The Toronto Sun n Friday, May 13, 2011
Odessa/havana
NOW
HEAR
THIS!
Errol’s can’t miss list
1
Tonight’s Tribute to
Stevie Wonder at the
El Mo features Sacha
Williamson and DJ’s
Paul E. Lopes and Son
of S.O.U.L. 9 p.m. $15.
464 Spadina Ave.
2
Blue Midnight III: A
Tribute to Little Walter
turns Hugh’s Room
into harp heaven on
Sunday. 8 p.m. $32.50.
2261 Dundas St. W.
3
Don’t miss the TSO’s
A Night at the Cotton
Club, featuring music
by legendary jazz cats
like Duke Ellington,
Cab Calloway and
Louis Armstrong and
tap dancer Ted Levy.
Tuesday at 8 p.m. and
Wednesday at 2 and 8
p.m. Roy Thomson Hall.
www.tso.ca
Jewish/Cuban mashup
Meshing musical styles is a Toronto specialty — the latest is Odessa/Havana
Whenever a group from
our city successfully meshes
styles I never imagined would
work well together, I often feel
that Toronto is one of very few
places in the world capable of
producing such genre-bend-
ing bands.
Odessa/Havana is one of
them.
Comprising virtuosos such
as trumpeter David Buch-
binder — who started the
group with pianist Hilario
Duran — drummer Dafnis
Prieto, violinist Quinsin Nach-
off and percussionist Rick
Lazar, the nine-man army
offer a spirited mix of Cuban,
klezmer and jazz.
In the hands of this adven-
turous lot, these musical
styles mesh exquisitely and
make me realize how so-
called dissimilar styles have
errol
nazareth
Rhythms N’ Rhymes
so much in common.
You can hear this explo-
sive Jewish/Cuban musi-
cal mashup when Odessa/
Havana play Lula Lounge
Sunday as part of the 10-day
long Lulaworld 2011 festival
of world music that began
earlier this week.
Buchbinder, who plays in
various bands and has com-
posed for films, says he began
bringing Afro-Cuban elements
into his previous band, the
Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band,
back in the day just because it
sounded good.
“I played salsa in Germany
in the early ’80s before I’d
heard klezmer with a band of
Puerto Ricans, South Ameri-
cans and Americans and that
got the music into my blood,”
he says.
“After a while, I realized
that I should park (the idea
for Odessa/Havana) until I
was ready to bring the two
styles together in a really
g ro u n d e d w ay , a n d t h a t
would be by partnering with
someone with Cuban roots.
Once I met Hilario and saw
how musically open he was
and how he was grounded
in the Cuban tradition in the
deepest way, I realized we
could do it together.”
You might expect that mar-
r ying two complex music
styles would be a massive
challenge, but Buchbinder
surprises me when he says
the main hurdle was get-
ting all the players under one
roof.
“This is a band of highly
accomplished individuals
who each have numerous
projects that they lead and
participate in,” he says.
If anything, that’s a tes-
tament to the calibre of the
musicians involved in Odessa/
Havana.
“Other than that, I can’t say
there are any great creative
challenges, except keeping
the compositions in that glo-
riously undefined zone of cre-
ating something new between
two related cultures.”
Buchbinder says the group
would like audiences to “walk
away with a sense of satisfac-
tion from a musical story well
told, to feel excitement, the
SHOWBIZ 87
genius of culture doing the
eternal dance of transforma-
tion, and a sense of the possi-
bility of connection between
seemingly disparate sounds
and communities.
“We’d like people to feel
equally moved in their
head, heart and feet and to
feel like there’s more to be
heard.”
NOTE: Odessa/Havana play
Lula Lounge Sunday. 8 p.m.
$20. 1585 Dundas St. W. 416-
588-0307.
Lulaworld 2011 contin-
ues with Daniela Nardi sing-
ing songs off her new album,
Espresso Manifesto, on
Wednesday; Dominic Man-
cuso with Roberto Occhip-
inti Thursday; Roberto Lin-
ares Brown next Saturday,
and Aline Morales next Sun-
day.