John Santos presents Pável Urkiza and Ricardo Pons

De Akokán, which means “from the heart” in Yoruba, is a project based on the 2011 duo album Buscando la esquina by Ukranainian-born Cuban singer-songwriter Pavel Urkiza and Puerto Rican reed expert Ricardo Pons. This collaboration explores filín, an expansive Cuban song style that draws heavily on jazz, and rhythms from West Africa, Brazil, the Mediterranean, and India.

Far more than a master percussionist, John Santos is an invaluable educator and cultural activist, a keeper of the Afro-Caribbean… Show more flame steeped in Cuban and Puerto Rican folkloric traditions as well as salsa and Latin jazz. Born and raised in San Francisco’s Mission District amidst an extended family of Puerto Rican musicians, he’s been at the center of the Bay Area’s Latin music scene for nearly four decades. As a visionary bandleader and noted historian, he has served on the Smithsonian Institution’s Latin Jazz Advisory Committee.

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