Bandleader's making a crack in the wall (Juan de Marcos González of Afro-Cuban All Stars)

A veteran Cuban bandleader who has been a pioneer in bringing Cuban music to the world is appearing in Miami for the first time. Juan de Marcos González, a key architect of the famous late-'90s group and project Buena Vista Social Club, brings his Afro-Cuban All Stars to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday.

González has probably done more than any other person to bring traditional Cuban music to audiences outside the island. He started in the early '90s with a son ensemble called Sierra Maestra, which toured internationally and earned González the job of assembling and directing the group that became the Buena Vista Social Club. While recording the Buena Vista Social Club, Gonzalez also made A Toda Cuba Le Gusta (All Cuba Likes It) with the newly created All Stars, which at the time included many of the BVSC's best known names, including singer Ibrahím Ferrer and pianist Rubén González.

González benefited from and was a key part in the boom in traditional Cuban music that followed the success of the Buena Vista Social Club in the late '90s. For the All Stars he orchestrated a changing multigenerational line-up of virtuoso players, mixing classic songs and styles with updated music and original compositions that showcased Cuba's musical vitality, and the group became one of the best known and most popular Cuban acts outside the island.

But a wane in the trend coincided with a clampdown by the Bush administration on exchanges with Cuba; since 2003, musicians from the island have been unable to play the United States.

But González never gave up on his country's traditional music -- or on its international possibilities. ''Life is a constant struggle,'' he said in Spanish in a telephone interview. ``The case of Buena Vista was an extreme case, where the popular roots music of country got to be in style . . . But music that becomes a fashion dies. So what happened was Cuban music went out, because the boom pretty much became a fashion and it exploded in a very commercial way.''

``But the music that I play and that many Cuban musicians play is never going to die.''

The appearance of González and his All Stars could be a sign of revitalization for Cuban music in the United States, the first crack in the wall between U.S. audiences and artists on the island since 2003.

''It seems to me that the pressures are relaxing,'' González said. ``I think that the governments of Cuba and the United States are going to come to an understanding in a little while.''

For now, the wall is still up. The All Stars were admitted to the United States because its 14 members, including González, all live outside Cuba, as have the few other Cuban music groups admitted into the United States in the past half-dozen years. But according to Bill Martinez, the attorney who procured their U.S. visas, four of the All Stars were admitted using their Cuban passports. By contrast, when Ska Cubano, a Cuban group living in England, came to the States three years ago, only members with British passports were admitted, Martinez says.

It is a tiny but significant change that comes as a national network of arts presenters and activists are lobbying the Obama administration to reopen cultural exchange with Cuba, hoping that a broader political movement to change U.S. policy will help their cultural agenda.