Albums
El Comité: Y Qué!? (So What)
left to right: Carlos Sarduy, Harold López-Nussa, Irving Acao, Yaroldy Abreu, Rodney Barreto, Rolando Luna, Gastón Joya.
A fantasy of my own making: Truth be told, the Cubans and French have not got together to and create a wonderful musical take – tongue firmly in cheek – on Bastille Day and the Cuba Libre of December 31st 1958 (though not necessarily in that order). For El Comité, the name of this powerhouse ensemble, is not a play on the Cuban Comités de Defensa de la Revolución; set up in 1960 to guard against foreign destabilization after Cuba was freed from the yoke of the American puppet, Fulgencio Batista. The French connection is, of course, the group’s manager, Philippe Monsan and an important instigator in the formation of the supergroup. He had an idea of fusing the ensembles of Harold Lopéz-Nussa and Rolando Luna – after listening to them in 2016 – to form one supergroup. But the creation and foundation of El Comité…? It comes after a rather humourous twist as well.
“It was the rum that found the name of the group!” said Harold Lopéz-Nussa to Yannick Le Maintec a music writer at Le Monde, in April 2019. M Le Maintec wrote, “One can imagine the debates which enabled them to find their name. Their leitmotif: no leader. Except that El Comité – this Committee – has only one aspiration: the defense of rumba.” And so listening to this music it all makes sense after all. Moreover it seemingly fits: the members of this group fit the music, and their music fits the name of the ensemble. The joke has become real in an uncannily appropriately manner for it is these seven young musicians of El Comité who are seemingly changing the popular Cuban music soundscape in a dramatically radical way.
Each of the members of this septet, El Comité has made his mark individually both by redefining the instrument he plays with diabolical fluency. Harold Lopéz-Nussa – the youngest (generation) musician in a veritable dynasty that includes his uncle, the great multi-instrumentalist Ernán Lopéz-Nussa and his (the pianist’s) father and drummer Ruy Lopéz-Nussa – had forged a now-legendary band with his supremely-gifted brother and drummer Ruy-Adrian Lopéz-Nussa. Rolando Luna is a pianist with a quicksilver mind and brilliant technique to match. Bassist Gastón Joya Perellada, whose credentials include playing in the groups of Chucho Valdés, is possibly the greatest contrabassist to emerge from the island since Israel “Cachao” López did decades ago.
Meanwhile Yaroldy Abreu, also a Chucho Valdés alum, was a disciple of the legendary Tata Güines and incorporates all of the master’s teaching into playing tumbadoras (and other percussion). Rodney Barreto, once powered the rhythm section of Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s early Grupo Proyecto; his thunderous drumming now powers this ensemble. Carlos Sarduy is, quite simply, one of the most gifted young trumpeter and flugelhorn players anywhere in the world. And saxophonist Irving Acao, once all-but-forgotten, has returned with statuesque grandeur, seemingly out of an European mist as if affixed to the prow of a Spanish galleon speaking his musical truth and heralding a new era of woodwinds in Afro-Cuban music.
Editor’s Pick · Featured Album
Together El Comité seem to have created a new Cuban musical palimpsest somewhat as Miles Davis did when, first propelled by the vapours of Jimi Hendrix, he began to explore music during his so-called electric-period. Thus it also seems wholly appropriate that this recording by El Comité be entitled Y Qué!? or So What, after the iconic Miles Davis piece. In fact the album ends with an inventive arrangement of the song by the members of the group which revs up towards the finale in a vibrant comparsa-like processional. All of this also points to the fact that the structure of the group is anything but conventional despite the fact that piano, bass and drums are augmented by brass and winds. What is revolutionary – first and foremost – two pianists (and electric keyboards) players who perform with the proverbial closeness of twins, but seemingly with one brain.
That brain is also shared in apparent proportion by a trumpeter, saxophonist and percussion colourist, making the ensuing music appear to be something of a colossal seven-way conversation where the musical conversation may be started almost anywhere, followed by one or more (or all of the players) jumping in at any point in time, and where each musical conversationalist has the ability to (and does) embellish each other’s conversation by finishing a phrase or – and this is so most often – by providing the most breathtaking ornamentation to another’s phrase – which, in musical terms, would be the melody or by picking up an improvised line and taking it to another special place in the music’s architecture.
This result is everywhere on Y Qué!? not all at once, of course, but you can hear this song after song after song, throughout the recording. And this happens from the very outset as the group blitzkriegs its way through the tumbling, funky groove of “Gran Vía”. Piano dovetails into keyboards while trumpet and saxophone melt into one, the electric bass creates a catalytic, chain reaction drawing in the drums and tumbadoras and the edifice of the song is built upon by one body and one mind with many hands and feet. But make no mistake, individual voices also always reign supreme throughout. If you listen carefully it is possible to separate the radiant pianism of Harold Lopéz-Nussa from the voice of Rolando Luna as they switch from piano to keyboards (for instance from “E’Cha” to “Transiciones”) and in other songs as well.
There is also the no small matter of Carlos Sarduy’s trumpet setting the music alight as he inhabits the bluest part of the flame with which he uses to ignite the dark melody of “La Gitana”. Meanwhile Gastón Joya brings his considerable genius to accent the darkly passionate melody of his composition with voluptuous notes plucked out of the air with equal parts majestic technique and heartfelt emotion. Rodney Barreto brings his rolling thunder to accentuate the ink black song colours, Yaroldy Abreu caresses the skins of the tumbadoras as if he was fondling the body of the gypsy woman and she, now inhabiting his magnificent drums, exclaims her song in sensuous delight. Meanwhile Irving Acao presides over the magical scene as if uniting the Gypsy and her paramour as one.
Each song has its own special magic. Each is written by a different composer and so reflects a unique voice, but the musicians parley with the familiarity of old friends manipulating the warp and woof of woven sound; then smoothing every melodic, harmonic and rhythmic wrinkle. The music unfolds in playing that always retains that sense of gracious etiquette associated with the noblest of Cuban academies for which this music could well have been written. Nothing is forced or exaggerated or overly mannered; tempos, ensemble and balance – all seem effortlessly and intuitively right. This music is, in sum, a collection of sincere and poised accounts in song, a fitting tribute to the long and vibrant character of Cuba and its music.
Track list – 1: Gran Vía; 2: E Cha; 3: La Gitana; 4: Transiciones; 5: Carlito’s Swing; 6: Alamar 23; 7: Nada Más; 8: Son a Emiliano; 9: So What?
Personnel – Harold Lopéz-Nussa: piano and keyboards; Rolando Luna: piano and keyboards; Carlos Sarduy: trumpet and flugelhorn; Irving Acao: tenor saxophone; Gastón Joya: contrabass and electric bass; Rodney Barreto: drums; Yaroldy Abreu: percussion
Released – 2019
Label – Philippe Monsan
Runtime – 49:56
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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