Harold López-Nussa

Harold traces the origins of Timba a la Americana to a day during his family’s first winter after leaving Cuba to live in Toulouse, France. It was cold, he was homesick. Harold found himself flipping through voice memos on his phone, listening to jams and fragments of song ideas he’d documented years before. These happened on gigs, or in the music space of his home, or on the street when he was seized with an idea. The little seedlings of songs took him back to the rhythmic communication that was part of his everyday life in Cuba.

The result is Timba a la Americana, a provocative, lavishly colorful, effortlessly unified song cycle that amounts to a top-to-bottom modernization of Latin jazz. Harold knew he was onto something when, prompted by one of the phone fragments, he found himself exploring the wistful mood that became Mal du Pays, a plaintive theme saturated with the bittersweet longing Brazilians call saudade. That dynamic guides everything on Timba a la Americana from rhythm-forward riffs (Funky) to more intricate journeys (Afro en Toulouse) to pieces that suggest surreal mashups of the folkloric and the futuristic (Conga a la Americana)

Timba a la Americana doesn’t sound like any of the previous records under Harold’s name. Harold regards this work more expansive & ambitious and suggests that it might not have happened without the support of Blue Note President Don Was. At its root, the material on Timba a la Americana is derived from a thriving and still-evolving lineage of Afro-Cuban dance music, connecting that magnetic energy to the spontaneous interplay associated with jazz. The blend of elements, the mezcla, is different on each tune, but the idea of live exchange prevails throughout.

Line-Up:

Harold López-Nussa: piano

Grégoire Maret: harmonica

Luques Curtis: bass

Bárbaro «Machito» Crespo: congas

Ruy Adrián López-Nussa: drums

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