Producer and multi-instrumentalist Jake Dominic Savona was born in Melbourne, Australia. He fell in love with the music of Jamaica and released a series of successful reggae and dub albums under his artistic name Mista Savona since 2007.
Mista Savona also became interested in the music of Cuba. He first traveled to Cuba in 2014 and on his last day in Havana, he envisioned mixing Cuban rumba with Jamaican nyabinghi, two of the spiritual and folkloric styles unique to each island.
In 2015, funded by a grant from the Australian Council, Savona returned to Cuba, joined by four Jamaican legends including Sly & Robbie (drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare), guitarist Winston “Bopee” Bowen (known for his work with Dennis Brown) and Studio One percussionist Bongo Herman. The musicians spent the next ten days at the famous EGREM studios recording with many of Cuba’s leading musicians and vocalists. “It felt like a project that wanted to be born, and I was the one lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time,” remembers Savona.
More studio sessions followed, other guests were invited, and after years of thorough effort, the first volume of Mista Savona Presents Havana Meets Kingston was successfully released in 2017. By 2018, a live version of the project had performed three world tours, concluding in a stirring show for the BBC Proms at The Royal Albert Hall in the summer of 2018.
Savona returned to the Caribbean to work on new recordings with another set of famous and rising stars in the Cuban and Jamaican music scenes. This material became Mista Savona Presents Havana Meets Kingston Part 2 (2022). A large amount of this new album was also recorded at the famous EGREM Studio (Estudios Areito 101) in Havana, where the recording equipment and environment has remained unchanged since the 1950s. The famous Buena Vista Social Club album was recorded in 1996 in this invariable studio. As stated by Savona “The Cubans told me an angel lives in the studio and that she blesses the music recorded there – and I believe it! Other studios we recorded at include Nelson’s Studio in Vedado, and Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong studio in Kingston, Jamaica.”
(headline image: Jake Savona in EGREM studio – Photo by Lara Merrington)
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.