Mazacote
Salsa! Louie Romero’s Mazacote is a hidden jewel of San Francisco’s nightlife.
I have traveled all over Latin America collecting records. Old latin dance records on labels like Fania, Seeco, Fuentes and Velvet. This is what I do. The music burned into the grooves of these records expresses the joy and poetry of Latinos living in the urban centers of the US and Latin America from the 1940s until today. Imagine my surprise on returning to live in San Francisco after five years in Latin America that timbalero Louie Romero, who played on all the classic Willie Colon albums, plays regularly in San Francisco!
There are a number of bands playing the salsa circuit in San Francisco as I write. You may not know it, but the Bay Area has a vibrant Latin dance scene, probably one of the best in the country. Definitely the most integrated as far as the audiences are concerned, as most bigger cities have separate Latin dance scenes for Latinos and one more or less for gringos. Not so in San Pancho. I am here to tell you, Louie Romero’s Mazacote is the best Latin band in the bay area, playing world class mambo, latin jazz and salsa, and they absolutely kill it every time they play.
In the 1940s, it was called guaracha. In the ‘50s, mambo and cha cha cha. In the ‘60s boogaloo, and in the ‘70s salsa. It’s the evolution of a complex of essentially Afro-Cuban musics that at the beginning of the last century sounded more or less like the beautiful Buena Vista Social Club. By the 1970s it reached its most modern expression in the New York Salsa scene, and Louie Romero was right in the middle of it, backing the great Willie Colon and his singer Hector Lavoe - an absolute idol throughout the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean.
A typical Mazacote set will include a rousing version of Tito Puente’s Classic “Cuando Te Vea”, the slow and nasty Cha Cha Cha “Tinguaro” - a classic from the first Johnny Pacheco Latin Jam Session LP – and the uptempo instrumental “Montuno Swing” from the Panart Nino (enye) Rivera Cuban Jam Session LP. Excellent choices all! In Cali Colombia, the world capital of Salsa, when the first notes of “Montuno Swing” are played, the dance floor fills immediately.
Some people don’t even shrug when a venue charges fifty dollars for a concert. Let me save you forty dollars and promise a night you will not forget. Mazacote plays all around the bay area, often in small, intimate places. Come see the dancers and hear Latin music the way it's supposed to be played.
Upcoming shows:Friday, December 18: Cigar Bar (San Francisco, CA) 9:00 pm and Sunday, December 20: Coda (San Francisco) -- 9:00 pm. Check the Mazacote website for upcoming shows www.mazacote.com
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