by Chris Herrington
hey move to the music with grace and precision, their movements
imparting a familiarity with the nuances of the rhythm that their younger, mostly white,
counterparts can’t match. It has taken this middle-aged Latino couple to break the
virginity of the dance floor, an hour into local salsa band Orquestra Caliente’s
recent three-hour Young Avenue Deli performance. And, though the floor fills quickly, this
older couple still dominates one’s attention.
It is a remarkably large crowd for a thunderstorm-filled Monday night, and remarkably diverse. Though there are plenty of the scraggly student-types one expects to see, the crowd is more varied than usual – young and old, black, white, and Hispanic, all enjoying Caliente’s expert Latin rhythms.
| PHOTO BY DANIEL BALL |
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Orquestra Caliente is an eight-piece salsa and Latin jazz band that has been together for about eight months, and has begun picking up considerable steam. Their gig at Young Avenue Deli on alternate Mondays has created a sort of one-band salsa scene in a musical landscape usually dominated by blues, rock, and soul. The eight-piece lineup is smallish by salsa standards, consisting of Melina Almodovar on vocals, Howard Lamb on trombone, Tom Link on sax/flute, Tim Goodwin on bass, Katie Cosco on piano, Dave Latour on drum set, Rico Rhumba on congas, and Jay Sharp on auxiliary percussion.
This unlikely unit is the brainchild of Lamb, a Navy retiree who moved to Memphis in 1992. Lamb, a jazz trombone instructor at the University of Memphis and an imposing, jocular figure, is a sort of one-man music factory. “I like doing projects,” he says. “I like running things up the flagpole and seeing what happens.” Caliente is only the latest of his musical projects, which include the Memphis Jazz Orchestra; a swing band, Swing Time; and a Dixieland band, The Beale Street Strutters.
Lamb, who has run two successful salsa bands in the Washington, D.C., area, arrived in Memphis just as the recent dramatic increase in the local Hispanic population was beginning. He had a hard time finding musicians well-versed in Latin styles. Hooking up with Tim Goodwin, a full-time member of the university’s music faculty, was key. Goodwin, a University of Miami graduate with experience in that city’s fertile Latin-music scene, was adept in a Latin bass style that Lamb found rare in Memphis.
The transition from the small Latin jazz combo that Lamb and Goodwin envisioned to the dance-oriented salsa band that became Caliente happened, ironically, about eight months ago at the East Memphis Mexican restaurant Salsa, where Goodwin plays with a small jazz combo on Wednesday nights. Goodwin was approached by Almodovar, a 20-year-old Puerto Rican, who asked to sit in with his band. Goodwin called Lamb the next day to tell him he’d found a singer.
Almodovar moved to Memphis from Puerto Rico eight years ago, attended Houston High School, and settled into the local scene, including a couple of stints in rock bands. She took up Latin music as a serious pursuit only recently, and was surprised to discover how easily it came to her, how much a part of her life the music had always been. Singing in a salsa band made up mostly of Anglos, many old enough to be her father, was not a venture Almodovar entered into without skepticism. “At first it felt weird,” she says, “but now I feel so lucky to be working with guys who have been playing so long and who play so well.”
Though Caliente’s rise in popularity has coincided with the recent increase in the population of Memphis’ Hispanic community, there may not neccessarily be a causal relationship. Jose Guerrero, president of Latino-Memphis Conexion, a collaborative that works to build relationships between the Spanish-speaking population and the larger Memphis community, estimates the local Hispanic population at about 50,000. But the majority of the local Hispanic community is Mexican, products of a far different cultural tradition than the Afro-Cuban culture from which salsa springs, and is still very isolated.
This isolation may partly explain why Caliente has achieved crossover success where other Hispanic bands from Mexican and Central American traditions haven’t. But a better answer probably lies in the differences between Afro-Cuban and Mexican musical styles. Language is a crucial barrier between all Latin music and non-Spanish-speaking audiences, but it may be less of an issue with salsa, a dance-oriented music whose increasing worldwide following prompted Newsweek to tout it, in a recent cover spread on Cuba, as the “reggae of the ’90s.” Citing the Latin influence in American jazz, as well as the stateside success of salsa/Latin jazz performers such as Ruben Blades and Tito Puente, Almodovar speculates that the sounds of salsa may be familiar to non-trained American ears, even if they don’t realize it.
Guerrero, who also hosts Alma Latina, a Hispanic music program on WEVL-FM 90 (Mondays, 2-4 p.m.), tends to agree. “Salsa has always been the most popular form of Latin music,” he says, “It’s hot, spicy, dance-oriented. It’s also been the most publicized.” Almodovar, who is writing a piece on salsa for Mundo Latina, the local Spanish-language newspaper, thinks the energy of the music has a way of overcoming cultural differences. “People know what good music is and can appreciate it,” she says, “They can feel the passion and happiness even if they can’t understand the words.”
The skill and flair of Caliente is, of course, the biggest reason for their success. Though they do demand a larger stage (the eight-piece band is really crammed up there, and Almodovar, in particular, needs more room to move around) and a better sound system than Young Avenue Deli currently affords them, their skilled, experienced musicianship shines. And Almodovar, the 20-year-old singer with a seemingly big future, who absolutely radiates star power. Combine those elements with a refreshing sound in a city that, as Guerrero contends, “is hungry for diversity,” and that large crowd who battled the rain on a Monday night doesn’t seem so remarkable after all. n
Orquestra Caliente
March 2nd, and every other Monday
Young Avenue Deli, 2119 Young Ave.