Subtitle this one "Africando and beyond" and you get an idea of what's afoot. Putumayo storms the dancefloor with an upbeat set of salsa using Africando as the pivot with three tracks from that stellar conglomeration. Actually the seven Africando CDs are a bit much (three are enough), but Jacob Edgar finds the gems on "Mandali" and a cut from "Baloba!" that I have overlooked. He could have gone deeper: Salsa is a deep well with bucketsful of great flavours. I.J. suggested adding Monguito, Afro-Salseros or Super Cayor instead of three Africando cuts. Of course there are other neglected greats who could be stirred up for such a compilation. But the other selections are solid: José Mangual Jr from Puerto Rico is hotly pursued by Pepe & the Bottle Blondes doing "Cuéntame que te pasó." I don't know how I know this one. The Duchess says it's a Manhattan Transfer song (and they do it better) but it must be on a TV commercial, it's very familiar. There's a weird version of "Babalu" by Ska Cubano (which I am guessing is a London ska band with a Cuban singer) and a Croatian group called Cubismo (not Cubanismo) doing "Morenita," which could pass for Cubanismo except the singer's Spanish is better-enunciated. Although Ricardo Lemvo parted ways with Putumayo he's here with the jamming "Samba luku samba" from his last album "¡Ay Valeria!" Like the very successful "Salsa round the World" of two years ago, this is a fluid set that shows not only Cubans are masters of the swinging Latin dancefloor. Like most Putumayo CDs it clocks in at a brief 45 minutes, though that's better than the endless tedium of the "Rough Guide to Dub" or other CDs that last an hour that seems to go on forever.