After their successful live collaborations, starting some eight years ago at 2002’s WOMAD festival, the collaboration between youthful Cuban band Asere and legendary drummer Billy Cobham has finally reached the recording studio. In the vein of Asere’s Destino album, De Cuba y De Panamá celebrates Central America’s united but varied sound and takes Cobham, born in Panamá but raised in New York, back to his Latin roots.

Taking their name from the Cuban slang for “amigo”, Asere made a name for themselves for their fresh take on the traditional Cuban Son style, mixing traditional rhythms with funk, 70s stlye salsa, jazz improvisation and exciting new compositions. Their collaboration with Cobham advances their reputation and Cobham slips seamlessly into the group adding moments of rhythmic brilliance whilst avoiding total domination of the album. Cobham, a legendary jazz and fusion drummer, played with some of the most important names in the history of music, ranging from Horace Silver, Herbbie Hancock and Miles Davis to Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin with whom he co-founded the Mahavishnu Orchestra ensemble.

De Cuba y De Panamá mixes the funk and fusion style of the two groups with their own musical heritage, Cobham taking influences from his Panamanian roots while Asere stick to their own fusion of traditional Cuban rhythms and innovation. De Cuba y De Panamá is the albums stand out track, highlighting the skills of Cobham and Asere, a traditional Cuban song which is transformed by Cobham’s funk rhythms and the instrumental thrills into something resembling the salsa/funk heyday of the 1970s, a salsa dancers dream. Elsewhere on the album the group explores the more downbeat side of Latin music, transporting jazz improvisations into laid back Latin rhythms and soulful guitar plucking. Meanwhile Gypsy Soul seems to take influence from Spanish flamenco music, again mixing it with the rhythms from Cuba and Cobham’s own rhythmic knowledge. It is an album of hybrids which proves Asere have lived up to their early hype as the future of Cuban music and reminds us of the brilliance of Billy Cobham not only as a renowned Jazz drummer but as a master of rhythm.