David Buchbinder’s Odessa/Havana

Cuban music is usually considered to be West African and Spanish in origin, but its roots run deeper. In recent years, musicians have explored links between the elegant early- 20th-century music of Cuba and Algeria. Similarly, Canadian trumpeter David Buchbinder crosses Cuba and klezmer with his band Odessa/Havana. The organic historical link between the two apparently distant cultures can be discerned in the moody minor chords that passed from the Near East through Russian Jewish settlements and into Moorish Spain alike. Buchbinder slips easily between both worlds, melding influences in the context of a contemporary jazz big band.