Full write-up can be seen here: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/chan-chan-cuban-playing-for-change-985625/
And then the next musician would just hear whoever was before them. And then slowly over time, it builds. And one of the coolest parts of “Chan Chan” from Buena Vista is the trumpet solo. To me, it was one of the greatest trumpet solos I’d ever heard. So I really didn’t want to try to re-create that because it’s already there. And that’s when we thought about New Orleans, where you can also have some of the great horn players in the world, but they also play with the mute. So you could create a really cool, sort-of Louis Armstrong horn vibe. Many years ago, when we first started Playing for Change, back in 2000, we made a film called A Cinematic Discovery of Street Musicians. And I had filmed an 11-year-old boy, he was a virtuoso trumpet player. His name is Chantz Powell. He was 11 years old. And he was just performing on the street to make money for him and his mom. And he was amazing. He ended up going on and getting a huge record deal. I had never heard from him, for about 15 years. And then when it came time to thinking about the trumpet solo, I just remembered him: “I wonder what he’s doing?” So I reached out to chance, and he was in New Orleans. So the crew and I went down there, put headphones on him, and had him play the solo with the mute and playing it with so much soul and a lot of space — he really just kind of took the track to the next level. So again, it’s just about kind of living inside each of these songs, and trying to figure out how we can add different musicians and create something that’s got a global human feel to it.
