Latin Grammys: Marc Anthony, Pitbull shower Vegas with "Rain"

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, they say. But until the second hour of Univision's telecast, it was a bit hard to tell that the Latin Grammy Awards actually were happening in Vegas. 

That's because many of the live performances had been ultra-mellow, musica romantica numbers that lacked the million-watt glitz that screams out "LAS VEGAS!!!" like a flashing neon marquee.

Then Pitbull floated onto the stage in a see-through white globe that seemed to have wandered in from a Cirque du Soleil show. Seconds later, Marc Anthony materialized amid a swarm of lingerie-clad female dancers balancing on chairs like the femmes fatales in "Chicago."

Together, they launched into their insanely catchy, entendre-loaded, synth-driven dance hit duet "Rain Over Me," while the chorines gyrated through an onstage torrent of spraying water.

Now that's the cheesy, irresistible Las Vegas we all know.

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-- Reed Johnson

Photo: Marc Anthony, front left, and Pitbull perform at the 12th annual Latin Grammy Awards at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. Credit: Jewel Samad / AFP /Getty Images

Latin Grammys: From Sie7e, With Love (and Amor)

The Latin Recording Academy sets pretty strict rules when it comes to the language content of Latin Grammy-nominated songs. Nominees for Song of the Year, for example, must contain at least 51% Spanish or Portuguese lyrics.

But that still leaves 49% that can be in English, Spanglish, Finnish or Yiddish, if you like. What matters is mixing languages poetically, playfully, wittily and expressively, which is what up-and-coming Puerto Rican singer Sie7e, otherwise known as David Rodriguez, manages to do on bilingual songs such as "Tengo tu love," which he performed after winning this year's Best New Artist award. 

Here's the official video:

   

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Photo: Taboo, left, and Sie7e perform during the 12th annual Latin Grammy Awards at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Credit: Kevin Winter / Getty Images for the Latin Recording Academy

Latin Grammys: Calle 13 and Gustavo Dudamel get the show rolling

When Rene Pérez of the group Calle 13 rapped the opening number at the Latin Grammys, he had a semi-surprise guest from L.A. with him.

Right next to Pérez, on stage at the Mandalay Bay Hotel theater in Las Vegas, was none other than Gustavo Dudamel, music director and principal conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and budding multimedia celebrity, conducting the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, the orchestra that Dudamel apprenticed with as a youth. It's Dudamel's biggest television audience since he guested on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno earlier this year.

Resplendent in a yellow, blue and red sash -- the colors of the Venezuelan flag -- Dudamel led his orchestra in backing Calle 13's hit song "Latinoamerica," an anthemic celebration of Latin culture and identity stetching from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego. Like Pérez and his stepbrother Eduardo Cabra, Calle 13's other half, Dudamel has made a point in his career of promoting music from all corners of Latin America -- including the music of the growing Latino presence in the United States.

He and wife, Eloisa, are pretty good salsa dancers too.

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Live: Calle 13 shows off a large Latin American tent

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-- Reed Johnson

Photo: René Prérez Joglar "Residente" of Calle 13 at the 2011 Latin Grammy's in Las Vegas. Credit: Julie Jacobson / AP

Latin Grammys: Red, um, green carpet arrivals at Mandalay Bay

And the big winner of the Latin Grammy Awards is — the new arrival carpet!

As the musical royalty of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds, among them Romeo Santos and Paula Fernandes, pulled up in limos and SUVs at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas for the 12th annual ceremony, the Univision announcers couldn't stop talking about the new arrival carpet.

Rather than the usual shade of fire-engine red, the carpet is a shade of blue-green that looks swell as the backdrop for several gigantic logos of Heineken beer, which happens to be one of the evening's sponsors. The carpet has been getting so much attention from Univision that it almost upstaged the backless, nearly abdomen-less dress that actress-singer Adrienne Bailon was wearing. Bailon is presenting the award for best rock album.

The other word on everyone's lips is orgullo, pride. After decades of being swallowed up in the regular Grammy Awards, the 12-year-old Latin Grammys have established an identity of their own, and the pride that Latino and Latin American artists feel about having a show of their own is genuine.

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Photo: Members of Venezuelan music group La Vida Boheme and U.S. singer-actress D'Manti arrive for the Latin Grammy Awards. Credit: Mike Nelson / EPA

Mariachi El Bronx, Dengue Fever make KCRW Halloween party a scream

Halloween, a holiday inspired by the grateful dead, can make those of us who are gratefully alive reflect on, and revel in, the pleasures of the temporal realm we inhabit.

