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The John Santos Sextet & Friends: Filosofía Caribeña Vol. 2

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The John Santos Sextet – Photo by Aida Salazar
The John Santos Sextet – Photo by Aida Salazar

One aspect of John Santos’ music that sets him apart from many artists in the Latin realm is the depth of its spiritual consciousness. This is almost immediately palpable on the album Filosofía Caribeña Vol. 2 by The John Santos Sextet. Of course, it is no small accident that the first track on the record is the superb elegy to the late alum, “Rev” Ron Stallings, simply entitled “Mr. Stallings”. The legendary tenor saxophonist was a member of Mr. Santos’ well-known Machete Ensemble and recorded with him in the early part of the 2000s—one of several Afro-Caribbean projects that the Rev. graced after a trip to Cuba in 1997. This chart is an auspicious beginning to what is a follow-up to Mr. Santos’ landmark album Filosofía Caribeña Vol. 1 in 2011. If that album was a significant addition to the literature of Afro-Caribbean music, Vol 2 is a lot more than that: It seems to open a proverbial portal into the realm of music where the musics of three continents collide, where minds and hearts, and where the poetics and intellect of musical art meets. Adding a choral element to the instrumental music that is richer and more complex than much music today, Vol 2 might also be seen as nestling cheek-by-jowl with some of the finer albums by both African, Caribbean and American (especially the jazz music of New Orleans) griot musicians; which to say the historical role that music from those regions has played in the world of today. The binding glue of course is in the writing/programmatic sequences, interspersed throughout the album, appearing to bring influences from the European dance music influences from which much Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean music is culled.

The John Santos Sextet & Friends: Filosofia Caribeña Vol. 2
The John Santos Sextet & Friends: Filosofia Caribeña Vol. 2

This is a big step forward by The John Santos Sextet and speaks to the colossal influence that Mr. Santos could soon become in contemporary music. While it may be early yet to compare him to someone such as the great Cuban Chucho Valdés, Mr. Santos appears to have made an auspicious entry into a guild of musicians considered important enough to be thought of as the éminence grise of contemporary Afro-Caribbean music. This is because of a multiplicity of reasons. First and foremost Mr. Santos’ music wells up from his deep heart and soul and it cascades through his enormous intellect in the form of songs and suites that characterize this music. Here, on this album, Mr. Santos also forges a powerful musical collective—driven by the countless and exotic and colours of his percussive hands and fingers—which includes flutist and sometimes pianist Dr. John Calloway and the ever-sensitive and melodic bassist Saúl Sierra. The results of this composer, arranger, performer collective are immediately evident. The poignant moments that are exchanged by the radiant pings of stick on a variety of cymbals, cowbells and an assortment of percussion and the guttural utterings of bass, united by minor chords strung out like necklaces by the piano on the music of “Mr. Stallings” and “Que Sabroso”. On the latter chart the elasticity of the bass solo, with notes that echo and dally in the deliciously lower register is quite magnificent.

“Las Hermanas Mirabal” is typical of the great storytelling quality of this album. This has much to do with the elemental ache in the voice of Jerry Medina as he makes his way through the wake-like lyric. But it is the manner in which the instruments wend their way through the vocal, like a New Orleans funeral first wending their way through the narrow streets, as if on their weary way to a burial ground. Here Jerry González’s forlorn flugelhorn, with its melancholic manner entwines with Medina’s voice as part of an ensemble. Then, although the story is still sad, as if after the burial, things take a brighter turn to celebrate the life of the characters in the narrative. Here Mr. González remains contrite and mournful, yet harks to a sense of grasping at the impending liberation of the souls of the characters. All of this as the merengue rocks the (Afro-Caribbean-Afro American) funeral procession swings and sashays its way back to the “present reality” of the remarkable song. Jerry González returns—this time on trumpet—to give “Cuando Del Africa Salí” its very special character as he sings his way through the solo sequence almost as if he were singing a tragic aria.

