Raised in Puerto Rico, premier league percussionist Sammy Figueroa was actually born in New York. His career as a sideman has been eye-popping: not only has he worked with David Bowie, Gladys Knight, Chic, Mariah Carey and hundreds more, but enjoyed long spells with the likes of Sonny Rollins, along with Miles Davis, Dave Grusin, Mark Murphy, George Benson… More recently he contributed to Jarrod Lawson's brilliant Be the Change album. He also has his own weekly show on Miami's jazz radio station WDNA.

Surprisingly, it's been eight years since Figueroa's last album under his own name. This new one takes its cue from the music of his late father, Charlie, a bad-boy romantic singer back in the 1950s, and these songs are reflective of that style: less banging salsa, more sinuous bolero. But also more jazz, aided by a collection of top-drawer Puerto Rican, Brazilian and Cuban musicians: saxophonist Miguel Zenón, trumpet player and arranger John Daversa, saxophonist Felipe LaMoglia, flautist Magela Herrera, bassist Ricardo Rodriguez and multi-instrumentalist Munir Hossn. But top billing rightly goes to singer Aymée Nuviola (present on half of the tracks) and pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba.

Nuviola has a fine, strong, declamatory style - without bombast: emotions just seem to be bigger in this kind of music. Figueroa himself also has a magnificent set of vocal cords, as we hear on the title track (apparently ‘Busco Tu Recuerdo’ was his dad's biggest hit back in the day). The horn arrangement here is more redolent of New York than San Juan. But it's Rubalcaba whose cool stylings really stand out: he's a percussive player, natch, with a great gift for counter-rhythms, but what dazzling, inventive runs and dark, dramatic chord inversions - especially on tunes like ‘Anoranzas’.

Apart from perhaps Ray Barretto, Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaria, few percussionists ever become household names. But if only on the evidence of this set, Figueroa belongs in that tiny, select group.