With its mix of Caribbean, African and European rhythms, Latin Jazz has always been an evolving fusion of music. Taking the form forward are the pianists like Chucho Valdés, who revolutionised Cuban music with Irakere, the fusion group he founded in Havana in 1973, before joining the Blue Note roster in the 1990s.

Treading in the formidable footsteps of Chucho Valdés, and another great Cuban pianist on Blue Note, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, is Havana’s Harold López-Nussa. “Chucho and Gonzalo are both my reference and inspiration so I am blessed to be following them at Blue Note,” he says. “I learned so much from them both, but it’s too much for me to think of myself as a continuation.”

Living with his family in Toulouse, Southern France, since 2021, López-Nussa signed to Blue Note in 2023, after a string of albums for the Mack Avenue label, to release the boundary-pushing “Timba a la Americana”. Two years on, he has now released the similarly innovative follow up “Nueva Timba”, recorded live at Le Duc des Lombards, Paris, then reshaped and enhanced by López-Nussa in the studio. “I remember hearing my first Blue Note vinyl albums in my grandmother’s house in Havana, so it’s like a dream come true to be on the label. I still can’t quite believe it,” he says.

Harold López-Nussa was brought up in a deeply musical household in the culturally vibrant neighbourhood of Vedado, Havana. “My grandmother was a piano player like my mother, who was also a piano teacher [the late Mayra Torres] and my father was a drummer [Ruy López-Nussa},” he says. “So me and my brother [who has played drums with Harold since his early days] grew up in this kind of atmosphere. And that was very natural for us.”

Both his Blue Note albums were recorded after López-Nussa and his family moved from this deep rooted musical life in Havana to Toulouse. “Havana is so rich in music, it’s all around you whether it’s going to concerts or rumba sessions or jamming with friends, so the change was very difficult,” he says. “The first year was really hard for me as I really didn’t feel like I belonged here.”

As well as yearning for home, the move made López-Nussa look at the music of his homeland from the outside for the first time. “When I signed to Blue Note, I had this idea to bring in something very different from my old perspective of Cuban music,” he says. “I wanted to experiment with lots of things and [Blue Note president] Don Was really gave me complete freedom to do that.”

To help him break the constraints of convention, he called on Michael League of Snarky Puppy as producer and co-writer. “Michael had been a friend for some years, so we started talking about ideas and then got into the studio with the band (Ruy Adrián López-Nussa on drums, Grégoire Maret on harmonic, Luques Curtis on bass, Bárbaro “Machito” Crespo on congas and Michael League on various synths),” says López-Nussa. “Then after that Michael added some more elements of his own. So it was really interesting to hear the music evolve. That really opened my mind to the possibilities of the studio.”

Released in 2023, two years after his move to Toulouse, “Timba a la Americana” breathed new life into Latin Jazz, with López-Nussa – who played keyboards for the first time on the album – and League reimagining the old clave patterns of Cuban music through the modern pulse of electronics and studio experimentation. “It’s my goal to take the traditions with a lot of respect and to mix it with other influences, rhythms and harmonies,” continues López-Nussa. “But it takes time to do this because the Cuban music and culture is very rich. So there are a lot of things to learn before you can try to do something new in our own way.”

Originally planned as a straight live album of recordings made during three nights at Duc des Lombards in Paris with his brother Ruy Adrian López-Nussa on drums alongside Luques Curtis on bass and harmonica virtuoso Grégoire Maret, “Nueva Timba” went into a different sonic direction as López-Nussa drew on his studio awakening. “That experience of working with Michael really helped guide what I am doing on this new album,” he says. “I had too much music to choose from those three nights so I started thinking what about if I start breaking it down and then adding something extra. When I got into the studio, I started putting in some Rhodes and other new sounds and crazy effects. Then I did a lot of work here at home on my computer. It was a real mix of things.”

As well as his own compositions like the storming fusion number “Cerca y Lejo”, “Nueva Timba” features an inspired modernisation of Beny Moré’s “Bonito y Sabroso”, with López-Nussa reconstructing the big band classic from the 1950s into a heavy slab of psych-tinged Latin Jazz for today. “I love Benny Moré, his music, his thinking and his spirit, and this was one of my favourites,” says López-Nussa. “We started playing it with the group and changing things every night, then taking it in the studio and experimenting. It was a really fun one to do.”

Other sonic innovations can be heard on the re-interpretation of the Cuban standard “El Manisero”. “On this album I was really interested in that kind of experimentation in the way you mix things in the studio and the different vibrations you can get,” says López-Nussa. “On this one, I wanted it to sound like the music was coming from an old radio station.”

Also notable is “Niña Con Violin” with López-Nussa and his band in full flight on a number composed by Harold’s uncle Ernán López-Nussa, pianist and founder of the Afrocuba group. “I always play something from my uncle in the concerts and now on the two albums,” says Harold. “I have played with my brother on drums since the very beginning, so the family thing is a part of everything I do. And now this band has become like part of my family too. We are great friends. That’s very important to me.”

Extended by the addition of accordion player Vincent Peirani on a track he composed, “Alma y Fuego”, this musical family are as open as their leader. “When we play together it’s really special because they always want to do something different so that’s really exciting for me as it keeps the fire going,” he says. This also encourages López-Nussa to push himself into unfamiliar territory. “On this album I was experimenting a lot without thinking too much in advance,” he says. “I was just finding ideas and then trying things out.”

Andy Thomas is a London based writer who has contributed regularly to Straight No Chaser, Wax Poetics, We Jazz, Red Bull Music Academy, and Bandcamp Daily. He has also written liner notes for Strut, Soul Jazz and Brownswood Recordings.

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_{Header image: Ryan McNurney / Blue Note Records.}