Tag Archives: Latin music

“Too many Latinos”

Yesterday I attended Day 1 of the Big Church Day Out – a two-day Christian music festival on the grounds of a stately home situated at the foot of the South Downs, on England’s South Coast.

One of my reasons for going was that Salvador were playing. I’ve interviewed their lead singer Nic Gonzales several times in the past (and also his wife, the singer Jaci Velasquez) and a follow-up interview was, in my mind, long overdue – especially since I’ve now kind of started playing in a Latin band myself…

A few days before I was due to see Salvador, the Internet threw me another good reason to want to speak to them. A certain right-wing commentator had decided to spew some bile on immigrants (again), and had written a column basically claiming that there were “too many Latinos” in the USA (I’m not even going to dignify such nonsense by naming the person or posting links to their writing; I suggest you google ‘too many Latinos’ yourself if you want to know who it is and what he/she/it wrote). And so when it came to my turn to fire a question at Salvador during their press conference, I knew exactly what I was going to ask.

“As a multi-cultural Christian band that plays Latin music, how do you respond when someone says ‘there are too many Latinos in America’?”

Step forward Nic Gonzales and saxophonist Craig Swift:

NIC: “I think that any time people talk about there being ‘too many’ of something, it’s spoken out of frustration. We certainly give grace where we believe grace would be given. People who speak that way have obviously come into a bad encounter with a person of Hispanic culture, or maybe they’re frustrated by something. Any time you’re overwhelmed, or feel like you have a lack of something, you’re looking for someone to blame.

“Being Hispanic is one thing. But being Christians overall, we certainly feel that grace needs to be given. Maybe they just don’t understand. Personally, those comments don’t hurt my feelings because I probably don’t dig into them as much; I kind of live in a bliss that I’m working as hard as I can, and I’m going to do the best that I can by my family and my bandmates. And I think that as long as I do that, I can certainly feel good about who I am and the colour of my skin.”

CRAIG: “As a white person, I think it probably offends me more than it would offend them [cue laughter from the Hispanic band members]. I think Chris (Bevins, the band’s keyboardist) would probably feel the same way. It kinda baffles my mind, the small thinking of some people.

“Being around Latin culture, as a white person I’ve gained a lot. I love how Latin people place such a high priority on family. It’s beautiful to me to see that. Loyalty is another thing I see throguhout the Latin culture. I think that’s something that we all gain a lot from. We all need to put more emphasis on our families. And we all should be loyal friends and loyal husbands and wives and churchgoers. So as a white person, I probably shoulder more offence and am in more of a ‘fight’ mood than these guys.” [cue more laughter]

Oh yeah – I also mentioned to the guys that I’d started playing in a salsa band, and asked if they could offer me some survival tips. Percussionist Alejandro Santoyo offered this advice:

“I would go back and listen to Santana. Listen to the rhythm section that’s going on; it’s very simple. as you start to listen to more salsa music, the montunos get more and more difficult. As far as percussion goes: if you have the rhythm here, and you learn the two different claves, you’re on your way.”

Muchisimas gracias, hermanos. And now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time I got some montuno practise in…

Salvador at their press conference. Nic Gonzales is second left (in the blue shirt); Craig is on the left. Alejandro is at the other end; on the right.
Salvador at their press conference. Nic Gonzales is second left (in the blue shirt); Craig is on the left. Alejandro is at the other end; on the right.
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Live review: Ruben Blades

Well, not so much a review as a collection of thoughts…

I’m on a 148 bus (hooray for smartphones! But on what planet do people say “hooray” when they really wanted to say “bootstraps”?), going home after a brilliant gig I went to mostly out of curiosity.

Ruben Blades has just come off the stage at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire (I know it’s not called that any more, but I refuse to give free plugs to mobile phone companies), after treating a packed house to two and a half hours of sheer delight.  Salsa fan that I am, I’ve kind of always been aware of Ruben’s existence, but not as familiar with his work compared to that of other salseros. So when I heard he was going to have a gig in London, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to acquaint myself.

Well, even though I didn’t know much of his material before, I thoroughly enjoyed the gig. And in his band was someone I was familiar with: the ace trombonist and salsa dura maestro Jimmy Bosch, who did a few awesome solos and a great ‘duelling horns’ battle with one of the trumpeters. In addition to his own songs, Ruben covered hits by Willie Colon, Hector Lavoe and Jose Feliciano, throwing in the ‘Thriller’ intro before going into ‘Mack the Knife’ (the only English song of the evening). He paid tribute to Facundo Cabral (the legendary Argentinean songwriter, who was murdered in Guatemala earlier this month); to Colombian salsa star Joe Arroyo (who’d died just a day or two earlier) and to Amy Winehouse. Later on, he talked about the mass murder in Norway as an introduction to an anti-racism song.

The older I get, the more I appreciative I am of people who love full lives – and I found Ruben’s life story (or at least the little of it he shared with us) quite inspiring. Neither of his parents made it further than the sixth grade (someone has to explain to me what the British equivalent of that is), but “we were never poor, because poverty is something up here.” He went to university in his native Panama, but left the country before his graduation – and is proud of the fact that he never served as a lawyer “under a dictatorship.” Most inspiring of all (to me, anyway) was the fact that he’s getting ready to head back to college, to do a doctorate!

I learned a few other things as the gig progressed. I learned that Gabriel Garcia Marquez (whose Love in the Time of Cholera is sitting in my office, waiting to be read) is a musician as well as an award-winning author. Ruben told us about their friendship, then played us a song they’d written together. I learned that the volume at salsa gigs goes up gradually – and if you haven’t got earplugs in at the start, you’ll certainly need them by the end (but then that could just be the Empire’s acoustics). But above all, I was reminded that you’re as young as you feel, and you’re never too old to learn something new.

Yep – I had a great time tonight. I want Ruben’s leather jacket. And his trilby hat. And to look that good (and move that well) when I’m 63…