Latin flare lights up a miserable Monday

A global-funk collective with an Afro-Cuban bias, the current darlings of New York's Latin music scene, this six-piece (last night, anyway) rode into town on the back of rave reviews for new album, Follow Me, a Grammy nomination and a stellar live reputation. They might have ridden in on donkeys, too, had budgets permitted. Yerba Buena's sense of humour - the album's cover boasts a woman in a bikini leading a burro - is as vital as their musicality.

A lumpen support band hadn't made things easy. But undeterred by weather, numbers and temperamental microphones, Yerba Buena created an urban tropical party vibe in the space of a few mixed-up, fun-filled, defiantly Spanglish tracks.

"Two tongues are better than one," sang loveable front woman CuCu Diamantes on the catchy boogooloo, Bilingual Girl. Over on percussion - congas, bongos, timbales - fellow Cuban Pedrito Martinez flexed his impressive pecs and came centre-stage to duet, harmonise, chant to the Orishas.

New recruit, ex-Fania All Star Alberto De La Fé, lent sizzling electric violin to the Afro-Cuban likes of La Candela, replacing the band's entire horn section (budgets again) in the process.

Rumba, cumbia, cha- cha- cha. Afrobeat, hip-hop, Middle Eastern rhythms ... overseeing this good-time melange was producer/bandleader Andre Dre' Levin, Cuban music's very own Kid Creole. In crimson beret and hibiscus-print suit, red-and-white Stratocaster neatly co-ordinated, Levin indulged in shameless guitar face-offs with Greek bassist Panagiotis Andreou while Diamantes and Martinez pogo-ed, De La Fé plucked his violin like a tres and drummer Mauricio Herrera took to the congas.

"This has been our best Monday ever," beamed Levin between encores. "We'll be back." They'd better be.

The Yerba Buena Celebration Band
The Jazz Cafe
Parkway, Camden, NW1 7PG