Interview: Eliades Ochoa from AfroCubism

IT's 2005 and Eliades Ochoa is sitting opposite me drinking coffee, his elbow on the table, his right wrist bearing his distinctive watch patterned with the Cuban flag. It's the opening day of the Festival de la Trova in Santiago de Cuba and the sun is shining down, as ever.

• AfroCubism in concert in Spain

Suddenly Ochoa leans across and tells me he's still waiting, after too many years, to meet these African guitarists to make the record.

Maybe it's because we have just come from the cemetery where Santiago musicians have paid musical homage at the gravesides of former colleagues. Perhaps it has reminded Ochoa of his friend Compay Segundo, whose song Chan Chan he helped make an international hit as the signature tune of Buena Vista Social Club. Most of that remarkable collective have gone to join the great big band in the sky – Segundo and Rubn Gonzalez in 2003, Ibrahm Ferrer in 2005 and Cachato Lpez in 2008 – after enjoying worldwide success right at the end of their lives.

Meanwhile, Ochoa, a mere whippersnapper at just over 60, bristles with life, and wants to get on with the world music album that had originally been planned for recording in Havana in 1996.

Then, the legendary Malian guitarist Djelimady Tounkara and Bassekou Kouyat invited by World Circuit's Nick Gold to record with Ochoa and Ry Cooder in Havana, never showed up. A question of mislaid passports, missing visas or, it was rumoured later, an offer of a large remuneration to play a local gig.

Fortuitously, the album made on the hoof in its place, by hastily assembled retired veterans – Buena Vista Social Club – went on to sell eight million copies around the world. Yet while Ochoa played a major part in the album, and featured in Wim Wenders' film of the same name, he only appeared at a few high-profile concerts with them as he was signed to another label.

Now, after 14 years of waiting, the album called AfroCubism, involving a stellar line-up, is finished, complete with a jazzy Picasso-ish Cubist cover. So how does Ochoa feel?

In July, backstage at the opening concert of Spain's La Mar de Msica Festival, where AfroCubism was given a pre-release outing, there were tensions. Ochoa, a sunny-side-up yet disciplined musician who – true to his rural Cuban origins – likes to get up at cock-crow and approach life in shipshape order, found everything a tad laid-back and was heard muttering the ship needed only one captain.

Record company owner Gold says: "There are a lot of egos involved and I was apprehensive. Every time I saw Eliades or Djelimady they asked about making the disc and it became this thing we had to do. And the longer we waited the more there was this feeling we had to 'break' something to do it.

"Then I got a call to say both Bassekou and Eliades had a week free at the same time in Madrid so I thought, 'Let's start it, let's see what we get.

"It's neutral ground so no-one will feel they need to be in control and maybe it's meant to be.'

"So we flew Djelimady, Kass Mady, Toumani and Lassana in and I thought to myself, 'Let's just think of it like the first of several sessions.

We can go to Havana or Bamako later to finish it.' And everything came together really easily and we got 90 per cent of the record done in four and a half days."

Jerry Boys, the sound engineer responsible for all the Buena Vistadiscs, followed his usual practice of using ambient mikes to catch the spontaneity and rapport of everyone playing live together in the same studio. Gold is known as a hands-on producer at every stage, so how did they choose what to record? "Well I asked each musician to bring along a few tunes ready to share with the others," explains Gold. "We started with Al vaivn de mi carreta (The Swaying of My Cart) which is a special song for me as it was on the first cassette I bought in Cuba when I first went there years ago, with Eliades playing that song.

"Honestly I had shivers going down my spine when Eliades sang the first verse and Kass Mady responded, because there was this extraordinary thrill. Everything flowed together immediately, they created this ensemble on the spot."

For Gold everything is in the detail. "Immediately there were these lovely exchanges full of nuance. There were no duelling contests.

There's something about Malian music which allows everyone their space, place and moment and Eliades understood that quite brilliantly, moving out of his comfort zone and taking risks.

"Bassekou is a ludicrously brilliant virtuoso but he isn't flashy, and for his song Karamo (The Hunter), he just gives himself to the rhythm whether he is on n'goni ba (the Malian banjo] or the little ngoni. He'd play a riff and then Djelimady would pick it up on his guitar and swap it back."

Like the Buena Vista album, AfroCubism marks a coming together of generations whose approach though different blends effortlessly. There's natural empathy due to Cuban music's West African roots from the time of slavery.

Cross–pollination intensified in the 1960s following the Cuban revolution and Malian independence. "For Kass Mady and Djelimady it's familiar music because they covered Cuban music in the 1960s when it was massively popular. For Bassekou and Toumani it's nostalgia music they remember their parents listening to." Kora player Toumani Diabat was invited on board only a few years back after meeting Ochoa in Paris. Regarded as a genius, Diabat plays what Gold calls his fetish tune, the mesmerising Jarabi (Passion), about following one's heart.

"Eliades opens it on tres guitar with this lovely riff from the Cuban song Macusa, which is gorgeous." Gold says it's one of his favourites.

Or is it Karamo? He dithers. No, he'd best not say he likes one song more than another as he does not want to offend anyone.

• AfroCubism is out on World Circuit. AfroCubism play the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, on 2 December.