Mali singer Oumou Sangaré performing at the Afro Roots Fest concert in the Miami Beach Bandshell on Saturday. Photo by Fernando Gonzalez ©

Most likely, few in the audience understood any words Malian singer Oumou Sangaré sang at the Afro Roots Fest concert at the Miami Beach Bandshell on Saturday. It never mattered. She is a transcendent artist, a preacher, a storyteller, a soul diva who commands the stage with a mix of emotional power and regal elegance, and that voice, a one-of-a-kind instrument that, under her expressive control, cuts through questions of language and traditions and speaks directly to our humanity.

Backed by a tight and powerful seven-piece band comprising guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, kamale ngoni (African harp), and two backup singers, Sangaré essentially presented her most recent release, Timbuktu. She set the tone with the elegiac title track and “Wassoulu Don,” performed (as on the record) with a stern, muscular rock urgency before showing her vocal range in the delicate “Degui Nkelena.”

On a couple of pauses between songs, Sangaré addressed the audience briefly in French and English but didn’t attempt to explain the lyrics. As must happen often when performing in places that don’t speak her language, because she couldn´t count on the meaning of the words to tell the story to this audience, Sangaré became another instrumentalist, the de facto main soloist in her band. She is an expressive and experienced performer who moves about the stage with purpose, smartly pacing her singing, communicating meaning and intention through phrasing, tone, dynamics, and nuance, now painting in primary colors, forceful as if calling to battle, now offering a light touch, a caress perhaps, evoking a loved person or place.

It was a delightful ride in which you held your breath in awe one moment and soon later found yourself singing, dancing, and clapping along. By the end of the evening, we had been somewhere—the power of music by an exceptional performer.

Eliades Ochoa. Photo by Massi Giorgeschi courtesy of Eliades Ochoa’s management

Singer, guitarist, and songwriter Eliades Ochoa may be a traditionalist in music but does not trade in nostalgia.

He achieved international fame as a charter member and key figure of Buena Vista Social Club, a Grammy-winning 1997 album featuring fresh interpretations of traditional Cuban songs and styles by artists such as singers Omara Portuondo, Pio Leyva, and Ibrahim Ferrer, singer and guitarist Compay Segundo, and pianist Ruben Gonzalez, among others.

It became a global phenomenon.

Ochoa, who had been playing from a very young age and was 50 years old at the time of Buena Vista, rode the wave but kept moving. He still is. As the headliner of the Afro Roots Fest opening concert at the Miami Beach Bandshell on Saturday, March 16, Ochoa will present his most recent album, Guajiro. (Peasant) The recording marks yet another turn in his long career as it showcases his work as a composer and expands the sound of his customary quartet.

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Pianist Rolando Luna with Felipe Lamoglia, sax, Jose Armando Gola, bass, and Jonathan Joseph, drums, at Miami-Dade Auditorium, Saturday, part of Global Cuba Fest 2024 Photo Fernando Gonzalez ©

The performances by Cuban pianists Ernan López Nussa and Rolando Luna and their groups at Miami Dade Auditorium on Saturday were an at times impressive but ultimately unsatisfying bookend to this year’s Global Cuba Fest, which opened with a concert by pianist Omar Sosa the previous weekend.

López Nussa, who is in his mid-60s, has blended formal classical training, a passion for jazz, and Cuban music into an original and organic style. His distinguished career includes being part of landmark fusion groups such as Afrocuba and Cuarto Espacio and also accompanying singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez. Since then, he has had a notable solo career. Luna, in his mid-40s, came relatively late to the piano, having studied guitar before “discovering” the instrument. He made up for lost time in a hurry. He mixed formal piano schooling and a bandstand education that included substantial stints with singer Omara Portuondo,  the Buena Vista Social Club, and salsa star Isaac Delgado. Just for good measure, in 2007, Luna won the jazz competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Both are capable of lightning-fast single-note runs, turn-on-a-dime rhythmic and harmonic developments, and slyly quote “The Star Spangled Banner” and “El Manisero” on the fly or use George Shearing, Maria Teresa Vera, Debussy, The Bee Gees, or, in the case of López Nussa, Bach, and Chopin, as the take-off point for their variations (López Nussa called them his musical “interventions”). Along the way, they colored every picture and filled every space.
But that you can do all that doesn’t mean you should do all that.
It might dazzle some people at first, but the approach inevitably brings diminishing returns — which is what happened on Saturday.

The difference between a good player and an exceptional artist is often measured not by what they play but by what they choose not to play.
The right silence at the right time can speak volumes — and so can its absence.