The thirty-third edition of the Jazz Plaza International Festival, held between January 16 and 21, 2018 and shared by the cities of Havana and Santiago de Cuba as hosts, can be described as excellent.

In Cuba, beyond the objective and subjective problems that have impeded the flourishing of an efficient music industry, we have the privilege of creating and consuming high-end jazz, in which it is worth noting that the different editions of the Jazz Plaza since 1980 have contributed to the promotion and defense of the said genre as the first great sonorous language of the twentieth century, to the point that today this genre, among those interpreted by Cubans living in the country or residing in the diaspora, is the one that enjoys the greatest recognition in different corners of the world.

It seems to me an achievement that more and more jazz players, who at a given moment decided to leave Cuba to pursue other horizons in their careers, take part in the festival. They are the protagonists of an emerging sonority in Cuba's artistic milieu and its diaspora.

The creational motivation, the foundation and development of the artistic proposal is not the exclusion of the other by either of the two parties. The natural right of a normal and fluid communication of Cuban culture with our artists living abroad becomes a reality.

A second aspect I want to draw attention to is the participation of so many outstanding foreign personalities who visited us to participate in the thirty-third edition of the International Jazz Plaza festival, given the enormous prestige that it has earned in the international jazz universe.

Jazz Plaza 2018 became a beautiful and authentic cultural mix between Cuban and foreign artists, in order to dialogue the common and universal language of music, which works as a privileged point of convergence among human beings, regardless of our political, ideological, cultural, economic, religious or racial differences, or the spot of the planet in which we have decided to live at.