It's sad. Ray Barretto's gone. Mongo Santamaria's gone. Sammy Figueroa is now one of the last of the great latin jazz percussionists left. Over the years, he's lit additional fires under the bands I of Miles Davis, the Brecker Brothers and, perhaps his greatest admirer Sonny Rollins, with whom he's currently out on tour. Not to mention pop stars who wanted their backing bands to have an extra kick like David Bowie, Chaka Khan and Mariah Carey. After 20 years in NYC, Figueroa is now based in southern Florida and, for his current band, he's collected some outstanding young musicians whose musical background covers rhythms from just about every latin country. Both from Venezuela, the most talented appear to be Vivas and Monasterios, whose own Miami-recorded album was recently released on Savant and which this writer enjoyed more than his Jazzwise reviewer colleague. Their excellent musicianship apart, both are adventurous composers and have written seven originals for Sammy's CD, mostly fiery up-tempos plus a couple of cha-chas. The one exception is Monasterios’ ballad ‘Zuliana’, my favourite track. Canadian trumpeter Alex Norris has apparently added Pope to his billing. There's a really raw tenor solo on ‘Latin What?’ But Sammy's the star, with some stunning solos as well as infectious rhythmic drive.