A Cuban percussionist and a Jewish pianist from Algeria might not seem like a good match at first glance. But Roberto Rodriguez and Maurice el Medioni manage to pull it off. They've made a CD together that reflects their combined musical journeys. The World's Marco Werman tell us more.

There's a composition Maurice el Medioni wrote called Malika. In it, you can easily make out the two separate worlds that Roberto Rodriguez and Medioni come from. And you can also clearly make out how these two musicians bring those worlds together That's the full-on Cuban guajiro sound, with the tres guitar in the background. And then Maurice el-Medioni comes in on the piano with his Andalusian melody line. Medioni and percussionist Rodriguez both embrace similar music.

Medioni grew up with the Jewish Andalusian-Arabic sound in Algeria. He discovered Cuban rhythms like mambo and cha cha cha when US troops were occupying his hometown of Oran in World War II. The soldiers taught him the basics of Latin music in piano bars. Robert Rodriguez grew up with Latin sounds in Cuba.Then, as a kid, he moved to Miami with his family, and that's when he discovered Jewish music.

“My aunts were married to Jews, my father had lots of Jewish friends, it's in my system, cultural, it's growing up in Florida playing barmitzvahs, Jewish weddings, and in New York it just started to form, it started to become clear. I was living on 2nd Avenue right next to the old Second Avenue Deli which is not there anymore. I gravitated to the Jews man, it could have been any other culture, but I wasn't planning it, it wasn't like I'm gonna write this style of music or that style of music, it's just very natural.”

“The Andalucian has come to roost. You know? It's like when you hear Celia Cruz singing, and you have in flamenco you have the cantaor. You have...there's always the Jewish tinge. It works, it fits, it's there.”

It may seem perfectly natural, this collaboration between Roberto Rodriguez and Maurice el Medioni. But they didn't really know each other's work that well when they first met. Then a few years ago Rodriguez actually sat down and listened to Medioni's piano. “And when I heard his melodies, mainly it was his melodies, where one of the melodies that sticks with me goes (HUMS) You know that's very minor. (HUMS). And it's just like, OK, here we go.”

Maurice el Medioni has been playing his Rumb-orientale as he calls it for decades. Roberto Rodriguez has only been fusing North African Jewish music and Afro-Cuban for a few years. But the collaboration with Medioni is allowing him to cross boundaries and create a new musical identity.

I'm not Jewish but I'm getting closer.

For The World, I'm Marco Werman.