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Concert Review
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New York Times, Concert Review >>
-by Ben Ratliff
Cuban Music, Good for Dancing, and for Thinking About as Well
Cuban music can withstand endless revisions, and the singer-songwriter Jose Conde is taking his turn, as he suggested at Joe’s Pub on Tuesday night. Born in Miami to Cuban parents, Mr. Conde has been working in New York for the last 10 years, slowly formulating a kind of Afro-Cuban music with an enlarged frame. It now brings together son, guajira, guaracha with New Orleans funk, Nigerian Afrobeat, South American cumbia, James Brown rhythms, Haitian compas, Brazilian afoxe, New York City boogaloo and even jam-band stuff predicated on electric guitars as much as hand drums.
His band, Ola Fresca, isn’t the only one making these connections, but that doesn’t matter. These elements are already historically joined, and this project almost writes itself.
That’s a lot of dance rhythm in one band, but there’s a folkish element too: Mr. Conde’s vocal understatement — unusual for the singer of a Latin dance band — and his emphasis on songs with characters, wordplay and some mild social ideas.
On Tuesday Mr. Conde and his band ran through songs from a new record, “(R)evolucion” (Pipiki/Mr. Bongo), which comes out next week. None of it was pensive, sit-and-think music, but the show had the irresolute feeling of the music being neither completely contemplative nor kinetic. Songs like “Ritmo y Sabor,” a son-funk alloy, and “Pititi y Titi,” a compas-son sung in French, were pointing the way toward release; they just didn’t quite get there.
But when the band found its stride and played a little harder, it all made sense, this balance between holding back and letting go. Some of the band’s excellent musicians made it happen — including the Cuban percussionists Roman Diaz and Marvin Diz; the keyboardist Pablo Vergara, who played jagged, powerful improvisations over Cuban rhythm patterns; the trombonist Rafi Malkiel, who soloed with loud confidence; and the electric guitarist Juancho Herrera, who played passages of ambient noise as well as driving grooves.
The band soon plays at the Living Room, a club associated more with cogitating than dancing. There Mr. Conde will have to try to retain his cool, but make the music explode with its inherent rhythm.
Jose Conde y Ola Fresca will play at the Living Room on May 27, June 10 and June 24; 154 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, (212) 533-7235. 05/17/07 >> go there
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