Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Two Toronto jazzmen and a Brooklyn DJ walk into a bar. And when they all walk out, they’ve written the slap of the summer.

Okay, that’s a bit of an oversimplification. But it’s still a good thumbnail for how we got Papaya,” the intoxicating first collaboration between Canadian national treasures of jazz Alex Bird and Ewen Farncombe and Venezuelan-born, New York-based Latin-dance giant Cheo. And boy, is their story a case of being in the right place at the right time.