Afro-Cuban All Stars — North Sea Jazz Festival, The Hague, 1998

Full concert capture of the Afro-Cuban All Stars at the 1998 North Sea Jazz Festival, filmed during the edition held at the Nederlands Congresgebouw in The Hague, Netherlands — the festival’s home before it moved to Rotterdam in 2006. Led by Juan de Marcos González, the Cuban ensemble played a central role in the international revival of Cuban music in the late 1990s, in the wake of the Buena Vista Social Club project. This filmed live concert features a large band spanning several generations of musicians: brass sections, Afro-Cuban percussion, piano and vocal choruses, serving a repertoire of son, mambo and danzón. Because the detailed line-up and setlist for this specific performance could not be reliably documented, no track list or personnel is published here, in the interest of accuracy. This full concert will interest followers of Latin music, Afro-Cuban jazz and North Sea Jazz Festival archives. A live performance to discover for the collective energy of a Cuban orchestra at its peak, captured on one of Europe’s major jazz stages.