The title suggests an invitation, but also something more intimate: a willingness to enter. Not to arrive loudly, not to claim a place too quickly, but to cross a threshold with attention. That quality has long defined Roni Ben-Hur’s playing.

His guitar doesn’t force itself into a room. It listens first. It looks for the human temperature of a phrase, the small turn of feeling inside a melody, the place where rhythm and breath begin to recognize each other.

Ben-Hur arrives here with a musical life already full of crossings. Born in Dimona, Israel, and formed over more than four decades in New York’s jazz world, he has built a language unmistakably rooted in bebop and swing but never confined by them.

Other currents run through his sound: the melodic turns of Mediterranean song, traces of North African and Jewish Arabic music, the intimacy of Brazilian guitar, the rhythmic pull of Afro-Latin traditions, the singing clarity of a player who has always understood melody as something close to speech. None of these elements appears in quotation marks. They live inside the way he phrases. That’s why this album feels so natural.

1. Abriendo puertas (Alejandro Falcón) [8:12]
2. Mi mejor canción (José Antonio Méndez) [6:32]
3. Dos gardenias (Isolina Carrillo) [5:23]
4. Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby (Alejandro Falcón) [9:23]
5. Esta tarde vi llover (Armando Manzanero) [5:56]
6. Lo que es del César (Alejandro Falcón) [6:17]
7. El Teide (Alejandro Falcón) [7:49]

Recorded in Havana, Roni opens his new recording on the rampantly vibrant Abriendo puertas and the luxuriant Mi mejor canción and then we are gifted the smooth hipsway of Dos gardenias, the funkily grooved Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobb, the decadent Esta tarde vi llover, the new set rounding out on the perky and playful Lo que es del César, coming to a close on the sumptuously sculpted El Teide.

Abriendo Puertas is part of Cuban Notes, a recording series co-produced by Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt, founder of Dot Time Records, and guitarist Roni Ben-Hur. This release was recorded in Havana, in collaboration with Cuban musicians, and approaches Cuban music as a way of thinking and of inhabiting the world.

Personnel:
Roni Ben-Hur - guitar
Alejandro Falcón - piano
Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez - acoustic bass
Ruy López-Nussa - drums
Octavio Rodríguez Rivera - percussion
Emir Santa Cruz - tenor saxophone (tracks 1, 4, 5, 7)
Osdalgia Lesmes - vocals (tracks 3, 5)

Official Purchase Link

www.ronibenhur.com