Vento — 5:46
- Soy el Aire — 5:31
- Light and Sorrow — 3:59
- Hij@s del Maíz — 4:24
- Letters to Heaven — 5:04
- Remember Me — 3:28
- Sur Global — 5:43
- No Me Limites — 4:33
- Indians of All Tribes — 3:53
- Spanish Harlem — 4:57
Personnel
- Eva Cortés — vocals, composer, lyricist, backing vocals
- Pepe Rivero — piano, keyboards, arrangements
- Jon Cowherd — piano
- Zaccai Curtis — piano, keyboards
- Christian McBride — bass
- Luques Curtis — bass
- Reinier Elizarde “Negrón” — bass
- Paco Heredia — Spanish guitar, guitar, arrangements
- Marvin Sewell — guitar
- Roman Filiú — saxophone, flute, backing vocals
- Bobby Martínez — saxophone
- Manuel Machado — trumpet
- Antonio Serrano — harmonica
- Javier Colina — accordion
- Bandolero — percussion
- Roland Guerrero — percussion
- Antonio Sánchez — drums
- Adam Cruz — drums
- Georvis Pico — drums, vocal solo, backing vocals
Production Credits
- Produced by: Eva Cortés, Roman Filiú and Pepe Rivero
- Label: Truth Revolution Records / TRRcollective
- Session One: Camaleón Music Studio, Madrid, Spain
- Recording Engineer, Madrid: Diego Román
- Session Two: Studio Mozart, Little Falls, New Jersey, USA
- Recording Engineer, New Jersey: Kostadin Kamcev
- Mixing: David Darlington
- Mastering: David Darlington
- Mixing and Mastering Studio: Bass Hit Studios, New York, NY
- Photography: Noah Shaye
The title Abriendo Puertas—“Opening Doors”—captures the spirit of guitarist Roni Ben-Hur’s latest recording with unusual precision. Recorded in Havana with an accomplished group of Cuban musicians, the album is built not around the novelty of a visiting jazz guitarist encountering Cuban music, but around something more meaningful: musicians listening closely enough to find a common language.
Ben-Hur has spent much of his career moving naturally between musical worlds. Born in Israel to a Tunisian family and shaped professionally by New York’s jazz community, his playing draws from bebop, Brazilian music, Mediterranean traditions and Latin rhythms without sounding like a collection of influences. His years with pianist and mentor Barry Harris helped establish the melodic clarity, swing and understated sophistication that remain central to his guitar style. On Abriendo Puertas, those qualities fit remarkably well within a Cuban setting.
The key creative partner is pianist Alejandro Falcón, who contributes four of the seven compositions: the title track, “Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby,” “Lo que es del César” and “El Teide.” Rather than treating Ben-Hur as a soloist placed in front of a Cuban rhythm section, Falcón helps create an ensemble language in which guitar and piano continuously exchange roles. Their compatibility is evident from the opening title track, where rhythmic momentum and lyrical improvisation develop patiently rather than through display.
“Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby” pushes the conversation toward the blues while retaining a strong Cuban rhythmic identity. It is one of the album’s most spirited performances, illustrating how readily the vocabulary of jazz can coexist with the rhythmic imagination surrounding Ben-Hur in Havana. By the time the ensemble reaches “Lo que es del César” and “El Teide,” the distinction between guest and host has largely disappeared. What remains is a cohesive band responding to one another in real time.
The album’s romantic center comes through three classic Latin American songs. José Antonio Méndez’s “Mi Mejor Canción” brings the intimacy of the Cuban filin tradition into the program, while Osdalgia Lesmes appears on Isolina Carrillo’s “Dos Gardenias” and Armando Manzanero’s “Esta tarde vi llover.”
Lesmes brings warmth and emotional directness to both performances, and Ben-Hur proves once again what a sensitive accompanist he can be. His guitar surrounds the voice rather than competing with it, reflecting an approach he has developed through years of working with singers, including the late Brazilian vocalist Leny Andrade. Ben-Hur has spoken of the importance of leaving space for vocalists and allowing melody and lyric to remain at the center of an arrangement.
That same sense of space benefits the entire recording. Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez on acoustic bass, Ruy López-Nussa on drums and Octavio Rodríguez Rivera on percussion provide a foundation that is rhythmically rich without becoming overcrowded. Tenor saxophonist Emir Santa Cruz, featured on four tracks, adds another expressive voice and gives several performances a broader jazz-ensemble character.
Recorded at DBega Studios in Havana in November 2025, Abriendo Puertas is part of the Cuban Notes recording series co-produced by Ben-Hur and Dot Time Records founder Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt. Yet the album succeeds beyond the concept behind the series.
Its strength is ultimately found in the musicians themselves. Nobody appears interested in proving how effortlessly jazz and Cuban music can be combined. They simply play together until those distinctions become secondary.
For listeners who appreciate expressive jazz guitar, Cuban music and recordings where collaboration matters more than spectacle, Abriendo Puertas is easy to recommend. Warm, sophisticated and deeply conversational, it finds Roni Ben-Hur opening another musical door—and discovering an ensemble waiting on the other side.
Album Information
Artist: Roni Ben-Hur
Album: Abriendo Puertas
Label: Dot Time Records
Catalog: DT9192
Genre: Jazz / Latin Jazz
Release Date: June 26, 2026
Recorded: November 2025
Studio: DBega Studios, Havana, Cuba
Format: CD / Digital
Program: 7 tracks, approximately 49 minutes.
The project is part of Cuban Notes, co-produced by Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt and Roni Ben-Hur. It follows Alejandro Falcón’s Falcón in Blue as the second album in the series.
Tracklist
1. Abriendo Puertas – Alejandro Falcón – 8:12
2. Mi Mejor Canción – José Antonio Méndez – 6:32
3. Dos Gardenias – Isolina Carrillo – 5:23
4. Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby – Alejandro Falcón – 9:23
5. Esta tarde vi llover – Armando Manzanero – 5:56
6. Lo que es del César – Alejandro Falcón – 6:17
7. El Teide – Alejandro Falcón – 7:49
Personnel Credits
Roni Ben-Hur — guitar
Alejandro Falcón — piano
Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez — acoustic bass
Ruy López-Nussa — drums
Octavio Rodríguez Rivera — percussion
Emir Santa Cruz — tenor saxophone, tracks 1, 4, 5 and 7
Osdalgia Lesmes — vocals, tracks 3 and 5
Production Credits
Executive Producer: Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt
Co-Producer: Roni Ben-Hur
Recorded at: DBega Studios, Havana
Recording date: November 2025
Sound Engineer: Carlos D’Bega
Label: Dot Time Records
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