HAVANA BLUE
The Havana Blue project includes mainly compositions that I had written during 2013 and 2014 for my Akashmani Ensemble for live performances. My interest in Cuban music and the Latin musical tradition as a whole developed after I listened to the music of the late composer, arranger, and pianist Bebo Valdés (1918-2013), one of the leading artists in the Havana scene in the fifties, whose career, after an interruption of more than thirty years, restarted gloriously in 1994 until his death. 
 
In December 2015, while I was in Havana I had the fortune to meet the granddaughter of Bebo - Leyanis Valdés, daughter of Chucho Valdés, a pianist and co-leader together with her brother Jessie of a band that regularly performs in Havana jazz clubs. After she kindly agreed to take part in the recording of my compositions, Yuniet Lombida, her musical collaborator and saxophone player, helped me organize the band, and in a short time, we had some of the best musicians available to form a Cuban version of the Akashmani Ensemble.