ENGLISH: Perspectiva is the auspicious (and audacious) debut album by one of the winners of JoJazz 2017, Marcos Morales. Mature beyond the years of its protagonists, Perspectiva provides the listener with an excellent panorama of many current trends in Jazz in Cuba.
ESPAÑOL: Perspectiva es el álbum debut auspicioso (y audaz) de uno de los ganadores de JoJazz 2017, Marcos Morales. Maduro más allá de los años de sus protagonistas, Perspectiva ofrece al oyente un excelente panorama de muchas de las tendencias actuales del jazz en Cuba.

Highly accomplished and acclaimed pianist Michael Eckroth offers up his most recent recording as a leader entitled Piano & Rhythm. Both a "nod to the piano masters of the past as well as a showcase for Eckroth’s own identity as a composer", this is an exquisitely recorded and performed album from top to bottom.

Parafrasear by Frasis is a mostly-instrumental album of Cuban popular music by a Fusion group in Cuba centered about a string quartet and a rhythm section. Before you scoff, consider that in Finland, Apocalyptica is performing some very entertaining Heavy Metal with cellos. It works if you know what you're doing, and Frasis does.

Planeta Planetario features Diana Fuentes, an excellent vocalist, in a few different Pop music styles. It should be noted that the term "Pop" (as opposed to Nueva Trova) applies to music more or less similar to the rest of the world's use of the term.

Timberos, it appears that Tiempo Libre really, really, really wants you back. That's b-a-c-k, NOT b-a-c-h. They are getting back to their origins at the very moment when some other Timba bands are running away from theirs for the promise of somethingorother. Exhibit A is the first video inside...

Pure Mezcla is a live recording by Pablo Menéndez and Mezcla, recorded live at Yoshi's Oakland in 2013 and released in February 2015. Several critics and a battallion of Latin Jazz and World Music DJs love it. Since one TIMBA.com member produced it (Bill Tilford) and another mastered it (Michael Lazarus), we'll let those other critics tell you how good it is.

Pentajazz is an intriguing independent release by one of the best Jazz violinists in Cuba today, Julio Valdés Fuentes. It includes a few of the heavy hitters in the current Jazz scene in La Habana.

This is a recording of a phenomenal concert by Palo! at the now-shuttered PAX Miami. Some video clips of this performance also appear in the PBS documentary Miami Boheme. Powerful vocals by Leslie Cartaya, serious Afro Cuban Funk beats, and Ed Calle goes insane on tenor sax.

So many high-caliber bands are putting on good concerts these days that it is worth noting when one of them goes the extra mile and puts on a real Show (if you don't get the difference, that means you've never seen the latter). PMO did that in Gary, Indiana to help kick off their national tour.

Winner of the Cubadisco award for Popular Dance Music in 2013, Pasaporte is Timba (or Cuban Salsa if you prefer) at its very best.

Well-done big band Mambo from a rising band based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Firmly based in tradition but with some modern touches as well.

This beautiful trio recording has Ernán at the grand piano and incorporates elements from much of the history of Cuban and US popular music and Jazz as well as his classical training. For those who only know of Ernán from his work with Afro-Cuban groups, this shows a different side of his talents.

By 1995 Charanga Habanera and their second album, Hey You Loca, had become a major sensation in Havana. Their concerts were packed with young "Charangueros" who danced and dressed as they did and knew all of their songs, each of which became, in rapid succession, a huge radio hit. With the band's popularity reaching "mania" proportions....