Habana Dreams

A conguero who sings, rather well, Pedrito Martinez has been building a reputation on the New York Latin music scene since moving there in 1998. The historic lifting of the US embargo on Cuba enabled him to go back to Havana to record this album in his old neighbourhood's famous Areito/EGREM studios. Martinez's group is a piano-led, percussion-rich quartet steeped in the native son tradition and reinforced by some notable guest stars. Kicking things off confidently, ‘Mi Tempestad’ features local spoken-word artist Telmary Díaz and the trumpet of Wynton Marsalis, who has used Martinez in one of his Lincoln Center big band projects. On the following ‘Compa Galletano’, Martinez shares vocals with legendary sonero Rubén Blades (who features with Marsalis again on his own composition, ‘Antadilla’). Descemer Bueno, a former Yerba Buena bandmate, contributes the delicious ‘Dios Mio’, while the interplay in between traditional batá drums and the incantations of guest vocalist Roman Diaz is particularly affecting on ‘Encantamiento Yoruba’. Appropriately enough, Angélique Kidjo sings in Yoruba on the following ‘Tributo a Santiago de Cuba’.

All these glittering individual parts enhance rather than over-egg the CD and add up to a rich, varied album that exudes class and sophistication.