Desde La Bahia - TT: From the Bay area

Latin Beat Magazine, Nov, 2001 by Jesse Varela

MACHITO LIVES! Like a scene from the movie "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love," the Machito Orchestra jammed at Café Cocomo in San Francisco on September 1st. It was a Latino big band bash that was reminiscent of an era pioneered by the bands of Frank Grillo (Machito), Tito Puente and Tiro Rodríguez at New York's Palladium Ballroom in the 1940s and '50s.

Now under the direction of Machito's son, Mario Grillo (who also plays timbal), the band exploded with Con Clave, Con Manteca and quickly filled the large wooden dance floor at the reconverted warehouse on the foot of Potrero Hill. Playing two wonderful sets of Afro-Cuban classics with a contemporary jazz inflection, they never let up with music that was a pleasure to listen and dance to.

Guest soloist Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros, who carne into the Machito Orchestra in 1961, was outstanding on trumpet. The 73-year old Chocolate, who also played with the pivotal conjunto of Arsenio Rodríguez, was energetic and melodic with a style that blends Louie Armstrong with the great son montuno hornman Felix Chappotín.

Founded in 1939 by Latin jazz visionaries Mario Bauzá and Frank Grillo, the original concept for the Machito band was to create a sound fusing the innovative ideas of Duke Ellington and the black swing bands, with authentic Afro-Cuban rhythms. It was not an easy enterprise at first, as they had to adjust the Cuban 2/4 patterns known as clave to 4/4 American swing. Tito Puente's longtime bongó player, Johnny "Dandy" Rodríguez, helped keep the groove alive with his cowbell and percussive counterpoints on bongó.

Yo Soy La Rumba showcased the ensemble's cohesion, as horn sections answered the lyrics and improvised verses of singer Hermán Olivera. With old-school finesse, the silky smooth vocal veteran of Manny Oquendo & Libre brought a polished performance that stood up to the vocal standards set by Machito and his sister Graciela. A freestyle sonero who has the articulation of Tito Rodríguez and a great improvisational wit, Olivera created stories with an urban passion akin to hip-hop.

Ace players Enrique Fernández (alto), Pablo Calogero (tenor) and the legendary Pete Miranda (baritone) brought nuance to the lush arrangements created by greats such as René Hernández. The rhythm section of Frank Grillo Jr. (timbal), Frankie Valdés (congas), Gilberto Colón (piano) and Jerry Madera (bass) defined the swing that crossed over these sounds to the American public in the 1940s. It delighted the sardinepacked dancers who took advantage of any open space to twirl and spin their partners.

Sustaining a broken ankle (that would be a determining factor in not arriving to work on time on the morning of September 11 at the World Trade Center, thus saving his life), after his show Friday night in Los Angeles, 45-year old Mario Grillo led the 14-piece band from a stool all night and served as a cordial host. With a firm beat, he kept the heat up with gems from his father's songbook, such as Cuban Fantasy, Buscando La Melodía, ¡Qué Bonito Es Puerto Rico!, and others. The less than adequate sound was a challenge for the instrumentalists, while seasoned improvisers Colón, Calogero, Miranda and Chocolate added a nice jazz frosting to a delicious mambo pastry from an old Grillo family recipe.

GRITO SERPENTINO: "We're bringing a lot of different elements together," says poet Marc Pinate from his office in San José where Grito Serpentino band members José Arroyo (guitar) and Charles Castillo (drums-percussion) crowded around a speaker phone. "The timeless oral tradition, hip-hop, Malo, Santana... What we're trying to do is take this art, this poetry, to Latinos, young people of color and young, progressively minded people."

On Friday, September 14 at MACLA--a community center in San José--Grito (as their fans call them) hosted a record release party for their latest album Para La Gente (For The People), a collection of raw barrio emotion fusing spoken-word poetry and music. This is a moving, self-produced effort with provocative and inspiring themes like Searching for César, Papi was a Pitcher, El Rey, La Brujería Suite, and Battle of Tenochtitlan.

"Poetry, if you read it on the page, is just a poem," continues Pinate. "But when it's performed with music, it becomes a show. It becomes performance poetry--spoken word--that's different and engaging and touches young people with something that's cool but that also informs their mind."

The group grew out of the bond Pinate and Arroyo forged as students at Santa Clara University in the early 1990s. José accompanied Mark's poems at open mikes around the Bay Area on guitar. They hooked up with other musicians, and soon Castillo and bassist Mikey Chacón settled into the mix. Their first gig as a band was at the Agenda Lounge and the groundbreaking poetry series--Lunadas--which happened at Chachos Restaurant every full moon.

"I grew up with blues, funk and every kind of music imaginable," says Arroyo. "In playing punk music, I found that it was the groove that grabs the body, but the words that got people thinking after they were into the music. We found that the poetry worked if we mixed it up with a groove. I think we're in two camps as a spoken word group and a Chicano groove band, but with this albura I think we unite both of those scenes as one."