In Los Angeles, one of those fleeting seasonal gifts is KCRW-FM (89.9)'s annual Masquerade dance party. On Saturday, the costumed bacchanal took over the Legendary Park Plaza hotel -- built in 1925 and overlooking MacArthur Park -- with a musical lineup that included Moby, Mariachi El Bronx, Dengue Fever, Milagres and the Santa Monica-based radio station's own gifted mash-up artists (Jason Bentley, Liza Richardson, Chris Douridas, et al).

Roaming the Art Deco hotel, patrons dressed as zombies, airline stewardesses, Black Swans, Travis Bickle and Cap'n Crunch (among many, many other guises), swigged drinks and sampled tunes across a wide sound spectrum, spaced across various lounges and ballrooms on two floors.

One of the evening's early revelations was Milagres, a Brooklyn-based band that, after changing its name and reshuffling personnel, deserves to find a wide audience for its ethereal, haunting compositions such as "Halfway." Kyle Wilson, the group's lead singer and principal tunesmith, hits high notes with the breathy eroticism of a young Prince, while his bandmates assemble a sophisticated sonic skeleton that evokes Radiohead and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

Live: Calle 13 shows off a large Latin American tent

The evolving duo Calle 13 embraces a diverse musical world at the House of Blues in Anaheim.

The dream of a unified Latin America has been an obsession of conquerors and revolutionaries from Hernán Cortés to Che Guevara and Hugo Chávez.

Politically, the idea is a minefield. But musically it's becoming more of a propulsive reality, as the white-hot Puerto Rican duo Calle 13 made clear in its Thursday night show at the House of Blues Anaheim.

At next month's Latin Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, Calle 13 will be up for 10 trophies, including album of the year and song of the year — a record number of nominations for any one group or artist at the annual ceremony.

What makes the feat impressive is that Calle 13 has prospered not by rephrasing formulas but by consistently pushing its music beyond the sexually bragadocious hip-hop and superbly savage reggaeton beats that defined its original sound and the group's early image as a sort of Puerto Rican Beastie Boys.

Calle 13 now embraces a pan-hemispheric approach that comfortably enfolds cumbia rhythms, Cuban syncopation, fiery ska horns and the folkloric tints of obscure regional instruments like the Mexican quijada (a donkey's jawbone) and the Argentine bombo legüero drum.

Mariachi El Bronx: A cross-border love affair

What happens when a hard-core band decides to pick up traditional mariachi instruments and charro suits? The Bronx did just that in 2009, to the astonishment of fans and critics. Call it sweetly ruminative music with a bit of edge.

Mixing punk rock with mariachi music might sound like a quixotic mission.

Unless, that is, you've ever stumbled upon a troupe of Guadalajara horn players closing down a bar after one too many tequilas. Or you've heard Mariachi El Bronx.

Mariachi El Bronx, which is opening for the Foo Fighters on Thursday at the Forum, is the charro-suited alter ego of the Bronx, one of L.A.'s most formidable hard-core punk bands. Smashing into existence in 2002, the Bronx became known for its raw lyrics and apocalyptic instrumentals on such snarling anthems as "White Guilt" (about a coke-addled prostitute) and "False Alarm."

Then in 2009, to the astonishment and (mostly) approval of fans and critics, the band spun off a side project, Mariachi El Bronx, which is exactly what it sounds like: a mariachi band that performs both traditional and new tunes, in English, with horns, strings and outfits.

Some of the songs on the band's recently released second album, such as "48 Roses," combine the melodic pathos of Mexican regional music with the aggressive energy and self-lacerating wit of punk.

Lead singer Matt Caughthran, who normally sounds like he's about to smash a bottle over your head (or his), sounds on the lovely lament "Map of the World" like any confused lover howling at the Jalisco moon. And "Everything Dies" is as sweetly ruminative a bolero as any melancholy young poet might hope to pen.

All that makes sense for a group whose two biggest influences are Los Lobos and Black Flag, according to Joby J. Ford, who plays guitar in the punk band and the Mexican five-string vihuela and the accordion in the eight-member mariachi ensemble.

Latin Grammy Awards will honor Shakira for humanitarian works

 
It's hardly surprising that Shakira is up for three trophies at November's Latin Grammy Awards ceremony in Las Vegas. The Colombian pop superstar already is a seven-time Latin Grammy winner, and she's also taken home two Grammys  as well.

But even if Shakira leaves the Mandelay Bay Convention Center empty-handed on Nov. 10, her efforts won't go unrewarded. On the eve of the Latin Grammys, Shakira will receive the Latin Recording Academy's Person of the Year award, underscoring her reputation as a kind of Latina equivalent of U2 frontman Bono in philanthropic do-gooding.

