As is often the case in music, this album came about following a meeting of musicians. I was already familiar with Yosvany's music but we had never met. So when he called me in 2014 I was immediately enthused by the thought of sharing our cultures and history to produce a new musical blend full of meaning and reflecting our desire to create. Combining our strengths, our desires, and even our weaknesses (it is these that, I believe, add a touch of fragility and sensitivity to the emotions we try to get across) brought us a lot of satisfaction when we were looking into putting a repertoire together. We delved into the musical traditions of former French colonies (Haiti, Cuba, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion, etc.) and tried to figure out how to integrate this material into a jazz quartet, something which is very popular at the moment. Learning has always been a driving force in my journey as an artist and I have always considered myself an eternal student, more so than a simple teller of temporary truths. This research came more naturally to Yosvany who was born and grew up in Cuba, a country which offers a wealth of ancestral traditions. As well as playing North American jazz wonderfully well, his work, whether in his playing or his composing, is also infused with "classic" European music, considered intellectual music, so our meeting was stimulating to say the least. The term intellectual as we would normally understand it is rather odd since the rhythms of African cultures and the thousands of songs inspired by them around the world are infinitely more sophisticated than most European music!