Roberto Juan Rodríguez Explained

Roberto Juan Rodríguez (Havana) is a Cuban-American jazz musician who is known for fusion of Latin music and Jewish Klezmer elements.^[1] Although not Jewish his father's Latin band regularly played at Jewish theatre, weddings and bar mitzvahs in Miami, giving the young percussionist an interest in Jewish music.^[2] In the 1980s he moved to New York, recording with Marc Ribot, as the drummer for Ribot's Los Cubanos Postizos, and John Zorn.

Discography

• El Danzon de Moises (Tzadik, 2002)
• Baila! Gitano Baila! (Tzadik, 2004)
• with Irving Fields - Oy Vey!!!...Olé!!! (Tzadik, 2006)
• with Maurice El Médioni - Descarga Oriental (Piranha, 2006)
• The First Basket (Tzadik, 2009)
• Aguares: Book of Angels Volume 23 (Tzadik, 2014)

Notes and References

1. Jonathan L. Friedmann Perspectives on Jewish Music: Secular and Sacred 2009 - Page 32 "It informs Roberto Juan Rodriguez, whose fusion of Cuban and klezmer musical elements create a virtual diaspora — one he describes as a world that could have happened fifty or sixty years ago with a meeting of different diasporas in Cuba, ."
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldmusic/a4wm2007/2007_medioni_and_rodriguez.shtml BBC Radio 3