Multiculturalism thrives in Canada, especially in its biggest city, Toronto. Witness Lula Lounge, probably the hottest Cuban club outside Havana, New York or Miami, located in a historically Portuguese district of Toronto. Essential Tracks collects music from 14 bands that have called the club home, their ranks often filled with recent immigrants and inevitably packed with groove-cutting percussionists and hot soloists. The Afro-Cuban sound of these often big bands is full and largely uncorrupted by ill-conceived stabs at pop music crossover.