Shakira was only 18 when she founded the Pies Descalzos Foundation, a charity that funds schools for Colombia's many underserved and impoverished children. She also serves as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, focusing primarily on educational issues and advocacy.

Review: Los Van Van at the Conga Room

Urgent memo to the Department of Homeland Security: Los Van Van, the brilliant Cuban dance band that tore up the Conga Room on Thursday night, poses a clear and present danger to the U.S. capitalist system.

Not because the ensemble and its roughly 70-year-old leader, Juan Formell, represent any actual threat that would justify the absurd delays the group has endured in trying to obtain U.S. travel visas over the past few months.

No, the real menace is that anyone witnessing Los Van Van perform live, as they've been doing since the late 1960s, will be swept up in a sweaty rhythmic euphoria, potentially causing them to miss work the next day and thereby undermining the free-market way of life.

On Thursday night, not even Kennedy-era red tape, and a somewhat gnarly sound mix that occasionally smothered the band's charanga-style string and keyboard players, could prevent Los Van Van from working its spell.

A floor-jamming crowd of Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Peruvians and Angelenos of all flavors came together for a show of comradely, eroticized musicianship, triggering a giant dance party that roared on late into the night. Some of those present may be dancing still.

Los Van Van's longevity derives from Formell's relentless and cunning innovations as a composer and orchestral arranger. Over successive decades, he has painted drum machines and synthesizers into a dance-scape that gives pride of place to its brass section and jangling piano, thereby fashioning a funkier, hook-laden version of traditional Cuban son that Formell has dubbed songo.

Seventeen members strong in Thursday's L.A. incarnation, the band strung together extended versions of about a dozen of its hits, leading off with “Chapeando” and a smoking rendition of “Me Mantengo,” fronted by a charismatic quartet of singers: Mayito (Mario Rivera), El Lele (Abdel Rasalps), Yeni (Yenisel Valdes) and Roberton (Roberto Hernandez Acea).

Although their lyrical dexterity would make any listener assume the singers are improvising, much of the wordplay and scatting is as tightly scripted as the band's meticulous instrumentation. Formell, a relaxed and benign onstage presence, is a ruthless comandante when it comes to maintaining aesthetic discipline and somehow making it feel totally loose and organic — the essence of Cuba's musical genius.

Elder statesman Formell also lent his voice as backup to the proceedings, but mostly he focused on conducting the players, a superb group that included Roberto Carlos on piano and trombonists Alvaro Collado, Hugo Morejon and Edmundo Pina.

Here's hoping that Formell and his compatriots find their next U.S. tour less impeded by political posturing. Pleasure, joy and sensuality do not a foreign policy make, but they could be a great warm-up.

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Photo: Roberto Hernandez Acea, a.k.a. Roberton of the band Los Van Van, performs at the Conga Room. Credit: Eddie Sakaki / The Conga Room

Calle 13 dominates Latin Grammys nominations

The Puerto Rican duo receive a record 10 nominations from the Latin Recording Academy.

To Latin music aficionados, the key question for this year's 12th Latin Grammys wasn't whether the Puerto Rican urban/hip-hop duo Calle 13 would receive any nominations.

The question was: How many?

The answer, 10, is a record number for the Latin Recording Academy, and includes nods to Calle 13 in the principal categories of album of the year for “Entren Los Que Quieran,” a nomination they share with Edgar Abraham and Rafa Arcaute, among others, and record of the year, for their genre-crossing disc “Latinoamérica.”

The nominations were announced Wednesday at the Avalon Hollywood, with the awards to be handed out Nov. 10 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

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For record of the year, the other nominees besides “Latinoamérica” are “Tan Sólo Tú” by Franco De Vita with Alejandra Guzmán; “Gritar” by Luis Fonsi; “Golpes En El Corazón” by Los Tigres Del Norte; and “Lo Mejor De Mi Vida Eres Tú” by Ricky Martin featuring Natalia Jiménez.

The best new artist category draws from young artists throughout the Latin-speaking world: Pablo Alborán (Spain), Max Capote (Uruguay/Argentina), Paula Fernandes (Brazil), Il Volo (Italy) and Sie7e (Puerto Rico) will compete for the trophy.

As in previous years, the nominations balanced many familiar names such as Ricky Martin, Los Tigres, Shakira and Enrique Iglesias with lesser-known, minor-label (or label-less) talents. Among the surprises was the popular L.A. club band La Santa Cecilia receiving a nomination for best tropical song for their tune “La Negra.”