View area storm coverage and share your photos.

Mad City loves its salsa: Dancing in the Latin groove

Kevin Lynch  —  11/03/2007 9:04 am

Even Frank Lloyd Wright's floor danced with a Latin accent when Madisalsa played in August at Dane Dances. The rooftop Evjue Gardens of Monona Terrace literally bounced as more than 3,000 dancers swiveled and shuddered to the pulsing rhythms.

The man in the moon was about the only wallflower because, invariably when a Latin music band starts cooking, so does dance -- whether it's salsa, samba, tango, rhumba, merengue, cha-cha or your own boogaloo.

Madison is becoming a more passionate place to live, thanks to the growth and popularity of Latino music, whether it is Afro-Cuban jazz, salsa, Tex-Mex, or reggaeton, a rockier, more contemporary style.

That huge dance at Monona Terrace, other big shows at Alliant Energy Center, and an increasing number of club events also illustrate a multicultural trend that promises harmony.

Dance is the sister of music, and these siblings in Latin culture are so simpatico that it's hard to know whether the real rhythm comes from the dancer's body or the musician's instrument.

Musicians say as much, and Latin bands and audiences have never been more plentiful. Among the more well-known goups are:

Madisalsa, a power-packed 10 piece band of horns, rhythm section and singers, serves up peppery variations of salsa, a jazzy dance music developed in the early 1970s from Cuban and other Latin folk styles.

To hear portions of Madisalsa's songs from its "Se Permite Bailar" CD, click on the following song links: Belen, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.

Tony Castaneda's Latin Jazz Sextet, consistently voted Madison's best jazz band, has for years made Sunday nights at the Cardinal Bar a guilty pleasure on a work night. They blend various Latin dance rhythms with strains of modern jazz -- sharp Afro-Cuban, which slices neatly into funky hard-bop, and mid-60s Miles Davis cool.

To hear portions of Tony Castaneda's Latin Jazz Sextet's songs from its "Mambo o Muerte" CD, click on the following song links: Mambo Cardinal, For E.P., Cheech's Bossa. 

El Clan Destino packs a musical combination punch loaded with Latinized rock, jazz and funk.

To hear portions of El Clan Destino's songs from its "Rukus" CD, click on the following song links: From Within, El Rukus.

Other popular groups playing various Latin styles include the Afro-Cuban styled Que Flavor, Grupo Candela and Calicor, which plays mainly Cumbian styles and includes children in their performances.

Among the area's youngest Hispanic talents is El Gatty, who does reggaeton, which blends heavily cadenced reggae rhythms and hip-hop.

It is a grass-roots groundswell. Latin music might be the most popular live music in Madison, even though arguments could be made for hip-hop, rock or country.

'Itching to dance'

El Clan Destino commands a club scene with a lean ensemble power. The quartet also knows how to work a crowd, even without a lead vocalist. Bassist Nick Moran handles the mike and is the audience pulse-taker.

"We know there's lot of you just itching to dance," he says at a recent Restaurant Magnus club date.

A tall, sleek Afro-haired young man yells out: "We just want one thing, the groove!"

The band hits it and the young man is on the floor in a flash, grabbing a dance partner. Hips, shoulders and legs weave into kinetic joy, gorgeous poses struck in flashing instants. Dancers begin flowing onto the floor.

El Clan steadily builds the groove on a jam until finally the players swoop into a coro, a ritual harmonized vocal call-and-response chant.

The coro's effect is almost instantly mesmerizing. El Clan's rock-edged pulse heightens the refrain's communal impulse. The incantation reverberates with sorrow, longing and supplication. This is spirit-calling and sensual exhalation, based on an actual prayer to the Yoruban god Elegua.

There's no wrong way

More Madisonians are getting attuned to bio-rhythms of Latino music -- sleep time, work time, dance time.

'We started seeing more dancers familiar with the Cuban style of dancing," says Vince Fuh, the keyboardist of El Clan Destino. "The response is very invigorating for us. When these dancers started showing up our playing started to change in a subtle manner. Suddenly we were challenged with something in the audience.

"Dancers depend on you to give them a good foundation, and if it's not happening you know right away. They leave and never return. If you see them respond, you know you're doing well."

