Unlikely tandem brings power-packed Cuban sound to Bay Area

On paper, percussionist Pedrito Martinez and pianist Alfredo Rodríguez are something of a Cuban odd couple.

Uniting virtuosos from the opposite sides of the tracks, their spectacular Duologue Project plays Kuumbwa Jazz Center Feb. 9 and Yoshi’s Feb. 10-11.

However divergent their upbringings, “what’s more important is how you approach your art,” said Martinez on a recent joint video call with Rodríguez.

“It’s not the virtuosity,” the pianist added. “There are many moments we can show technique, but what we want is to tell a story.”

“I’m trying to be humble, ‘Hey brother, tell me something, tell me about your life,’” Martinez said. “We learn from each other. That’s when something pure happens.”

The New Jersey-based Martinez, 52, is universally hailed as the preeminent conguero of his generation, a drummer and vocalist steeped in rumba, Havana street music, and the sacred Yoruba rhythms of Santería and Abakuá.

Hailing from an illustrious musical family, Rodríguez, 40, trained at Havana’s top conservatories and was famously scouted by Quincy Jones at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2006.

Even in Cuba’s supposedly classless society, they experienced very different upbringings. But they share the immensely rich mélange of Cuban culture, which is as rife with creative possibilities as the island is denuded of prospects.

“Alfredo is from my same neighborhood,” Martinez noted. “He comes from the classical world, playing in the conservatory, but he knows what rumba is. He heard a lot of folklore and religious ceremonies. He didn’t study from that area, but it was there. For me, I didn’t go to conservatory but I hung out with a lot of friends who did. So this thing, it’s not something we’re forcing. We’re mixing classical and African and jazz, presenting it the right way.”

The two musicians first met at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2011, “a place where good things happen for me,” Rodríguez said.

“Alfredo was having a residency and I was playing with my band,” Martinez recalled. “I knew about his music, his career. I’m a big fan, and my family is a big fan of his father, a great singer,” Alfredito Rodríguez, a Cuban star known for writing boleros.

Back in the U.S., Rodríguez was getting set to record his second album for Mack Avenue, “Invasion Parade,” and invited Martinez to participate on the session. “We knew we had chemistry, but it was amazing how we connected,” Rodríguez said.

The seed was planted but given their globe-spanning itineraries they didn’t have a chance to reunite until 2019, when they got an offer to play the St. Louis venue Jazz at the Bistro. They decided to test out the duo, “and we both realized something magical and spiritual was happening,” Rodríguez said.

“We sent ideas back and forth, from wherever we were in the world,” Martinez said. “It was very conventional to put arrangements together. Alfredo was sending me so many ideas, melodies, harmonies, even rhythms. He knows rhythms really well. That made my work much easier.”

“When we got to the venue it was very spontaneous how it all came together,” Rodríguez said.

Now living in Miami, he’s found an audience far beyond Latin jazz with Cubanized interpretations of American and Cuban pop songs and classic rock songs, like on his new Alfredo Rodríguez Band album “¡Take Cover!” It’s a concept that’s also effectively deployed by the duo, who included an expertly crafted arrangement of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on their 2019 album “Duologue.”

For Martinez, the project ended up transforming his entire approach to performing. Before the duo his setup was simple, with three congas and a foot pedal. But faced with the open space inherent in the mano-a-mano setting, “I was terrified,” he said.

The venue’s backline included an arsenal of hand percussion instruments, “and Alfredo looked at me and said, ‘I know you can play all that,’” Martinez said. “We don’t even know the music. ‘You can do it.’ I tried and it came out nice. After those days, I changed who whole set up and added it to my other projects.”

The duo has turned into a wildly creative forum for both players. After their debut in St. Louis they played a sold-out run at the Jazz Standard in New York. They may hail from different segments of Cuban society, but their mutual admiration society has turned into the most combustible Cuban duo outside Havana.

“For both of us, music doesn’t come from music, it comes from experiences,” Rodríguez said. “If the inspiration is only music, that’s very vague and lacks a lot of emotion. Everything in his life and my life, we put on stage.”

Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.

PEDRITO MARTINEZ & ALFREDO RODRÍGUEZ

When & where: 7 p.m. Feb. 9 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Santa Cruz, $26.25-$47.25, www.kuumbwajazz.org; 8 p.m. Feb. 10-11 at Yoshi’s, Oakland, $43.10-$102.10, www.yoshis.com