POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Benefit for National Hispanic Institute a Coming of Age

From an educational, perhaps even a political perspective, Wednesday night’s “Caliente y Picante” (“Hot and Spicy”) benefit concert at the Biltmore Bowl for the National Hispanic Arts, Education and Media Institute signaled a historic coming of age for Pan-Latino community organizing.

Linda Ronstadt, Ruben Blades, Jerry Garcia, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Carlos Santana and Poncho Sanchez constituted not only a perhaps-unprecedented gathering of world-class Latino musicians who long ago transcended ethnicity, but may have solved the riddle of how to improve Latino images in show business. Besides benefiting Latino education and giving an emotional boost to the local Latino community, the concert will also receive high-profile national exposure, as it was taped for November cable airing on “Cinemax Sessions.”

Unfortunately, that latter element--as significant as it could be for the community--almost straitjacketed the musical side of the more than two-hour show. The most obvious stricture was the need to parade so many artists before the TV cameras, thus limiting most performers to one or two songs. Also irritating were the recurring sound system lapses that left a few artists virtually inaudible to the audience, largely Latino movers and shakers who paid $5 to $100 a seat to pack the Biltmore Hotel’s 700-seat auditorium.

The net effect was discontinuity in the initial performances.

Examples: El Mariachi Los Camperos, one of the best in its class anywhere, was limited to one song, “La Negra,” by now a son rendered a cliche by over-performance. Cruz, the still-unrivaled queen of salsa, seemed to go through the motions, which--at more than 70 years of age--she’s still better at than most of her peers. And Ronstadt in her opening “El Crucifijo de Piedra” (“The Stone Crucifix”) sounded uncharacteristically pallid.

Blades and his group, Son Del Solar, rescued the show with a four-song salsa set, which even by his recent concert standards was a tour de force. Dapper in his black hat and suit, Blades sang with intense vocal energy, self-possession and emotional focus. But he was surpassed by his own band, which seemed to open up a whole new harmonic and rhythmic landscape in such standards as “Ojos del Perro Azul” (“Eyes of a Blue-Eyed Dog”), “Juana Mayo” and “Muevete.”

On that last number, the Grateful Dead’s Garcia, who had up until then sat in with some of the groups without contributing much save for his ever-present Cheshire grin, seemed ignited by Blades and Solar’s energy. Delivering a quirky, engagingly perceptive improvisation during “Muevete,” Garcia proved himself to be a guitarist of strong jazz sensibilities.