Album Notes

Grupo Los Santos is a quartet of American musicians who, through a mixture of jazz with Afro-Cuban and Brazilian styles, are creating a new soul in the music of New York.

After having gone to Cuba to investigate the different rhythms that make up its rich musical tradition, drummer William "Beaver" Bausch wanted to utilize what he had learned in the context of a jazz quartet.

He soon teamed up with his closest musical allies: guitarist Pete Smith, saxophonist Paul Carlon, and bassist Nicholas Walker.

The renowned Cuban trombonist and composer Juan Pablo Torres heard the group one night and immediately hired them to acompany him weekly at the Hard Grove Café.

Soon thereafter, in 1999, Torres presented Grupo Los Santos at New York City's Town Hall in in a concert entitled "Super Son Cubano: Cuban Music Without Frontiers".

The band shared the stage with Juan Pablo and such other luminaries of Cuban music as Alfredo Valdes, Jr., Andy Gonzalez, flute maestro Jose Fajardo and Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, among others.

The aim of Grupo Los Santos is to interpret music which ordinarily has many more elements (piano, percussion, etc.) using the reduced instrumentation of a quartet.

The sounds of the drum kit, the guitar and bass, and the saxophone participate equally in conversations usually heard in the drums of rumba, or the call and response of Cuban "Son".

But always with the feeling of jazz: open music, where each voice has its proper space and importance.

Grupo Los Santos maintains these qualities whether they are playing their original compositions or the music of others, like Compay Segundo's "Chan Chan".