Todo Mundo adds Ogden Nature Center to tour

Story by Linda East Brady , Standard-Examiner staff - Jul 26 2013 - 1:09am

The San Diego band Todo Mundo has the whole world in its hands.

It starts with the name of the band, which means “all the world” in Spanish. And though the term “world music” might be a bit overused these days, this band is the very definition. Members’ points of origins include Israel, Venezuela, the United States, Colombia and Jamaica.

Todo Mundo brings the music of the world to the Ogden Nature Center’s summer concert series on Thursday, Aug. 1. Band members are touring to preview and celebrate putting the finishing touches on their new album, “Conexión,” due out in the fall.

“This will be our first time in Ogden,” said Santiago Orozco, the band’s founder, who hails from Bogota. “We are super-excited to go there and play, definitely.”

Orozco first became serious about learning to play when he got into reggae in his teens. He points to upbeat reggae styles as being what grabbed him hard and early — ska and old-school reggae that is danceable and rhythmic.

“The bands I really liked the most are not famous,” he said. “I could give you names, but you would not know them, because they were underground bands, even where I grew up. But it was all very upbeat stuff, and reggae in general is huge for me.”

Another musician he points to as influential is the Spanish/French star Manu Chao. Chao is known for mixing world styles together in a danceable mix, too.

“When I saw him the first time, he was doing exactly what I wanted to do,” said Orozco, of Chao. “I started to listen to him, learn from him.”

But don’t expect a straight reggae beat from this outfit. You’re just as likely to hear gypsy, samba, rumba and other rhythms.

Said Orozco: “You know it is funny, the way it works is, I play what I feel. It is not like I listen to a lot of rumba and samba. I just listen to all kinds of music. And then I think it is something about the way I grew up, and where I grew up, and what I heard playing. What is in my memory card, if you will, comes out in the music. This is a rumba, this is a samba. I love all music — it touches me universally.”

San Diego calls

What first drew Orozco to San Diego from Colombia were the lyrics to a particular song. The tune is called ‘Bienvenidos a Tijuana,’ and the magic line? “I want to go to San Diego, but I can’t.”

That lyric rang like a church bell on Sunday in Orozco’s heart.

“I always wanted to go to this place he talked about. It sounded magical. Then I met some people from San Diego, and that made me more excited to come.”

After a short visit, he laid plans to move there for good — and did, about four years ago.

“So I came to see the place by intuition, and it turns out to be magic here. It worked out perfect. And it is beautiful.”

Orozco’s first career had been as a cinematographer in his native Colombia. But he kept playing, for the love of it.

“It was a side job, because I was not brave enough to just go into music,” said Orozco. “You hear all the time, ‘How will you make a living?’ ”

However, playing guitar was Orozco’s great escape, he said.

“My therapy, I call it. It was just beautiful, the relationship I created with music. Then, I saw how some people reacted when I played, and I thought, ‘Oh, man. I am going to do this in a more formal way, even if just for fun.’ Finally one day, I just quit everything else and decided to make the music happen. And it happened.”

Being both coastal and a border city, relatively small San Diego attracts people from the world over. Orozco made sure to take advantage of that fact when he formed Todo Mundo.

“That was always the intention of the band — to have people from all over the world,” he said. “It worked out perfectly because it naturally happened. People from all over got together, and that gave us the freedom to play any kind of music in the band. Whatever we feel, we play.”