Cuba plus jazz equals ecstasy

Given that this is the Communist News & Review (or so our morning-drive buddies at one of the local square-mustache AM stations insist), what would Marx, Engels and Fidel Castro think if we didn’t tout every Cuban act that came through town? No, we don’t like being called “running-dog lackeys of the bourgeoisie” any more than you do, so here’s what’s what: Cuban music rocks. Not like Zeppelin or Hagar, but in that coming at you from oblique angles, stir your soul like a stick-in-a-nganga kind of way that’ll top off your tank and make you dance all night. If that idea makes you tumescent, well, Afro-Cuban All Stars, one of the better-known exponents of the genre, play Freeborn Hall at Davis on Thursday, June 7 at 8 p.m., with the fine sonero Félix Baloy fronting on vocals. Tickets are $24-$29 general, $12-$14 students and kids. For more information call (530) 752-1915.