Renowned artists unite in "Manteca 2.0", a tribute to the Cuban classic by Chano Pozo

September 7, 2023

The single "Manteca 2.0", which will arrive accompanied by a music video, will premiere on September 15th on all digital platforms, radio and Cuban television.

The version of the Cuban classic by Chano Pozo "Manteca" features the participation of important musicians from the island and its audiovisual is directed by Amén Perugorría.

Produced by American Andres Levin and co-produced by Alain Pérez, "Manteca 2.0" will feature the sounds of Los Van Van, Pedrito Martínez, Yissy García, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Rashawn Ross and Ron Blake.

The song is a tribute to the original recording and release by Chano Pozo and Dizzie Gillespie in 1947, as well as to the historic neighborhood of Cayo Hueso, in the municipality of Centro Habana.

"This song represented at its time the union of two virtuosos, Chano Pozo, percussionist from Cayo Hueso, and Dizzie Gillespie, trumpeter from Philadelphia. They met in New York where they wrote and produced Manteca, an album that historically introduces Afro-Cuban percussion to Jazz", the information adds.

Now 76 years after its premiere, Levin, who currently resides in Cayo Hueso with his Tribe Caribe Cayo Hueso project, has wanted to pay this tribute by inviting most of the living musicians who were born and raised in this neighborhood.

This is an unreleased version since "elements of the original version have been revisited, redesigned and it also tells the story of Chano's death in Harlem and how Benny Moré and Cuba suffered his death".

The orchestra director and filmmaker also born in Venezuela, wanted to tell through this production the story of the emblematic Havana neighborhood, cradle of some of Cuba's most incredible jazz and rumba musicians such as Félix Chapottín, Los Zafiros, Juan Formell, Carlos del Puerto of Irakere or Omara Portuondo.

Drawing from that space in which he currently resides, setting also of the music video, he composed the song as a celebration of the neighborhood, of rumba, and of the "seven decades of evolution of the musical romance between Havana and New York".