Running her fingers through her dreadlocks in an outdoor cafe overlooking San Juan’s grittily trendy Calle Loiza strip, Daymé Arocena reflected wistfully on an old flame. “There’s a song on the album, ‘American Boy,’ that I wrote 10 years ago,” she said, discussing a track from her latest LP, “Alkemi,” due on Feb. 23. “He was a serious bass player from New York, the first person who introduced to me free jazz. But I felt the song was so simple, so easygoing, so … pop, that it didn’t fit what I wanted” at the time. “I had that double world of rumba at home and Bach at school,” she said and smiled.

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Persons: Arocena, ”, Santos Suárez, Amadeo Roldán, “, Bach Locations: San, New York, Santos, Havana