Dionisio Jesús Valdés Rodríguez, 84, might qualify as the greatest Cuban musician you ever witnessed. Venturing here first with pre-millennial Blue Note Records breakout Bele Bele en la Habana, the 6-foot-6 scion of pianist Bebo Valdés manhandled a baby grand like Jimi Hendrix turning a Stratocaster into a proton blaster. From fusion progressives Irakere in the Seventies to spinning off son Chuchito Valdés into the family business, the piano titan propagates the loop from European classicism and American big band reinvention to the modernism of Afro-Latin jazz. If the seven-time Grammy winner lost an inch to time and age, he almost certainly retains his backward beret as he upends any audience’s conception of 88 ivories. – Raoul Hernandez
