Cuban Jazz Report

Thanks to its state-sponsored conservatoires Cuba has long been a petri dish for maestro-worthy musicality. Cuban Jazz Report is a case in point. Here are four crack instrumentalists who among them have buoyed such stellar acts as Richard Bona, Concha Buika, Roberto Fonseca and Chucho Valdes, and who in 2014 achieved mythological status via Cuban Nights, a must-see live European tour put together by conguero (and vocalist) Eliel Lazo. An album has been a long time coming but this one rewards the wait, with the original quartet – Lazo, bassist Yasser Pino, kit drummer Raúl Pineda and pianist Javier ‘Caramelo’ Massó – reassembled and firing on all cylinders.

The Denmark-based Lazo, a protégé of the great percussionist Tata Güines, is key, having co-produced, written five of the 11 tracks, and thrown in bold arrangements in which harmony, melody and clave-based Afro-Cuban rhythms work in tandem. It's a benchmark to which the others deftly rise. Massó has a way with texture and tumbao; Pino is all quick-thinking muscular ballast; Pineda, the timekeeper, drives things forward with kaleidoscopic flair. The players’ telepathy, of course, is what makes this album shine. Solos and descargas while head-shakingly good, are to the point, and never overdone. Proof that the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.