REVIEW: LA EXCELENCIA

August 12, 2010 at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles

Melissa Berry

Contributing Writer

Exploding out of the Skirball’s bucolic calm came La Excelencia — the 12-piece “salsa dura” orchestra of the 21st Century was performing in Los Angeles for the very first time. As they trotted through the audience toward the stage with their instruments held aloft or their hands above their heads clapping, the audience already belonged to them. This was an audience of everyone and everything you could imagine, and that’s just how the Skirball likes it.

Everything had been thought of in creating a wonderful evening of wonderful music: free tickets, organization of parking, various places for snacks or dining, and the museum was open. There’s a room with floor-to-ceiling glass which looks out on the outdoor performance area with speakers inside so families can be accommodated if need be and still hear the show. An open colonnaded area above and behind the stage looks down on the twinkling bee lights in the trees which, this evening, highlighted the audience and the stage, both of which would become alive with the music and motion of this evening of “salsa dura.”

La Excelencia is a young, New York-based salsa band that is the epitome of the recent “salsa dura” sound. This sound is a long way from the original, classic salsa of the late 1960s that was from the Fania record label, the ‘Motown’ of salsa, and is the salsa style with which most newer salsa artists and bands are compared and contrasted. Salsa dura means ‘hard’ salsa; salsa gorda means ‘fat’ salsa. Both terms are used to describe salsa that retains the basic characteristics of classic salsa: driving rhythms, call and response, ‘montuno’ sections, and socially conscious lyrics.

Instead of writing intensely heartfelt love songs as demanded by the salsa romantica style that has been dominant for a quarter-century now, La Excelencia sings about immigration, discrimination and poverty. In place of synthesizers and strings, the group’s trademark is its hard-driving brass and percussion, just like Fania Records from salsa’s heyday. It took only a note or two to hear that La Excelencia is unique. This is “unprettified” salsa dura, with the percussion cranked, lots of breaks, and the voices loud, almost to the point of distortion. With this full, deep, brassy sound and strong vocals, this salsa immediately had the audience on its feet and creating a dance floor in front of the stage. As the music grew more intoxicating, the number of dancers grew; this was a salsa that drives feet to perform improvised steps rather than trying to adjust memorized steps to fit the song. This salsa dura is unequivocally the “Ever Ready battery musical bunny that just keeps going and going” — its musical breaks and blaring brass ideal for salsa.

“It’s unapologetic, from New York — a salsa group with street cred. La Excelencia represents something very significant — a return not just to the classic formula of salsa but to the virtues of it,” says Aaron Levinson, a Grammy-winning producer best known for his work with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. “It’s one thing to bring the campana and make it sound old-school, but that’s not all they are doing. The really critical difference is that they are also going back to the more eclectic period when salsa was street music, playing with spirit and integrity and writing socially relevant music again.”

This throwback eclecticism of La Excelencia, founded in 2005 by percussionists José Vázquez Cofresí and Julián Silva, extends to its makeup. Band members, who range in age from 26 to 35, are of Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Colombian, Argentine-Ecuadorean, and Japanese descent (with a solitary Anglo trumpet player originally from Florida) and know how to fuse styles without making it apparent. One of La Excelencia’s signature songs, “La Lucha” or “The Struggle,” blends Cuban danzón, Puerto Rican bomba, and Colombian cumbia.

“It is important for us to feature everybody in the band, and that our songs be for all of Latin America,” said Mr. Vázquez, who plays conga. Mr. Silva, who plays timbales, added: “That’s why we call it salsa. It’s a mixture of everybody’s music. Why would you want to limit yourself?” Both were members of Los Calientes del Son, a band that toured the South playing “everything from salsa and cumbia to rock, jazz, and even country, just to be able to gig,” recalled Mr. Vázquez, who has an accounting degree and handles the band’s business affairs. At it has shows in Europe and across the United States, the 12-piece orchestra is often introduced to audiences as personifying “salsa from New York.” This creates a curious paradox when on its home turf. The band’s hard, tough sound and fondness for lyrics that address social issues has led traditionalists to regard the group as somehow outside the salsa mainstream. This is a real “working” band with consistent membership, which is often hard to do in New York.

On its own Handle With Care label, La Excelencia has released two CDs whose titles give a sense of the group’s philosophy: Salsa con Conciencia, which means salsa with “awareness” or “conscience,” and Mi Tumbao Social, or “My Social Drumbeat.” The songs on the current release are about roots, continuing the traditions and moving it forward, unlike the salsa lite that’s on the radio. In the last few years, young salseros in New York have been turning to this “salsa dura.” The Spanish Harlem Orchestra has perfected the big band salsa sound of the Fania years, while Jimmy Bosch, Wayne Gorbea, and La Excelencia are becoming instrumental in the rise and popularity of salsa dura around the world. Pablo Yglesias, author of The Rough Guide to Salsa and other books, theorizes that, “The truth is that La Excelencia is a mixture of the retro and the contemporary. I think they just see themselves as playing great music and not caring about fashion, so they are fresh that way.” La Excelencia’s dynamic live show and its presentation at the Skirball were a wonderful evening toward the goal of cultural diversity though music with perhaps the only suggestion being…more cow bell! Estoy bromeando…