Notes flow from Alexis Puentes' impassioned voice and delicate strumming of the Cuban tres guitar, syncopated with trickling congas and crisp bata drums, like minty mojito poured onto the tip of the tongue.

It's "the essence" of Cuban music, as Puentes says, what you've been thirsting for when you seek out typically Latino sounds of The Buena Vista Social Club or contemporary salsa borne between New York and the Caribbean.

Like the name -- in Spanish, "puente" means "bridge" -- his musical and personal style is a hemispheric channeling of both this Cuban essence and popular North American music, with a cultural heritage equally Latino and global. In traveling translation, Puentes becomes the stage persona known as Alex Cuba, a sugar-cane-sweet distillation of his homeland and his transnational identity.

With a soulful mix of pan-Caribbean rhythms, African-American funk and R&B, jazz and pop motifs, Alex Cuba strikes a handsomely hip pose musically and stylistically, sporting a vintage Gibson, robust Afro, sideburns and bell-bottoms.

Cuba visits Rumba next week to showcase his CD, "Agua del Pozo" (Caracol Records), due for release Feb. 9. Like "Water From the Well" (as the title translates), Cuba wants to satisfy the palate parched for new Latin musical flavors, and to feed the multiple sources of his own creative soul.

Moving from the countryside near Havana to British Columbia was the first major step in Puentes' quest for a musical persona.

"To be completely honest, I wanted to try life outside of Cuba," he says from Canada, "to hear music from other points of view, and I never regretted that I left." With the Alex Cuba Band, he released "Humo de Tabaco" in 2005, later shortening his artistic brand to Alex Cuba.

"I came to a point where I realized I'm a singer-songwriter," he says, "and the name makes a statement of both where I come from and how I'm trying to stand out."

His latest CD fuses the alt-Latin genre and Afro-American Diaspora, from jazz and soul to traditional Cuban son. The disc digs also into the Cuban "Feeling" Movement, an up-tempo spin on the traditional bolero, but with sentimental, jazz-and-blues-influenced vocals, a la troubadour Pablo Milanes.

With Puentes on Gibson, tres, bass, bata drums, and shaker, the record also features Wurlitzer, congas, bongos, timbales, maracas, and a rich array of horns, suggesting sultry textures and very danceable sentimentality. In "Tu Boca Lo Quita," Puentes plays in Spanish on multiple meanings of "your mouth takes all the bad away" and "your mouth is crazy/wild." And the lyrics "Dame una mordida" mean "give me a bite" and "try me out" and more besides, with Puentes' voice yearning for elusive pleasures, every song dripping with sensual metaphors.

With a stripped-down combo for his show at Rumba, Puentes will play from his recordings and unreleased material. He suggests that even if you don't understand Spanish, the music says all you need to know.

"Somehow, the sound of my voice is very popular with the Anglo-American audience -- it's not a typical singer's voice in Cuba, but it's a very soulful sound, something very intimate and personal I like to share."

Alex Cuba

A bridge to the world

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Rumba, 351 W. Hubbard St.

Price: $10; 312-222-1228