Harold López-Nussa – Timba a la Americana

Harold López-Nussa, piano; Luques Curtis, bass; Grégoire Maret, harmonica; Ruy López-Nussa, drums

Cuba is an island with widely branched musical family trees, and it is not uncommon for them to yield excellent pianists. Harold López-Nussa is certainly one of them. Chucho Valdés describes him as “at the forefront of a new generation of musicians”, and a pianist with “a subtle sound, brilliant ideas, and a unique musical style.” With numerous albums as band leader under his belt, he has taken audiences worldwide by storm with his infectious energy. Harold López-Nussa's latest album and his first on Blue Note Records, Timba a la Americana is closely linked to his personal life. Melancholy and homesickness, the longing for “the colours, the food, the people and the ocean”, the homeland he left behind in late 2021, when he moved from Cuba to Toulouse, France, with his wife and two daughters, are interlinked with the excitement about starting a new life and the experience of discovering new milieus, environments both personal and musical. His compositions are a musical record, a view of Cuba “from the outside”. 

The album is the result of López-Nussa's long friendship with Michael League, Snarky Puppy producer and bassist, who produced the album, and the “blessing” of Don Was, President of the notable Blue Note Records, who’d been keeping track of López-Nussa in Havana for a long time. Their joint effort culminated in an eclectic album that the Rolling Stone magazine hails as “a true jewel of Latin jazz”.

“Timba is the popular music that we make in Cuba today, it is the modern salsa that in Cuba we call timba, but also a dish, a guava paste that we eat with cheese. And Americana because there were several Americans, North Americans, involved in the project,” is Harold López-Nussa’s explanation of the album's title. It features ten dynamic original compositions performed by a tight-knit band featuring harmonica virtuoso Grégoire Maret, who works with legendary musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny and Cassandra Wilson, bassist Luques Curtis, an alumnus of the prestigious Berklee College of Music and member of the Eddie Palmieri band, Bárbaro “Machito” Crespo on congas who gave the album a deep touch of Afro-Cuban roots, and the musician Harold’s been playing with his whole life, his favourite drummer and brother, Ruy Adrián López-Nussa. 

They are making their Cankarjev dom debut as a quartet, and judging from their excellent credentials, we are in for a virtuoso ride, and inspiring and thrilling musical adventure.