This fabulous union of choral and instrumental elements lends an air of shimmering excellence throughout the album. Importantly the lyric element of the vocals is swathed in a thick stew of Rap, Creole, Lucumí, Spanish and English, all of which seems to come together in a most tasteful musical stew. The most outstanding examples of the choral gymnastics is palpable in the soaring introduction of “Cuando Del Africa Salí,” a roaring waterfall of a song that cascades into a rushing river of vocalastics and instruments spliced together by the colourful voices of the excited thunder and lightning of the percussion that leads seamlessly into segues by trumpet, piano, bass and drums. Then there is a cowl of almost monastic restraint about some of the music. It is as if in the expended of vocal, the music actually levitates to a rarified plane. This wonderful aspect of the music runs throughout what seems like an extended suite from “Ayití (Haití)” to the earthy atmosphere of “Domingo Yaucano”.

The fusion of Afro-Caribbean and the Afro-American jazz metaphor—especially in the superb rushes and vaunted arpeggios of Dr. Calloway’s flute—and European, especially evident in the rococo elements of pianism adds an altogether new element that may not have been explored in Vol. 1. The almost formal dance elements that add a bright and colourful dimension to the music and much of this has to do with the about face from extended improvisation to the simple danceable forms of music from “Domingo Yaucano” with its sudden rushes of blood from head to feet in the spectacularly subtle seashell notes emanating from the assortment played by the master Steve Turre, who also switches instruments to fill the air with his forlorn muted trombone ramblings. There is a wonderful rapport between Mr. Turre’s trombone and the voices of the choral group as the song fades into the distance. And there is also a wonderful staccato solo of the flute and the three-way counterpoint between the pulsating flute of Orlando “Maraca” Valle and Mr. Sierra’s bass and percussion of John Santos, as well as the call and response between voices and instruments in “Bronze y Oro,” until Steve Turre bring the music home with John Santos and company at the soaring end of the album when “Por Tu Hijos” finally comes to a close.

It might not be so bold to suggest that this remarkable musical journey by The John Santos Sextet may even be a rich addition to the language of music and not simply its significantly catalogue of literature. And for this the music heart and mind of John Santos deserves special mention.

Track list – Mr. Stallings; Que Sabroso (How Tasty); Las Hermanas Mirabal (The Mirabal Sisters); El Buen Camino The Good Path; Ayití (Haití); Cuando Del Africa Salí (When I Left Africa); Sin Ti No Hay Tú (There’s No You Without You); Domingo Yaucano; Bronze Y Oro (Bronze and Gold); Por Tus Hijos (For Your Children).

Personnel – Dr. John Calloway: piano (1, 10), flute (3 – 5, 7), alto flute, coro (8), composer, arranger; Melecio Magdaluyo: tenor saxophone (1 – 5, 7), alto saxophone (10), flute (8), coro (7); Saúl Sierra: acoustic bass (1, 2, 5, 7), electric bass (3), baby bass (4, 6, 8, 9 10), composer, arranger; Marco Díaz: trumpet (1, 10), piano (2 – 5, 8), composer, arranger; David Flores: drums (1 – 4, 7) set; John Santos: chékere (1, 3, 5, 9), percussion (1, 3, 4, 5, 8), gong (1), Balafón (1), bell (1, 4, 8, 10), cluster bells (8), gankoguis (1), tumbadores (2, 4, 5, 9), tambora (3), claves (2), campana (2, 3, 5, 7), bongos (2, 5, 7), maracas (2, 5), güiro (4), udu (4), barriles (5, 6), caxixi (5, 6, 8), quijada (5), ocean drum (5), vodun drums (5), quinto (6), cajón (6), guacharo (7, 10), waterphone (8), nature effects (8), lead voice (1), coro (2, 3, 5 – 10), composer; Rico Pabón: spoken word (2), coro (2, 3, 5 – 10), Jerry Medina: lead voice (2, 7), trumpet (2, 7); Jerry González: flugelhorn (3), trumpet (7), Sandy Pérez: bonko (6), iyá (batá) (6, 9), yanoto (Arará) (6), caya (9), quinto (9), Luis Cancino: tumbadores, campanas (Bricamo), cajón, guegue, okoto (Arará) (6); Iluminado Maldonado: lead and duo vocals, claves (6); Quique Dávila: accordion (7); Juan Gutiérrez: barril, lead voice (8), pandereta (requinto) (10); Alex Lasalle: lead voice (5), barril (primo) (8), pandereta (10); Héctor Lugo: barril (8), pandereta (10); Anna Pérez: lead voice (6, 8); Orestes Vilató: timbales (6); Steve Turre: trombone (8, 10), seashells (8); Orlando “Maraca” Valle: flute (9); Orlando Torriente: lead voice (10); Sandra García Rivera: coro( 2, 3, 5 – 10); Julia Gutiérrez Rivera: coro (8); Elena Pinderhughes: coro (2, 6, 7, 9, 10); Ismael Rodríguez: coro (2, 6, 7, 9, 10); José Luis Gómez: coro (2, 6, 7, 9, 10) Willie Ludwig: coro (3, 5, 10).

