As music director of Machito and his Afro-Cubans in the 1940s, the late Cuban saxophonist and bandleader Mario Bauzá was a key figure in the development of what came to be known as Latin jazz. Yet, he often railed against the term.

``I don't know what they're talking about when people talk about Latin jazz,'' he would say impatiently. ``Nobody is playing Latin jazz. What they are playing is Afro-Cuban jazz.''

Then, point made, he would allow exceptions.

``Paquito [D'Rivera] plays Latin jazz. Look at what he has done with Venezuelan waltzes, with tango, with Brazilian samba. [Jorge] Dalto played Latin jazz. Gato [Barbieri] plays Latin jazz. The rest are playing Afro-Cuban jazz.''

Bauzá, of course, had a point. Usage may make words correct, but only when reality catches up do the words have valid meaning. Once a sprinkling of exceptions, then the promising trend of a decade ago, Latin jazz is now, as pianist Danilo Pérez says, ``a movement.'' It includes established young veterans such as D'Rivera, Pérez, pianists Michel Camilo and Chano Domínguez, saxophonist David Sánchez, trombonist William Cepeda, guitarist Gerardo Nuñez and pianist Edward Simon. Add an impressive list of newcomers: saxophonists Miguel Zenón, Perico Sambeat and Llibert Fortuny, pianist Guillermo Klein, bassist Pedro Giraudo, pianist Adrián Iaies, trumpeter Diego Urcola and vocalist Claudia Acuña. Acuña appears at the University of Miami's Gusman Concert Hall at 8 p.m. Friday for Festival Miami.

The music of these artists is not drawing-board fusion but a form of bilingualism. It might swing and include references to the blues, jazz harmonies and improvisation, but the source material, and even some of the instruments, can easily be drawn from flamenco, bomba y plena, huapango, cumbia or tango. And while the musicians share a similar concept in applying the tools, practices and sensibilities of jazz to the music styles of their native cultures, their individual sounds can be as diverse as their accents and as far apart as Barcelona and Buenos Aires.

THE NEW JAZZ

Welcome to the ``new'' pan-Latin, pan-Ibero-American jazz, one of the most stimulating developments in jazz so far this century.

``Music is always a product of the times, and this is one positive aspect of globalization,'' says Cuban reedman Paquito D'Rivera, 61. ``But also jazz is a sort of Esperanto for musicians around the world. It has always been that, and it's become more so as time passes.

``Anything that we could add to this marvel called jazz, as long as it maintains the spirit, it's still jazz,'' says D'Rivera, who not only has championed a Pan-Latin notion of jazz through his repertoire but also has nurtured in his bands many of the talents now shaping the music.

Saxophonist Miguel Zenón, 32, has quickly become one of the movement's leaders. In 2008 he won a MacArthur and a Guggenheim, the first jazz artist to receive both in the same year. His new disc, Esta Plena, released on Branford Marsalis' Marsalis Music label, features a collection of original compositions that suggest a jazz update of plena, a traditional Afro-Hispanic folk music from Zenón's native Puerto Rico.

The new disc is a followup to Jibaro, a 2005 exploration of música jíbara, the hillbilly music of Puerto Rico. Still, Zenón calls himself a traditionalist.

``I love people who play changes [the jazz practice of improvising over the harmonies of a song]. I love bebop. That was my first school. But I also think what we are seeing is part of a natural process,'' Zenón says. ``With globalization you have musicians from all over the world [playing this music]. You have bands in which every member is from a different place. You have access to music from all over the world, and things develop naturally. I don't think there is a Big Bang moment for this. I just think it's the result of a natural progression.''

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