Our jam in Havana

"It's the most important recording made in the last 20 years in Cuba." So said timbales player Amadito Valdes, one of the 30 or so musicians who came together in Havana in November, 1979, to take part in what was to become one of the key recordings in Cuban musical history. It was a state-sponsored project aimed at reasserting the Cuban belief that the country was the real source of salsa, or son music, as it was called on the Caribbean island. Top musicians such as (the lately rediscovered) pianist, Ruben Gonzalez, Richard Egues, Nino Rivera, Felix Chappotin, and others, were drawn from different bands, but the resultant recordings, which were released first as five albums on the Areito label and now resurface on these two well-documented CDs, betray no sense of unfamiliarity. The players surf the rippling rhythms with an easy dexterity that belies the complexity of the music. As the sleeve notes tell us: "Estrellas is not simply an orchestra formed by celebrities for the purpose of recording, but rather a flexible and incredibly open platform for a group of musicians to use their imagination and display their virtuosity in several varieties of Cuban music." Years may have passed but these inspired sessions still resonate with the unbridled joy of musicians flexing their fingers.