Latin music used to be strictly a Latin thing. But since the 1930s, exotic dance infatuations like the tango, rumba, conga, mambo, cha-cha and pachanga have gradually assimilated into the American cultural fabric.
In the 1970s the sauce got hotter with a dance style called salsa. Attorney Jerry Masucci and bandleader Johnny Pacheco coined the term to describe the music on their Fania Records label, home to the Fania Allstars, a noted ensemble with stars like Willie Colon, Ray Barretto and Larry Harlow, and incredible singers, recorded live at the Cheetah nightclub. Their sound -- a complex mesh of brass, piano, bass, percussion and vocals that swings like mad around a two-bar rhythmic pattern called clave -- ignited a movement.
Salsa music has gone through several eras: Tunes from salsa's '70s golden age are now referred to as salsa dura (hard salsa), the 1980s saw a romantic phase called salsa romÃ?ntica, and the 1990s swung hard with new Cuban influences like songo and timba.
Today you can dance salsa any night of the week around the Bay Area. More than 25 venues cater to a multicultural blend of salseros and salseras who dig this Caribbean-based music and dance. Web sites like www.SalsaCrazy.com keep salsaholics informed of the hip happenings with e-mail blasts to the more than 82,000 dancers who keep the scene jumping.
"It started out small as a way of telling my friends where I would be dancing," says Evan Margolin, who calls himself "a dance evangelist" who was hit by a salsa "thunderbolt" in the 1980s and started the SalsaCrazy site nine years ago. "Over the years, it just kept growing and growing. Now it's massive and probably one of the largest salsa sites on the Web." At Sol y Luna, a long-gone restaurant and bar on the Embarcadero, Margolin met Alex Da Silva, a Latin dance instructor on the TV show "So You Think You Can Dance."
"The next day I was taking dance lessons with (Da Silva) five, six days out of the week," Margolin says. "Back then, Alex and Ava Apple were the only ones teaching salsa dance around here." Now a professional dance instructor with DVDs on how to salsa, Margolin says his hometown scene is underrated and hopes that SalsaCrazy can be a beacon for it.
"Right now the U.S. is undergoing a transformation about dance with these TV shows -- 'Dancing With the Stars' and 'So You Think You Can Dance,' or the new 'Take the Lead' movie with Antonio Banderas. It's creating a resurgence in dance in general."
The Bay Area salsa scene is a stream of crosscurrents that includes bands, DJs, club owners and dancers. The music is the magnet, provided by more than 30 bands playing varying styles from Peru, Puerto Rico, Cuba, New York and San Francisco. Their sizes vary from eight to 12 pieces with plenty of percussion, brass and stylish lead singers.
DJs La Coqui, Fab Fred, El De La Clave, Tony O and others fill in between band sets and sometimes carry the whole show. These DJs have expanded the parameters for salsa throughout Northern California. Spinning in places such as Concord, Santa Rosa and Sacramento, they lighten the load for club owners and event producers, who pay a DJ $300 compared with upward of $1,500 for a live ensemble.
"DJs play a very important role," says DJ Coqui Ivette Fuentes, who was recently awarded a 2006 Tribute to Women in Salsa Award for "significantly contributing to the development and vitality of the salsa community."
"It's our job to keep the dance floor packed," she says. "If you share the night with a band, it is important that you make a connection with the musicians." When it comes to salsa bands, there are plenty to choose from. Peruvian salsa is popping right now, with bands like Julio Bravo & Orquesta Salsabor and Pepe y Su Orquesta Peru, Andy & Orquesta Callao, Orquesta Bakan and others. Puerto Rican salsa purveyors Conjunto Alegre and Orquesta Borinquen bring the flavors of the island of enchantment alive with jibaro and bomba y plena influences. Salsa Cubana is plentiful, performed by Fito Reinoso & Ritmo y Armonia, Tito y Su Son de Cuba, Jesus Diaz y Su QBA, Vission Latina, Pellejo Seco, Quimbombo and others.
New York City Latin is well represented with Anthony Blea y Su Charanga, Louie Romero & Mazacote, La Verdad, Candela, Tito Garcia and Orquesta America. And then there are bands like Avance, which creates original salsa-fusion music.
