Album: David Buchbinder

Odessa/Havana, Tzadik

The hitherto unexplored common ground between Jewish and Cuban music is covered very effectively in this Canadian project by trumpeter and composer Buchbinder with pianist Hilario Duran and a joint jazz and Afro-Cuban ensemble. As expected, there's lots of Arabic, Gypsy and Sephardic-sounding elements, reflecting points of origin in the Iberian peninsula, mixed with terrific habanera rhythms, Latin percussion and mambo dance forms. While a blurb warns that the result is as far from Fiddler on the Roof meets Desi Arnaz as you can get, that's actually when it sounds the best, as "Oy Vey!" becomes "Ole!".

Download this 'Lailadance': where mambo meets a soulful klezmer lament