A little bit of Cuba: Team Havana brings the music of its motherland to 'Salsa Under the Stars'

Team Havana loves playing Albuquerque. So much so, its band members hope to move here one day.

“We wish to live in Albuquerque because the crowd there is incredible,” said David Rodriguez, Team Havana band director and bass player. “It’s like being in Cuba, kind of like living in Cuba. The response is amazing. That’s why we love to go there and play.”

The band will perform at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 12, at “Salsa Under the Stars” at the Albuquerque Museum, 2000 Mountain Road NW. The band will perform a mix of salsa, bachata, merengue and cha-cha.

A little bit of Cuba: Team Havana brings the music of its motherland to 'Salsa Under the Stars'

Team Havana’s band members are originally from Cuba. In 1999, they made their way to Mexico, where they lived for many years before moving to El Paso.

“We played in Cuba a lot and then this place in Mexico hired us to play in a venue,” Rodriguez said. “That was like 20 years ago and that’s why we came out of Cuba, and then we played and we toured all of Mexico, a lot of cities in Mexico, and then we ended up in Ciudad Juárez. We were supposed to go back to Mexico City, but we decided to go to El Paso.”

Team Havana members have lived in El Paso for about 12 years and have tried to ramp up the momentum of the salsa community there.

“We kind of started the salsa movement here in El Paso,” Rodriguez said. “And now we play all kinds of music, all kinds of Latin music. Right now, we’re working on new music.”

The band is currently working on three original songs. It will be debuting the new music during their “Salsa Under the Stars” performance. Two of the songs are salsa and the third is a mix of salsa and Cuban rhythms.

“It’s not exactly salsa, but it’s something interesting that we make out in the studio when we were recording it,” Rodriguez said of the third song.

Team Havana, which is made up of nine members, has various projects going on at one time.

“We have the group (Team Havana) and then we have a Latin jazz project,” Rodriguez said. “And then individually, each member has his own project. Actually, I was in Europe two months ago touring with the jazz saxophone player. And all the musicians have different stuff, but as a group, we play quite often, like weekly, and then we tour sometimes kind of close, not too far from El Paso, you know, for cost and everything.”

The band is made up of Rodriguez, Ivan Medina on congas, Carmelo Camero Timbal on drums, Rayzo De Armas on piano, Joe Barriga on trumpet, Gabrielle Torrez on saxophone and flute, as well as vocalists Eduardo Ledesma and Uriel Esquivel.

Team Havana’s performance is one of several concerts that are part of the New Mexico Jazz Festival’s 33rd season of “Music Under the Stars.” This year’s series, which kicked off in early June, runs through Aug. 10 at the Albuquerque Museum. The series features “Salsa Under the Stars” on Friday and “Jazz Under the Stars” on Saturday. Concerts begin at 7 p.m. and tickets can be purchased at holdmyticket.com or at the New Mexico Jazz office until 2 p.m. on Friday. A full concert schedule is available at nmjazz.org/catch-a-show.