Remarkably, more Cuban bands have played the United States during the last two years than in the last three decades.
The unofficial thaw in relations between the two countries has been a boon, offering a long overdue taste of musical developments on the island.
In Chicago, no institution has promoted Cuban music more assiduously than HotHouse, Marguerite Horberg’s adventurous club. Even when HotHouse was homeless, Horberg was presenting top Cuban bands wherever she could find a decent space.
Now that HotHouse has re-emerged in a spacious South Loop setting, Horberg is reigniting the Havana-Chicago connection. Over the weekend, the club imported one of the best of the young ensembles, Mezcla, a septet that deserves broader recognition in this country.
They bill themselves as “Cuba’s Roots-Fusion Ensemble,” but the motto doesn’t begin to capture the range of Mezcla’s musical influences. Traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms, classic American blues riffs, Coltrane-tinged saxophone lines, vintage Cuban dance forms–Mezcla touches on all these elements, and then some.
Yet the players take pains to make their music accessible and inviting to the uninitiated. That they do so without compromising the sophistication or subtlety of their work makes them equally appealing to musical aficionados and casual listeners.
The band opened its first set on Saturday night with a vintage mambo by esteemed Cuban pianist-bandleader Chucho Valdes. Certainly one didn’t expect a group of young players to begin by paying homage to a venerable master, nor did one anticipate a performance as stylistically persuasive as this.
But perhaps by dispatching music of Valdes with such authenticity and authority, Mezcla was establishing its place in the evolution of Afro-Cuban music. The tradition continues uninterrupted, the band seemed to be saying, even if that tradition changes gradually over time.
It didn’t take long into this set, however, before Mezcla was venturing into somewhat less familiar musical territory. Long and chant-like lines on soprano saxophone, blues-drenched solos on electric guitar and big and splashy chord clusters on keyboard suggested the members of Mezcla have been keeping up with developments in American jazz, blues and avant-garde music.
The magic is in the way they weave distinctly American forms of musical improvisation into Cuban song structures. Perhaps the musical languages of the two nations blend so easily because they share roots in ancient African music, but the instrumental virtuosity of Mezcla has something to do with it, as well.
And when the members of Mezcla put down their instruments to sing, their voices blending in exquisite harmony, there’s no doubt that this ensemble could seduce audiences anywhere.
