Desde la bahía - noticias musicales de San Francisco - TT: From the bay - TA: news from the San Francisco music scene

Latin Beat Magazine, May, 2001 by Jesse "Chuy" Varela

CHUCHO!: Last Wednesday night, Cuban pianist Jesús "Chucho" Valdés greeted the packed auditorium at Zellerbach Hall (U.C. Berkeley) with a modest smile.

With a quartet of young, baby-faced musicians from the island nation, he wasted no time in showcasing the virtuosity that garnered him a Grammy Award this year in the Latin Jazz category for his Blue Note album Live at the Village Vanguard.

Digging into a repertoire of standards -American and Cuban- Valdés began by vamping solo on piano with percussionist Yaroldy Abreu singing verses to the santería deity of Yemayá. As the group collectively joined in, he let the players ease into their spaces before lifting them off into an almost two-hour-long excursion of brilliant piano poetry that left the audience entranced.

From a lilting medium tempo waltz to an exuberant descarga, the 60-year old drew from classical, jazz and the popular stock of his father Bebo Valdés, a giant of the Havana 1940s & 1950s dancehall scene. Pounding out montunos, he worked up a potent groove before letting his remarkable facility and imagination take it away in a rare motif study.

Manteca, Old Devil Moon and Birdland served as guideposts for the listener as Valdés traversed the keys with an athleticism and modern harmonic concept of polytonality and 12-tone serials that had you at the edge of your seat filled with mini-dramas of tension and release. John Coltrane's Giant Steps served as an ensemble break for an unfortunately mushy bass solo by the lanky Lázaro Rivero, who is still finding his voice while fulfilling his role a sa superb supporting player.

Abreu carne next and raised a roar of approval as he dug in for a solo that had his hands gliding and pulling out, singing melodic tones and rhythmic counterpoints across four congas. His style is built on the innovations of 1980s conga drummers like Miguel "Angá" Díaz and Giovanni Hidalgo, who play with a looser wrist action that's more tonal than the hard-hand masters like Mongo Santamaría.

The repertoire for the show was a broad cross section that traversed Habanero beats from the days of Jelly Roll Morton to the free spontaneous combustion of Cecil Taylor. Highlights included a cubop rendering of the jazz theme Pent Up House and a gorgeous Duke Ellington medley composed of a chachachá interpretation of Satin Doll, a sensuous bolero framing of In a Sentimental Mood and a boiling Caravanas its finale.

In their early 20s and not as confident as his previous quartet that garnered the Grammy and toured several years with him, the musicians behind Valdés swung hard and shined with the spark of up-and-coming excellence. Each was given a chance at the spotlight with trap drummer Ramés Rodríguez showcasing state-of-the-art songo techniques that have intrigued jazz drummers of late.

Chucho Valdés came to prominence in the 1970s with the Cuban jazz super-group Irakere that included saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera and trumpeter Arturo Sandoval. His sons are starting to stretch their wings also, like his oldest, Jessey, who recently signed a recording deal with J&N Records. Teaching at the national conservatory, Valdés has weaned Cuba's top bandleaders and performers such as Orlando "Maraca" Valle, Miguel "Angá" Díaz, José Luis Cortes and many others, and this current crop is just as vibrant.

A transcendental figure at the prime of his game, he left the adoring cheers at Zellerbach with two encores from the classic Cuban songbook -La Comparsa and Tres Linda Cubanas. Chucho Valdés has visited this area several times but this was a magical night, and for me, one of his best Bay Area performances to date!

LOS MOCOSOS!: Is the mainstream English-speaking pop market ready to rock in Spanish? It happened in 1958 when Richie Valens scored a rock'n'roll hit with La Bamba and subsequent English-Spanish hits that followed. Now producers Josh Noerk and Miles Copeland of Ark21 Records are hoping to re-ignite that flame with a new compilation titled Escena Alterlatina: The Future Sound In Español. Being sold with a money-back guarantee, the 14-track compendium offers a hemispheric cross-section of performers such as Mexican diva Julieta Venegas and Los Angeles rappers Delinquent Habits.

For the most part, the bands that storm out of your speakers are relatively unknowns, including the Bay Area's Orixa and Los Mocosos. At a time when census counts are showing Hispanics growing into the largest minority population in the U.S., the widely-publicized collection could cast much-needed light on these Latin alternative bands.

Both Orixa and Los Mocosos have been instrumental in forging a network across the U.S. for their prospective sounds. Right now there's a potent wave of young bands like Santero, Songo, Caradura, Orquesta D'Soul and others producing great original music.

Orixa honed its fine metallic punk-ska sounds by pioneering regular rock-en-español shows at the Berkeley Square in the early 1990s. Made up of the talented Caipo brothers (Juan Manuel, Mark, and Eddie) from Perú, and Venezuelan hotshot singer Rowan Jiménez, the group is considered one of the best-unsigned bands in the U.S. Just nominated for a California Music Award for Best Latin Album, they're set to play their first east coast tour this spring.