Desde la Bahía - Area de la Bahía de San Francisco; conciertos y eventos - TT: From the Bay Area - TA: San Francisco Bay Area, California; concerts and events - Columna

Latin Beat Magazine, June-July, 1999 by Jesse Varela

LA CASA DE LA SALSA LLORA: Bill Rodríguez would have been 60 years old this June but he didn't make it. In April, the cofounder of DISCOLANDIA, the renowned salsa record shop in the San Francisco Mission District, died of diabetic and cardiovascular complications. Much like the closing of Harry Sepúlveda's Subway Records, we've lost a Latín music scholar who, with open heart, shared his heritage to us through the gift of music.

Cofounded along with his wife Silvia in 1972 on 24 St., Discolandia is a place that caters to the best in Salsa and música latina, a cultural hub always buzzing with music and conversation. Big name salsa acts like Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, El Gran Combo, Eddie Palmieri, and others made in-store appearances. It brought excitement to the hood. It's where you bought the tickets for the dances, the albums, the magazines, Latino newspapers, and in the '80s the explosion of rental videos.

Born in Aibonito, Puerto Rico, Bill moved with his parents to San Francisco at age 5. A graduate of Balboa High School, he married Silvia at St. Peter's Church in 1962, after a stint in the military. After 18 years as a conductor for the city's municipal railway system, he quit and plunged full-time into DISCOLANDIA with Silvia at his side. Subsequently, his brother Albert and sister-in-law Nancy would open DISCOLANDIA #2 in Oakland.

The store was a great source of inspiration musically for me. They played to the gusto of the people but their musical foundation was salsa, with an impressive stock. They were the Bay Area link to a world-wide Boricua diaspora of mom-and-pop shops maintaining Puerto Rican culture.

Bill and Silvia made the Mission a better place to be with an emporium of Latino culture on the Avenue of the Americas where everybody felt like family. Our deepest regrets to the Rodríguez family and thank you, Bill, for all the great years of music. Paz.

THE BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB: Just when you thought it was over, it's the film spectacular of The Buena Vista Social Club. The 42nd San Francisco Film Festival closed out this year's event in early May with a first time showing in the U.S. of the superb documentary by German filmmaker Wim Wenders of the acclaimed Cuban all-star ensemble. With footage from their historic recording sessions in Havana a couple of years ago, to concerts in the Netherlands and at Carnegie Hall in New York City, the film is a heartfelt tribute to a very special cultural exchange that gives insight to what rediscovery did for these aging legends.

Overall, the film is a series of portraits of the key players in the group and the collective bond they formed in the studio and on stage with snippets of spontaneity, surprise, and fun. It covers an impromptu jam on Chattanooga Choo Choo at EGREM Studios, and antidotes of the real lives and legacies of these folks. You see another side of Ry Cooder as he rides motorcycles through old Havana with his son Joachim, and performs with almost humble reverence.

The profiles are fascinating, with peeks at their homes in Cuba, recalling the heyday of Havana and their almost childlike sense of discovery as they walk around New York City. You discover their struggles and the essence of their music as you see Don Rubén González playing piano for a bunch of young gymnasts and ballet students, a refreshing generational montage of how music breathes in Cuba.

JAZZ ON 4th St. Berkeley is starting to garner a reputation as a jazz education center thanks to the illustrious work of the Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble and Combo, who for the last 25 years or so have garnered awards, performed at prestigious festivals, and been the incubator of jazz stars like Peter Apfelbaum, Rodney Franklin, Charlie Hunter, Josh Jones, Kito Gamble, and others. Two of Berkeley High's illustrious alumni -Miles Perkins with Mingus Amungus and sax titan Dave Ellis- returned to give a little back at a benefit for the school's Performing Arts program. Of course the Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble and Combo were along with Ritmo y Armonía, the powerhouse Afro-Cuban dance band led by sonero/singer Fito Reinoso. In the cool ocean view, treelined 4th St. vibe in West Berkeley, folks strolled along to music and a crafts fair atmosphere on Sunday, May 2.

¡TROMPETA DE CANDELA! When jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie saw Arturo Sandoval playing trumpet with the Cuban super group Irakere in the '70s, he gasped in awe and came back talking about this "strong as a bull" trumpet player. After his defection in the '80s to the U.S., Sandoval became part of Diz's "United Nation Orchestra." That set him on a path to jazz stardom that led recently to his second Grammy Award for "Best Latin Jazz Performance" for Hot House. While Sandoval is a virtuoso who draws from the classical world as well as a variety of influences, he's a great showman who also plays a mean timbal, soulful piano, and a trumpet that spits out fire as he proved in early May with a six-night run at Yoshi's Jazz House at Jack London Square in Oakland April 27-May 2.