Many non-Latino horn players who join Latin bands "see the response of the audience and they don't see that in other music they play," says Roberto Rengel, a percussionist with Que Flavor and Grupo Candela, who is also a professor of interior design at the UW-Madison. "Definitely when you see that energy in response, the more you put into it."

"And many non-Latino dancers are getting very involved in the music and learning the dance, almost as a way of life."

Fuh said that he's seeing a more mixing of races among the dancers.

"A lot of people will respond by dancing even if they didn't know the steps," he says, "which is great because there's no wrong way to dance. You should just get up and move. We do see a growing member of non-Latinos who are studying the dance, and joining in with the Latino crowd, including Cuban dance teachers."

The highly accomplished Fuh is a Chinese-American who also performs classical music with the Oakwood Chamber Players and has performed with many top local jazz musicians for years. He's also the pianist with Madisalsa. He provides the cultural perspective of a fascinated "outsider" who feels that "dance and music are essential to the existence of Hispanic people."

"If you come to understand their experience through their culture you can become more empathetic," Fuh says.

One new restaurant club, Con Safos in McFarland, the former Park Ponderosa Ballroom, offers many strains of Latin music and dance and, soon, will offer theater productions. The place is named for a Chicano expression that roughly translates as "with respect," and that's what the owners expect.

"We know what it is to grow up and be part of U.S. society but still have that otherness that's a part of our culture and history and how important it is for us to celebrate it," says the club's co-owner, Cornelio "Coky" Aguilera, who was born in Palmyra, but is of Mexican descent. "There aren't many venues for that, so we want to fill that void. We know how important it is to us, so we can imagine it is to others. We do it also out of the pure joy, out of pure taste. That's the music we enjoy."

He says Con Safos draws mainly "middle-class whites" from ages 35 to 45 for its Tuesday dance classes, and mostly people of Mexican descent from ages 21 to 31 for it's Mexican music on Friday. The Saturday programming of "tropical music" -- which encompasses ethnic genres of the Caribbean, Central and South America -- draws descendants of Colombia, Honduras, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Puerto Rico. A Sunday class attracts mostly older Europeans.

All-American salsa

San Juan native Mario Mendoza sings in several groups and has followed the scene for years as a politically active and attuned musician.

"You might say that salsa is as American as apple pie," say Mendoza, who sings and plays percussion in Madisalsa and several other groups. "It developed in New York, L.A. and Miami and the rhythms are ancient rhythms from Africa and indigenous places in the Americas."

He remembers Madisalsa playing "for dirt" at Kosta's on State Street (which is now Frida's, a hot Mexican restaurant and dance spot). Then things changed in the late 90s. The band began hustling gigs at Luther's Blues and Angelic Brewery.

"I'll never forget in the winter during snowstorms, many times Angelic would be packed to capacity, with a line of people all the way up Johnson to State Street," Mendoza says.

Back then, local Latin music was Madisalsa, Tony Castaneda's band and the eclectic folk-jazz-classical group Sotavento, which now rarely performs locally.

Although aficionados like Ricardo Gonzalez have broadcast the Latin beat for decades on WORT-89.9 FM, the current Latin music boom in Madison reflects a national craze for Latino music styles sparked in 1998 by the Buena Vista Social Club from Cuba, which was documented in a hit film featuring roots musician Ry Cooder and directed by Wim Wenders.

Mendoza says, that unlike other Midwest cities, Madison's general audiences have embraced the exotic rhythms and dance steps.

"People here are not as afraid of the unknown as other places," he says. "They respond directly to the performer. They're not fastidious about getting the dance technically right. But now more people who want to learn the basic steps are taking lessons."

Along with Con Safos, another key to the growing scene is La Movida (WLMV-1480 AM), Madison's first-ever Spanish-language radio station. The "Rhumba 4 Rainbow" Project -- a dance contest for the nonprofit charity for victims of family domestic violence and stress -- is another measure of Latin culture's impact in Madison. It has drawn increasing crowds for three years, at Monona Terrace, the Palace Latin Club and, a month ago, at Inn on the Park.

 

Kevin Lynch  —  11/03/2007 9:04 am