Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Columbia Records edited an album of five tracks recorded at the two festivals. The LP was titled Irakere, and was released by both CBS Records (JC-35655) and EGREM (Areíto LD-3769). The album had two sets of liner notes, one by the North American John Storm Roberts and the other by Cuban Leonardo Acosta. Irakere won a Grammy in 1979 for the best "Latin" music recording in the United States. Following this success, the band participated in the most important international jazz festivals. At the 1995 Afrocubanismo Festival at the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada, Irakere performed their piece "Xiomara" live on stage with Los Muñequitos de Matanzas and Changuito (!Afrocubanismo Live!). Innovations in popular dance music In the 1980s Irakere recorded dance music, rhythmically akin to the contemporaneous style known as songo. This body of material can be seen as a type of bridge, connecting the songo era with the timba era which began in the early 1990s. One of the more popular Irakere dance tunes is "Rucu rucu a Santa Clara" (1985), written by José Luis Cortés "El Tosco," who would later found NG La Banda, and launch the timba movement. Trumpeter José Crego "El Greco," and saxophonists Carlos Averhoff and Germán Velazco, are heard playing the bop-like horn lines in this dance music. The three wind players would later go on to become part of NG La Banda's "metales de terror" horn section, the basic template for timba horns. Irakere continued recording dance pieces into the 1990s. With Babalú Ayé (1997), the band fully embraced timba, the new genre which had directly resulted in part, from Irakere's innovations two decades earlier. The CD, which was nominated for a Grammy, features singer and timbales player José Miguel. In contrast to the impeccably executed dance music on the CD, Babalú Ayé also contains a long "bonus track"—"Babalú Ayé'," a loose folkloric/jazz experiment featuring the legendary lead vocalist Lazaro Ros. In 1997 Chucho Valdés left the group, and Chucho's son Chuchito took over the piano chair and the role of director between 1997 and 1999. Irakere's jazz legacy Paquito D'Rivera defected to the United States in 1980. Arturo Sandoval left the group a year later, and then defected to the United States in 1990. Both musicians have commented on the joy they felt, at being able to finally pursue jazz careers in the United States, and