Released – 2013
Label – Machete Records
Runtime – 1:12:00

Based in Milton, Ontario, Canada, Raul is a poet, musician and an accomplished critic whose profound analysis is reinforced by his deep understanding of music, technically as well as historically.

Albums

Claudia Acuña – Ave de Luz: Chilean Jazz and Soul – A Bird of Light Returns Home

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Singer Songwriter Claudia Acuña
Singer Songwriter Claudia Acuña

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.

Claudia Acuña – Ave de Luz: Chilean Jazz and Soul (album cover)
Claudia Acuña – Ave de Luz: Chilean Jazz and Soul (album cover)

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.

PLAYLIST (7 TRACKS) – CLAUDIA ACUÑA – AVE DE LUZ

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

  1. Chinga La Ka Chinga – (Claudia Acuña, Coch, Hernandez & Serka) – 4:43
  2. Ave de Luz– (Mario Rojas) – 5:48
  3. Viento del Sur– (Claudia Acuña & Jason Lindner) – 6:01
  4. Rezo– (Claudia Acuña) – 3:49
  5. Piececitos de Niño– (Based on a poem of Gabriela Mistral / Music by Claudia Acuña) – 6:10
  6. Un Gorro de Lana– (Víctor Acosta) – 4:18
  7. 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.

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Eva Cortés’ La Malinche: Between Memory, Identity and Resistance

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Eva Cortés - Photo courtesy of the artist
Jazz Vocalist, Composer and Songwriter Eva Cortés

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.

La Malinche - Eva Cortés (album cover)
La Malinche – Eva Cortés (album cover)

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.

PLAYLIST (11 TRACKS) – EVA CORTÉS – LA MALINCHE

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

  1. Abuelita Malinche — 4:35
  2. A Tribo do Vento — 5:46
  3. Soy el Aire — 5:31
  4. Light and Sorrow — 3:59
  5. Hij@s del Maíz — 4:24
  6. Letters to Heaven — 5:04
  7. Remember Me — 3:28
  8. Sur Global — 5:43
  9. No Me Limites — 4:33
  10. Indians of All Tribes — 3:53
  11. 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
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Roni Ben-Hur Opens New Musical Doors Between New York and Havana on “Abriendo Puertas”

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Jazz guitarist Roni Ben-Hur
Jazz guitarist Roni Ben-Hur - Photo: www.ronibenhur.com

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.

Roni Ben-Hur - Abriendo Puertas (cover art)
Roni Ben-Hur – Abriendo Puertas (cover art)

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.

PLAYLIST (7 TRACKS) – RONI BEN-HUR – ABRIENDO PUERTAS

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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