Album Notes

In the last several decades, the level of international dominance which Cuban musicians have achieved in Jazz, Latin and related musical genres, has been quite out of proportion to this island's population of approximately ten million people. Even within this rich and diverse crowd of fantastically talented and creative musicians, Pablo Menéndez' story stands out as colorful and unique. Pablo was born in Oakland, California, son of the well known blues and folk singer Barbara Dane. Pablo came to study in Havana in the 1960's. In 1970, he joined the seminal Grupo de Experimentación Sonora del ICAIC ( i.e. the experimental sound collective of the Cuban Film Institute) which was known for its experimental fusion of Cuban genres with North American, Brazilian and Classical styles. At the Film Institute, he composed film music and Cuban jazz / rock fusion pieces, as well as arranging songs by the band's singer-songwriters Pablo Milanés, Silvio Rodríguez and Sara González. After this decisive experience, Pablo Menéndez worked in two equally important bands. The first was Sonido Contemporaneo, led by sax player Nicolás Reinoso. It functioned as the "house band" at the "El Río" club, the center of the Cuban jazz scene of the '70s and a good part of the '80s. Another alumnus of that band was pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba! The other band was Carlos Alfonso's group, Síntesis which achieved a very sophisticated fusion of elements of Nueva Trova, Rock and Jazz Rock, with Afro-Cuban Yoruba music. In the minds of most of his Cuban and international audience, however, Pablo is most closely associated with Mezcla, the fantastic Afro-Cuban Jazz rock septet he founded in 1985. Pablo has been leading Mezcla to the present day, on countless gigs in Cuba, many international tours to Europe and the U.S., and on several critically acclaimed recordings. Pablo also opened the way, in the mid '90s, for other Cuban musicians to tour the United States. When Mezcla's visas were denied in 1993, U.S. public opinion and various members of Congress mobilized to protest. Among the protesters was the legendary guitarist Carlos Santana, the spearhead of Latin Rock, who stated in an interview with the San Francisco Examiner that Mezcla was his favorite band from Cuba. When Pablo traveled to San Francisco without the visa-less band to perform at theEncuentro del Canto Popular Festival, Santana joined Pablo onstage. Although it was the first time they had played together and there was no rehearsal, Pablo says "it was as if we had been playing together forever and knew each other's minds: different ways of speaking the same language. But what more can I say about Carlos, one of the all-time great artists of the guitar!" Chucho Valdés' Mambo Influenciado is one of the great standards in contemporary Cuban music. "Since most recordings of this song I know are based on the piano, I wanted to do a guitar version, short and fast!", Pablo explains. Akete Oba Oba is an instrumental version of an old Yoruba chant that Pablo arranged for the album Mezcla did in 1991 with Lazaro Ros, the famous singer of Cuban Yoruba song, "Cantos: Lazaro Ros & Mezcla." In the over 500 year-old tradition of Regla de Ocha religion, it is a song to the Orisha or God "Obatalá". La Gitana could be described as a piece of Flamenco-Cuban Jazz fusion! It was written by Miguel Miranda who has the rather unique talent of playing bass and congas, at the same time! This song was inspired by Pablo's sister Nina who is a great Flamenco singer. Sueño con Serpientes and Quien Fuera are instrumental versions of a couple of Pablo's favorite songs by one of Cuba's - and the whole Spanish language's - most important singer-songwriters, Silvio Rodríguez. Bonnie's Blues Mambo was written by Pablo in 1999, in tribute to blues singer and guitarist Bonnie Raitt. Bonnie visited Cuba and met Pablo in 1999 as part of the "Bridge to Havana" songwriting workshop, with a