So, in addition to a historic visit by the Baltimore Orioles, Havana gets Jimmy Buffett, Bonnie Raitt, Peter Frampton and a mix of other pop names from this side of the Straits.

But, we know, every note that rings in Havana has an echo in Miami. The symbiosis works that way -- when Miami catches a cold, Havana sneezes, as they say. This past week is no exception.

As the Americans pitched their folksy tunes to Havana, a loose delegation of Cubans delivered their rhythmic melodies to Miami.

South Beach's hottest salsa-dance club, Starfish, featured a ``Havana Weekend,'' starring troubadour Pedro Luis Ferrer, lute player Barbarito Torres and octogenarian vocalist Pio Leyva. The mini-fest continues with a Thursday night concert at the Cameo Theater starring Adalberto Alvarez y Su Son, one of the island's tightest salsa bands.

What do you get when you play Cheeseburger in Paradise  backward? You get an intensely rhythmic, hip-seducing Havana chant that goes like this:

``Don't turn on the fire, if you ain't gonna cook, Mama.''

Indeed, the flip side of the island's tepid American jam -- sorry, but Margaritaville  doesn't hold a candle to Adalberto's Toca Toca  -- is pretty hot.

With apologies to the idealistic souls who seek to conquer Cuba with a strum of an American guitar, the real jam is going on here.

``That's right, there's more salsa on this side of the bridge,'' Adalberto Alvarez told me with a laugh Tuesday morning as he prepared to board a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago.

His show Thursday night marks the first time he'll play for a Miami audience and, he says, ``the start of something that could be important.

``With these people-to-people exchanges, we can all learn about each other's music.''

Although they are officially sanctioned and publicly embraced, these people-to-people contacts frustrate Fidel Castro's efforts to isolate the Cuban people, to keep them in the dark about life outside the island.

As for the Miami side of this bridge, those who have engaged in unofficial exchanges and small-d ``dialogues'' for years have moved beyond the culture shock.

``It's funny, as I was preparing for these shows here, on Miami Beach, some close friends were preparing to go to Cuba to cover the shows over there,'' mused Starfish owner Debbie Ohanian, whose cozy club was transformed this weekend into a Havana speak-easy.

Between lyrical numbers, Pedro Luis Ferrer recited décimas, country verses, and delivered jokes, taking jabs at Cuba's political establishment. He performed the protest songs that have been banned in Havana and expressed a vision that also is banned, particularly by Castro's tough, new anti-dissidence laws.

He left Havana with pain in his heart, he said Friday night, frustrated by the government's recent trial of Cuban leading dissidents. Cuba, he said, is a country where political deviations are illegal, where the larger, silent masses weigh against the official rhetoric, where a protest singer like himself doesn't have to explain why he loves to play in Miami.

``People understand,'' he told the audience, his scratchy, whiskey voice booming under a South Beach chandelier. ``They know.

``And I would say this to anyone in Havana,'' he said. Of course, he explained, there is no free press to carry the echo of such opinions. There is no op-ed space in the official newspaper, Granma, for Cubans who believe such exchanges can lead to democratic change on the island.

But, there is always Miami, the other side of the bridge.