You might think Afro-Cuban music and Jewish klezmer tunes from Eastern Europe were poles apart. But Toronto trumpeter David Buchbinder has dedicated much of the past 18 months to examining the many commonalities he's found between the two traditions, working with ace Cuban-Canadian pianist Hilario Durán and a hot septet of Hogtown's leading jazz players.

Buchbinder's recently released album Odessa/Havana breaks fresh ground in contemporary cross-cultural music. But while the project is new, its roots are old.

"I first heard salsa over 20 years ago, when I was living in Germany as a street musician," Buchbinder recalls, on the line from his home. "I really got into playing the music and loved it. At this point I'd never heard klezmer, but I was aware of some connections with Jewish music through what I'd heard in synagogues and in my parents' record collection. Salsa sounded like a rhythmically sophisticated version of something very homey."

Soon afterward Buchbinder discovered klezmer and founded the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, in which he continues to play. Instinctively, he gave the songs he was performing a subtle Afro-Cuban feel, but it would be many years before he took things further.

"Hilario and I only met to play together at the 2006 Juno celebrations, where we were both nominated in the contemporary-jazz category," Buchbinder says. "We played some of my original jazz compositions for CBC broadcasts and at a concert, and I really enjoyed his musical openness. I'd done some experiments before with the FBKB and Cuban percussionists, and it was interesting but a bit half-baked. I realized that to do this properly I had to have someone writing and playing from the other side. With Hilario it all came together fast. We composed the first chunk of music in August last year before our first concert, recorded those tunes, then wrote and put down the rest earlier this year."

Buchbinder is credited with three of the eight compositions on Odessa/Havana, Durán has four, and there's one joint creation, entitled simply "ColaboraciÓn". The longest and most elaborate cut, "Cádiz", is the trumpeter's investigation, in the language of contemporary jazz and world music, of ancient links between Jewish and Cuban traditions.

"There were already African influences in Spain 2,000 years ago, and possibly Hebraic influences too, because the port of Cádiz was founded by the Phoenicians, a Semitic people," Buchbinder explains. "Following the Arab conquest of the Iberian Peninsula [in the eighth century] there was a flourishing of Jewish, Islamic, and North African culture there, with much cross-fertilization. And after the Christians eventually regained Spain and threw out the Muslims and the Jews, a minority of Jews ended up in Poland, Romania, and Ukraine, places where klezmer developed.

"Going in the other direction, the conquistadors and most colonists came to Cuba from Andalusia, and not long afterwards brought slaves over from Africa," he continues. "There are elements in Cuban music clearly influenced by Arabic music. I explore those connections in 'Cádiz'. When you look at the confluence of all those things, it seems to me to explain the compatibility we've found between the musics. That said, we're creating a hybrid from them that's completely original–and very exciting to play."

David Buchbinder plays the Norman Rothstein Theatre on Sunday (December 2).