Felipe Cabrera
One of Cuba's most important contemporary bassists — Felipe Cabrera combines deep knowledge of the Cuban bass tradition with jazz sensibility, working across timba, son, and Latin jazz contexts.
About
Felipe Cabrera is a Havana-born bassist who has worked with many of the important Cuban bands and artists, bringing a jazz-influenced approach to the Cuban tumbao bass tradition. His playing demonstrates the range of what the bass can do in Cuban music — from the driving, repetitive tumbao patterns that lock with the clave, to more melodic and improvisational approaches drawn from jazz.
He has worked extensively in Europe and Latin America as well as Cuba, bringing the Cuban bass tradition to international contexts.
Timba is the music this site is dedicated to exploring. It emerged as a distinct genre in the late 1980s and crystallized in the early 1990s — born in a moment of social crisis, built on the full accumulated history of Cuban music, and still evolving today.
Lees meer >Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and the birthplace of some of the world's most influential music and dance traditions. African, Spanish, and French cultural streams collided here over centuries of colonial history, producing an extraordinary creative culture that exported itself across the globe.
Lees meer >European cultural influence on Cuba came primarily through Spain (as colonial power) and France (through the Haitian migration and Caribbean trade). These influences shaped Cuban music's harmonic language, instrumentation, and dance forms.
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The claves are two round sticks of hardwood. Struck together, they give a high, sharp click that cuts through the whole band. On the claves you play the clave rhythm, the pattern that Cuban music is built on.
Lees meer >A tumbao is a rhythmic and melodic pattern that is repeated over and over, usually in a cycle of two, four or eight bars. Piano, bass, tres, guitar and percussion each have their own tumbao; together they make up the groove a song rests on.
Lees meer >Timba, the explosive and rhythmically rich genre of Cuban dance music, transformed how the bass functions in popular music. In Timba, the bass is not just foundational — it’s fiery, funky, and free.
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