Los Fakires

Los Fakires are from Santa Clara, a town in central Cuba. In songs by pioneering Cuban composers like Ignacio Piñeiro and Ernesto Lecuona, they gave the old sones and guarachas their own breezy lilt, a poised regional accent that's different from the Havana- based revival of the Buena Vista Social Club. All of Los Fakires's instruments - alto saxophone, guitar, bongos, guiro and cowbell - were acoustic and portable, as if the band could pick up and play tableside at a cafe.