Our Man in Havana is in fact a compilation of two marvelous albums (Our Man in Havana and Bembe) recorded by conguero Ramon "Mongo" Santamaria in Havana in the early 1960s. By then, Santamaria, who had left Cuba in 1948, had already made his mark with Tito Puente and Cal Tjader and had released his classic piece "Afro-Blue." In the songs from the original Our Man, Santamaria tinkers with the standard instrumentation of the Cuban conjunto and the orquesta tipica and revisits classic styles such as cha cha. The second part of the set explores the ritual music of the Orishas (often referred to as Santeria) and traditional rumba. For this project, Santamaria assembled a group that included singers Merceditas Valdes and Carlos Embale and, for good measure, his friend Willie Bobo, the only non-Cuban. The austere recording and crisp playing bring out the beauty and power of this music, at once deeply spiritual and earthy. Mongo Santamaria went on to make his name in Latin jazz history with his playing, his bands, and his writing. But this album, showing his more traditional side, is a classic. --Fernando Gonzalez