Nobody has been playing salsa in the Bay Area longer than Bayardo "Benny" Velarde, who can be found playing timbales with his Supercombo every Wednesday at Top of the Mark in the Mark Hopkins Hotel at the summit of Nob Hill.
Ten years ago, Velarde, now 76, survived cancer of the larynx by having his vocal cords removed; he now speaks through a voice box . No question that by calling it 'salsa,' this music grew," he says. "People got curious about it and started going to clubs to hear it. The term gave definition to the music.
"I believe salsa is stabilized in the Bay Area now because people have a better understanding of the music. That was not the case when I got started. Another major steppingstone is that people stopped caring that it was sung in Spanish and simply related to the music."
Born in Panama, Velarde started playing timbales as a teenager at Mission High School in the late 1940s. He traveled to Manhattan in 1952, where he studied the styles of the greats playing at the Palladium Ballroom at the height of the mambo era. Greatly influenced by Tito Puente, he returned in 1954 and joined vibraphonist Cal Tjader's Modern Mambo Quartet.
He started his first band in 1958 at the Copacabana Nightclub on Broadway and brought in bands from New York and Cuba such as Tito Rodriguez, Charlie Palmieri, Sonora Matancera and others. A golden age lasted until the area "went topless," which pushed out the music venues. The Copa closed in 1969, but Velarde did not miss a beat, picking up a steady gig at the Reunion on Union Square.
"The people at the Reunion were mainly Americans," he says. "We used to play new things that were coming from New York City, in particular the music of Eddie Palmieri. I think he is an important innovator in salsa. We did things like 'Lo Que Traigo Es Sabroso' (What I Got Is Tasty) by him, and believe it or not, people still ask for that tune."
The most important element of any salsa venue is the dance floor, preferably a smooth wood surface with plenty of room to let dancers glide through moves derived from the classic Latin ballroom techniques, advanced with disco twists and turns.
"Cafe Cocomo is one of my favorite clubs to play in," says Tito Garcia, optometrist by day and salsa bandleader by night. "It holds 700 people and has a nice mezzanine to see the bands and dancers."
The venues play an important role in keeping the Bay Area's salsa scene -- formerly known as the "cuchifrito circuit" -- on track. With its spacious dance floor and Lava Lounge, the remodeled Cafe Cocomo, in the warehouse district of Potrero Hill, is a jewel of the scene. Maxwell's Lounge in Oakland on Thursday nights is considered one of the most elegant dancing spots. Roccapulco, on the site of the old Cesar's Latin Palace, is still distinguished by the palm trees and neon signs with the names of salsa greats who have performed there.
Garcia is on a retro kick these days, doing old mambos from the Machito and Puente songbooks; he even had a tailor make him some of those Ricky Ricardo puffy rumba sleeves. "I am collaborating with the Mambo Romero Dance Co www.MamboRomero.com , which does routines and teaches people at our shows," Garcia says. "Tito Puente once told me, 'Teach them how to dance and they will come.' "
Most clubs that present salsa music begin the evening with a free dance lesson. Many former newbies have gone on to join local dance troupes that perform at the annual Bay Area Salsa Congress. Dancers Michelle Castro and Ricardo Sanchez collaborated with Los Angeles promoter Albert Torres to initiate the amateur and professional Latin dance competition here.
"We felt the Bay Area deserved to be recognized," Castro says. "This is a huge place for salsa, with some great bands and dancers. After attending one of the first L.A. Salsa Congresses, we felt we needed to bring it here and do it on a grand scale." Their inaugural Bay Area event included such dance teams as the Pretty Boys and Girls Dance Company, Latin Symbolics, Rica Salsa, Son de Mania and Los Salseros de Stanford.
"Unity through salsa" is the motto adopted by Torres for the Salsa Congress. Some critics say competitive dance takes away the pure fun of dance by turning the experience into an athletic endeavor. Who knows? What matters is that people are socializing and learning about another culture.
"Can you imagine Salsa along the Great Wall?" says Torres, who recently returned from Beijing. "We're setting up a concert for Oscar D'Leon that will take place in the biggest park in Beijing. There are over 1 billion people in China. If we get just 1 percent of them to dance salsa, can you imagine what could happen?" Ã??