Steve Hochman on November 6th, 2015

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Composer and bandleader Arturo O’Farrill was in Havana last December when the long-coming thaw officially happened — not global warming, but a big chunk of the Cold War falling away with the announcement of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States.

“We were rehearsing for performances and recordings,” says the New York-based O’Farrill, whose Havana-born father Chico was as a composer, arranger and band leader one of the central figures of the Afro-Cuban jazz golden age in New York of the 1950s and ’60s.

It’s a scene he’ll always hold:

“We were collaborating with the Cuban dance company Malpaso. We were upstairs in a rehearsal area at the old Jewish community center. A big buzz started to run through the people who were observing us, and we all went downstairs to the room where the TV was and watched President Castro make the announcement.”

As the son of a native, O’Farrill was greatly gratified. But the most profound part of it was the reactions of others.

“It was deeply moving to watch the older Cubans see this,” he says. “A lot were part of the revolution from its conception and before. It was one thing to be among young people who had no idea, [who] think that now they can get Adidas and Nikes. But the older people were crying. It was akin to a lover being reunited with a loved one. They remember when America was part of Cuban life and Cuba was part of American life. The separation was so violent, so in some ways it was like a spurned loved, a betrayed lover. To come back 60 years later to have the hint of a reunification is overwhelming to them.”

Now, you don’t need to know this context to appreciate the musical thrills of “Cuba: The Conversation Continues,” the album O’Farrill and his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra recorded in three exhausting days following that announcement. Nor will it be essential to dig into the performance of this material Saturday at UCLA’ Royce Hall.

• ||| Live: Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra performs Saturday at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

The two-CD set features commissioned works by five Cuban composers and four Americans, each bringing in a wealth of imagination and innovation, mixing elements both traditional and very modern. The titular conversation references an intercultural musical relationship traced back to collaborations of American be-bop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and Cuban conguero Chano Pozo in 1947 — a partnership cut short when Pozo was shot to death in a Harlem bar a year later.  (For more on this, listen to and read the review I did for KPCC’s “Take Two” recently, at this link.) But the new album is a landmark of Latin big band music in and of itself, building on such prior work by this ensemble as the 2014 album “The Offense of the Drum,” which won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz album.

Still, having the picture of the Havana sessions in mind, it’s easy to hear the excitement and the elation or the moment and the very history behind it all coursing through the electrifying performances.

“We played the Plaza Jazz Festival the next day, and then the next day went into the studio for three grueling, grueling days of recording,” he says. “From 10 in the morning to midnight, incredible tracking every day. I really believe that the historical event created this. Everybody on the record — you knew something incredibly powerful had happened to change our lives. It reminded me in some ways of the few days after 9/11. New Yorkers went about their business — eating pizza, hailing cabs — but there was this historical import that everyone had a look in their eyes.”

I really believe that the historical event created this. Everybody on the record — you knew something incredibly powerful had happened to change our lives.

He’s certainly not equating the two events. But the impact of the change in Cuba was visceral and profound.

“The musicians here were bug-eyed,” he says. “Something historic had taken place. These are some pretty inspired performances. Most of it was really difficult, really time consuming in terms of rehearsals, very intense. It’s something that will never be repeated again, that a band of musicians can be under that duress in that historical condition and make music imbued with some much love and respect.”

O’Farrill also was an invited guest at the opening of the nations’ respective new embassies in Havana and Washington, and the experiences continue to enliven the music as he and the band have played it in concert.

“It’s still buzzing in our blood,” he says. And he adds that the grim prospects in politics make his musical mission even more crucial to keeping the new open spirit alive.

“Everyone who sets foot in front of our orchestra will feel that the power of music is bigger than the politics,” he says. “This captures the experiences we had, the moment that’s so engrained in our blood. We’re still pinching ourselves.”

||| Watch: Arturo O’Farrill and his band perform for NPR.