佢就係魯賓...

The 81 year old pianist Ruben Gonzalez is regarded by his fellow musicians as one of the Cuba's national treasures. He passed up the chance of a career as a doctor to be a musician and joined the conjunto (dance ensemble) of the legendary blind tres player Arsenio Rodriguez in the early 1940s. It was a time when the African-influenced mambo was taking hold and jazz harmonies were being introduced into Cuban music. Ruben is the last survivor of a trio of pianists, together with 'Lili' Martinez and Peruchin, who were at the heart of those developments and created the morden Cuban piano sound. "Everything you hear now in Cuban music" he says, "comes out of that brilliant period." The Track Pueblo Nuevo is typical of the urban piano style he developed in those years with an introduction in danzon rhythm followed by a mambo section with solos from piano, trumpet and bass.

In the mid 1950s he began a thirty year association with Enrique Jorrin, the creator of the cha-cha-cha but in recent years Ruben had virtually given up playing due to arthritis and no longer has a piano at home. He was the first at the studio every morning waiting for the doors to be unlocked and once inside he would rush to the piano and play. His excitement was visible as his beautiful touch returned. In the two days that followed the recording of his album Ruben recorded his own debut album for World Circuit.