The ceiling is low, the sound system is muffled, and the lighting is murky at Commercial Drive’s the End Café, where Miguelito Valdes and his band, Puro Son, play most Saturday nights. But when Valdes puts his shiny trumpet to his lips the sound infiltrates every corner of the room, and the dancers—already twirling like dervishes—go into a salsified frenzy.

A young Cuban who has quickly made a mark on the local music scene, Valdes has racked up a remarkable number of achievements in the past decade and a bit. For a jazz musician playing a vernacular style, he hit the mother lode early, playing with the Buena Vista Social Club while still in his 20s.

This led to six years of touring with BVSC singer Omara Portuondo, which put him on jazz stages at major festivals, where he held his own as soloist and sideman with the likes of Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and the late Michael Brecker. This can be seen in video clips on his Web site, complete with photos showing Valdes sporting many different lengths of curly hair.

So how did such a versatile performer end up playing in an East Van nightclub?

“Life in Cuba is really bad right now,” he says. “It’s not easy, and it was already hard when I was growing up.”

Essentially, Valdes wound up in this city because his wife, Cynthia Rodriguez—also a fine musician—found work here a few years back, and they decided this would be a good place to plant their own musical identities.

“The life here is so different. The pace and the weather are new to us. We have to change a little bit, and open our minds, to combine our feelings with another culture. I play with everybody here—it’s just like that. And I also decided to make a band, man.”

That six-piece outfit—three men and three women, including pianist Rodriguez—is called Puro Son. The group will be playing as part of Festival Baobab, a three-day blowout of music with African roots that runs February 1, 2, and 8. Their Saturday (February 2) show is part of an event called Afro-Cuban Dance Party, and they’ll also play Mojito Night at the Polish Community Centre the night before.

“We are playing more traditional Cuban music, although now we are trying to combine some sounds for a new recording project,” Valdes says. “But it’s still traditional, with piano, bass, congas, and trumpet—not too much noise, right?”

Well, sure, but in addition to Puro Son gigs at the End and frequent shows at the WISE Hall and the Tango 8 Grill, Valdes also sends sounds into the night with other groups, such as the brassier Rumba Calzada, and he sometimes plays jazz standards in a band led by local guitar hero Johannes Grames.

“I’m still trying to learn as much as I can,” he explains in mildly accented English. “But my focus is on Puro Son. We have many new songs happening.”

Valdes believes his roots-minded group fills a gap in Afro-Cuban music that widened in the ’80s and early ’90s.

“The music was changing too fast. The bands playing there now—well, the musicians are playing too crazy. When Ry Cooder made that thing happen, it was a nice time,” Valdes says. “There were a few musicians, like me, who were not old, playing with guys 60, 70 years old. Cuban music became famous again for a while. That’s our music, right? Back home, kids are listening to reggaeton, not salsa anymore. I feel like an old man when I play music, and I just want to connect with that time before.”

With all that versatility, and the whiff of history about him, Valdes shares more than a little with another Miguelito Valdes, born in Havana in 1910, who pioneered the salsa big-band sound and gave the world (not to mention Desi Arnaz) the hit “Babalú”. Miguelito—or Mikey, as Vancouverites would likely say—is too young to remember any of that. How old, you ask?

“I’m 33,” he says with a chuckle. “Or maybe it’s more like 63.”