Chucho Valdés - Tribute to Irakere: still making jaws hit the floor

Founded in Havana in 1973 by pianist Chucho Valdés, Irakere was the undisputed powerhouse of Afro-Cuban jazz, numbering giants like Arturo Sandoval and Paquito D'Rivera among its alumni.

The band’s live recordings from the Newport Jazz Festival and Ronnie Scott’s in London were Rosetta Stones for a generation of jazz musicians, connecting the language of bebop to the complex rhythms of Cuban dance.

Now in his 70s, Chucho is still shredding pianos and making jaws hit the floor. This recording from the Marciac festival, featuring a new generation of Cuban virtuosos, digs out the original Irakere charts and proves that they are still as audacious as ever. At the piano, meanwhile, Maestro Valdés proves that he has lost none of his astonishing inventiveness.