On their latest outing, Kenan Malik and Sandro Mazzotti introduce a new generation of Afro-Cuban bass players. Their music is as much a celebration of the heritage of underground jazz as it is a reminder that the Cuban jazz tradition is still alive.

Both artists, like their mentors of the past, are highly inventive and adaptable. Malik’s approach is more experimental but not unresponsive to the idiosyncratic timbre of the instrument. Mazzotti’s playing is anchored in the acoustic and electronic, but with a memorable melancholy.

The album opens with the ballad “Man On Board”, which manages to be both telegraphed and undemonstrative. “Toilets Docking” is a sort of R&B-inflected version of “Mama Said” – its power comes from the way the drums sit on the hi-hat, rather than the melody. “Mama Said” is an intense and sustained piece, playing with the rhythm and meter of the drum kit, rather than merely the cymbal crash. “Kamay” is a sombre and mournful celebration of the classic rhythm of the 19th century; “Ribbon” is a beautiful tribute to José María Azul-Llerenas, with its trumpet and flute, and “Lamento”, with its bowed trumpet, is a graceful figure, full of grace.

The album ends with “Part 2”, which is a tribute to the 18th century composer Beauregard Smyth. The rhythm is played with a rumba-like energy, and there’s a sense of a distant past, like the spinning of yarn in a spinning-wheel frame-less room. The timbre is an intriguingly dissonant buzz, but there are moments when the mood changes dramatically, or even more subtly, like when a single note is changed through a series of tones.

There’s more than one way to listen to "Last Man on Earth", and each of them brings their own personal essence to the table. Malik and Mazzotti draw from different busier periods in the history of the instrument, but the underlying vibrancy and subtlety always hold up.