At the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on Saturday, October 25

A flick and a splash. A flick and a splash. A flick and a splash. The first thing nuevo flamenco star Diego el Cigala did, on taking the stage at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, was stick his long, elegant fingers into the mixed drink at his side, then flick something onto the stage—a gesture he repeated two more times.

Naive Canadian that I am, my first thought was that there must be a terrible fruit-fly infestation backstage at the Chan. But el Cigala did the same thing when a stagehand replenished his drink mid-set, and again upon delivery of a third round. It was only then that I twigged to what he was up to: making a small offering to the spirits, perhaps in exchange for their aid.

I’m not sure if this is a gitano custom from his native Madrid, or something he’s picked up from Santeria practitioners in his adopted home, the Dominican Republic. Whatever it was, though, it must have worked: el Cigala delivered two long sets that held even the non-Spanish-speakers in the crowd spellbound. For those fluent in the language, it must have approximated a religious experience: the striking and saturnine singer, like Bob Marley and Youssou N’Dour, has the remarkable ability to embody a culture, expand on it, and make it accessible on a global scale.

By birth, the 45-year-old el Cigala’s heritage is flamenco; he’s been acclaimed as one of the finest traditional singers of his generation. In recent years, however, he’s expanded his reach to include Argentine tango and Cuban jazz, styles epitomized by two of the ghosts who joined him on-stage: Astor Piazzolla and Bebo Valdés. He never worked with the former, but the great bandoneon virtuoso and composer’s influence is all over el Cigala’s marvellous Cigala & Tango LP, and turned up on the tango-flavoured numbers—most notably “Milonga de Martín Fierro”—that dotted his set. The singer did get to enjoy an especially close working relationship with Valdés, who died last year, and his shade was especially present during the second set, which featured several tunes from their 2003 collaboration, Lágrimas Negras.

Pianist Jaime “Jumitus” Calabuig proved a more than satisfactory replacement for Valdés, sometimes playing with incredible delicacy, sometimes leaning into the piano with all the force his 300-pound frame could muster. Alone with el Cigala at the start of the second set, he followed the singer the way Tommy Flanagan used to shadow Ella Fitzgerald, giving further credence to the notion that el Cigala is using tango and rhumba as a way of entering the realm of jazz.

Certainly guitarist Dan Ben Lior is a jazz musician through and through; although billed on the program as playing acoustic guitar, he arrived with an electric hollowbody and a repertoire of licks that suggested he’s a disciple of the John Scofield style of bluesy improvisation.

Bassist Yelsy Heredia and percussionist Isidro Suárez weren’t always perfectly in synch; this is a relatively new band for el Cigala, and it’s still finding its feet. But all five musicians seemed delighted by their performance, indulging in an impromptu dance-off during the second, postencore standing ovation.

The spirits were pleased, as were we all.