Harold López-Nussa: Timba a la Americana feat. Grégoire Maret with Luques Curtis & Ruy Adrian López-Nussa

Dinner Special:
Roast Chicken with Mandarins & Fennel
Rice Pilaf
House Salad & Baguette
*meat & veggie chili will be available to order at the counter

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Cuban-born pianist and composer Harold López-Nussa begins an exciting new chapter of his fascinating career with Timba a la Americana, a vibrant album and project teeming with joy and pathos that was inspired by the pianist’s recent decision to leave his Cuban homeland and begin a new life in France. Timba a la Americana unveils a brand-new sound across ten dynamic original compositions performed by a tight-knit band featuring harmonica virtuoso Grégoire Maret, Luques Curtis on bass, and Harold’s brother Ruy Adrián López-Nussa on drums.

López-Nussa 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. López-Nussa 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 ported him back to the rhythmic communication that was part of his everyday life in Cuba. “It’s almost like I needed to think about Cuba from far away,” López-Nussa says. “I was having all these feelings of challenge, new life, new things going on for us. It was a lot of new, and of course that would be reflected in the music, but I was still feeling this conflict: I want this music to sound like Cuba, but how can it if I’m not there?” The result: Timba a la Americana, a provocative, lavishly colorful, effortlessly unified song cycle that amounts to a top-to-bottom modernization of Latin jazz.

Harold López-Nussa Website
(Ticket Includes 5% City of Santa Cruz Admission Tax)