The New York-based Rumba Club, led and co-founded by Andy Gonzalez tastefully mixes Puerto Rican and Manhattan jazz elements. The song list also includes the simmering rhythmic fire of Wayne Shorter’s “Children of the Night,” a cool, undulant reading of Shorter’s “Infant Eyes” and an uptempo romp through Cedar Walton’s “Mosaic.” They also veer into cautiously venturesome, leftfield territory (as with the rangy “Roots and Wings”), without abandoning an essentially crowd-pleasing agenda. Beneath it and woven through it all, the holy writ of rhythm keeps a steady, heated Latin pulse, reminding us from whence the heart of this approach comes.
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