Award-winning trumpeter and composer David Buchbinder teams up with JUNO-winning pianist and composer Hilario Durán and a crew of Canada’s top jazz and world musicians to present this exciting Jewish-Cuban fusion. Working with award-winning producer (and band member) Roberto Occhipinti, the ensemble has captured the fresh, fiery and innovative sound that ignited audiences at Lula World 2007 and their sold-out debut performance at the Ashkenaz Festival 2006. The recording will be released this November on John Zorn’s Tzadik label.

Odessa/Havana is a high-powered collision of two great musical styles predated but not predicted by the Jewish-fuelled, American Mambo craze of the 1950s. Working from the roots of each tradition and finding many areas of sonic commonality, Buchbinder and Durán have crafted a sound that is unique and compelling, challenging listeners comfortable genre preconceptions. This is as about as far from Fiddler on the Roof meets Desi Arnaz as you can get!

While the cities and cultures of Odessa and Havana might seem many miles apart, their musical associations are many-faceted, multi-layered and rich indeed, rooted in their common ancestry on the Iberian peninsula and sharing Arabic, Roma (Gypsy), Sephardic and North African forebears. The two musics already share haunting minor modalities, improvisatory flourishes, a strong rhythmic drive and deeply spiritual underpinnings. Buchbinder and Durán’s compositions explore these commonalities as they break new ground, creating a truly unprecedented sound.

Odessa/Havana is also emblematic of what might be termed post-multicultural creation, something that is increasingly happening in Canada’s major urban centres as mature musicians from diverse musical and cultural backgrounds meet, collaborate and create new sounds that transcend countries and cultures of origin. It is no coincidence that Odessa/Havana was born in the musical ferment of downtown Toronto, where there is so much natural experimentation occurring, and where musicians and creators from many different backgrounds are coming together in an a staggering array of projects.

The musicians of Odessa/Havana, on recording and in performance, truly represent the cream of the crop in Canada and beyond. This is an ensemble of incredible, award-winning instrumentalists, bandleaders, producers and educators whose performing, producing and compositional credits read like a Who’s Who of the international world jazz and pop scene.

They are:

David Buchbinder (trumpet/composer), Hilario Durán (piano/composer), Quinsin Nachoff (reeds/flute),
Aleksander Gajic (violin), Luis Guerra (piano), Mark Kelso (drums), Rick Shadrach Lazar (percussion),
Dafnis Prieto (drums), Jorges Luis “Papiosco” Torres (percussion) and Roberto Occhipinti (bass/producer)