June 24th, Kilbourn Hall @ 6:00 & 10:00 pm

Although I came to it like a lot of us through Ry Cooder's film and album The Buena Vista Social Club, the Afro-Cuban jazz coming from ninety miles off the coast of Florida has since been a growing part of my collection. This music really gets inside of me. Ninety Miles is a project of three young and critically-acclaimed U.S. jazz musicians—vibist Stefon Harris, saxophonist David Sánchez and trumpeter Christian Scott—who have collaborated in the Nintey Miles project to create a collection of music that evoke the spirit of Cuba while also retaining their own unique approach to jazz. Recorded in Havana with talented Cuban pianists Rember Duharte and Harold López-Nussa, each leading their own quartets, the 9-song set was an experiment examining the chemistry that can happen musicians from different cultures come together and talk in the only language they share, with a result that is a collaboration that disregards the political borders that for too long has kept us apart from this great music being played in the place it was born, and by or with those who have nurtured it. 

Check Ninety Miles out below, performing at the Heineken Jazz Festival in Puerto Rico last year:

Like the BVSC, there is a documentary. Here is the trailer for it:

This is one of my must sees, so you'll be seeing me in line at Kilbourn on the 24th. Early or late show to be determined....