Kai Lyons had already sampled the sonic riches of Havana when a musical epiphany sent him back to an overlooked corner of Cuba.
The San Francisco jazz guitarist was attending New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2017 when he happened upon a stage with vocalist José Andrés “El Sinsonte” Rodríguez. A master of changüí, a style from Guantánamo that is rarely heard outside the region, he dazzled the audience with his facility as a reginero, freestyling verses full of wordplay over extended lines.
“I just fell in love with his music and went to Guantánamo to seek him out and study the tres,” said Lyons, referring to the small Cuban guitar that’s foundational to changüí and son, the far better known Cuban tradition reintroduced to the world by the Buena Vista Social Club. “He’s a key figure in changüí who’s very well known within the extremely niche genre.”
Lyons’ quest proved successful, and the fruits of his repeated trips to Guantánamo manifest on Bay Area stages in the coming days. He plays two shows with El Sinsonte on vocals and percussion Sept. 2 at Mr. Tipple’s in Hayes Valley, where they’ll be joined by Latin jazz maestro John Calloway on flute and piano. Propelling the band is the Santiago de Cuba rhythm section tandem of percussionist Einar “Tito” Leliebre Nuñez and bassist Ernesto Mazar Kindelan, the orchestra director at University High. “Los Van Van offered him the bass position,” Lyons said. “But he didn’t want to move back to Cuba.”
The same group, minus Calloway, plays the Red Door in Emeryville Sept. 3 and two shows at Meyhouse San Ramon Sept. 4. Rodríguez and Lyons, who moves between tres and archtop jazz guitar, will be focusing on improvisation-laced changüí while interspersing boleros and son for variety. They also perform duo at Bird & Beckett Books and Records Sept. 7. It’s an extremely rare opportunity to hear a master of a tradition that can be hard to find even in Havana.
Rodríguez earned renown in the Grupo Changüí de Guantánamo, an ensemble that traces its roots back to 1945 when composer and musicologist Rafael Inciarte Brioso transformed rural folkloric fiesta music into an urban style with the standard instrumentation of tres, guayo or guiro, maracas, bongos and marímbula (a cross between a cajón and thumb piano).
“It’s one of few genres that uses marímbula,” Lyons said. “You can also sometimes find it in son jarocho from Veracruz, Puerto Rican plena, and mento in Jamaica. It serves the role of the bass, and was originally a cod fish box with a hole and some metal strips. It’s got a kind of aquatic sound, tuned like low bass samba drums.
And the bongos aren’t the ones you see in Buena Vista Social Club. It’s bongó del monte, which are bigger, and tuned and constructed differently.”
Lyons’ fateful encounter with Changüí de Guantánamo was a stroke of luck, as it’s one of the very few changüí ensembles that has performed outside of Cuba. While he immersed himself in the style in Guantánamo, he didn’t hang out with Rodríguez there. It wasn’t until the pandemic shut down international travel that they really connected. Rodríguez had moved to Tampa to be near his daughter, “and we developed a friendship talking on the phone for hours,” Lyons said.
While Rodríguez had retired from performing, Lyons coaxed him out to the Bay Area with several gigs, starting with a 2025 concert at The Chapel produced by Bill Martinez that was part of a national campaign to raise money for solar generators, Let Cuba Live.
“One of my passions is to bring amazing Cuban musicians to the Bay Area, but the logistics governmentally to make that happen is really difficult,” Lyons said. “When Bill Martinez invited me to perform at the Chapel, I checked in with the members of the band and we used the money to fly José out.”
El Sinsonte fell in love with the Bay Area. He was here for four weeks earlier this summer, and this two-week excursion features his most concentrated run of gigs yet. You never really know where he might show up. I happened to hear him sitting in with Lyons at the Berkeley beer garden Jupiter on the last trip, and they often drop by Radio Habana Social Club when he’s in town.
He stays in the guest room of Lyons 600-square-foot apartment in Civic Center, which they’ve realized can feel crowded after several weeks. “I wish we could give him better accommodations, but he’s a non-diva to the max,” Lyons said. “He’s 72, will eat or sleep anywhere, and is willing to play four hours at the Boom Boom Room until 2 a.m. When he’s not performing he’s always writing poetry in his journal. There’s never a bad vibe.”
It’s creatively congruent that a master of changüí emanates easy going joy. The style’s moniker is partly derived from the Congolese word for party, and the sound is designed for extended dance parties, with short melodic hooks and punchy riffs over a polyrhythmic matrix of percussion.
Lyons connected with the sound via his early love of classic rock and punk, as well as his affection for bluegrass and training in jazz. “Hearing changüí live, there’s a natural distortion with voices and guitar,” he said. “I really appreciate simple folk melodies. While it influenced son there’s been a dialogue between the two traditions.”
Dancing to changüí tends to be far less flashy than son or casino, with intricate footwork rather than partner spinning. It’s not based on the fundamental son beat known as clave, and the stripped down orchestration opens up plenty of space for impromptu invention.
“The African syncopation drives the polyrhythms, and with no bass to back you up the tres carries all of the instrumental melodic weight. It’s the driver of the train.”
As Lyons can keep lining up gigs with El Sinsonte, the changüí express will keep spreading the celebratory soul of Guantánamo to the Bay Area.
