"Mentalities" are a music ensemble led by the lively composer and pianist Christoph Baumann from the canton of Aargau. For nearly ten years they have been experimenting on merging Afro-Cuban music tradition with European ways of play. Starting point was a composing job for the Willisau jazz festival in 1987. Founded then as a multi-national big band and having been reduced to a septet for economic reasons in the meantime, "Mentalities" have been touring at home and abroad. The result of this work is available on record (UTR 4042, Latin Adventures Part Two). The recording in hand was made at the closing stages of a tour that led the band from Moscow to the states of the "Golden Ring", to St. Petersburg and finally to the Baltic states. In the course of this tour, "Mentalities" have evolved a programme consisting of Latin tunes, free pieces of improvisation and fragments of composition. The outcome is revealed on this CD. "An Extended Bridge Between Two Traditions" is proving to be a successful musical link from various points of view.