Bacardi

This open air celebration of afro-latino dance music seems to get bigger every year.

If it was difficult to make a pathway through the throng in years past, then this year the pathways had all but closed up. The action takes place on the Aquashell, a floating stage moored opposite the Harbourside Centre. The event always features at least one international name act and local performers. It is a tribute to the organisers of the Sydney Festival that without exception the international performers that have appeared over the last decade have been of extremely high musical quality. No pandering to the ephemeral popularity espoused by the manipulators of the lowest common denominator here. There was an article devoted to the leading salsa-violinist Alfredo De La Fey in the Metro section of today's SMH. Not a mention was made that Alfredo would be appearing with the foremost exponents of salsa dura (hard salsa) today, the conjunto led by trombonist Jimmy Bosch.

Too much commentary, however, about the cocaine addiction that plagued the violinist for half his life. After the salsa dance class de rigeur, the first group to take the stage were Los Rumberos, a 16 piece outfit from Melbourne. They opened with an Afro-Cuban piece based on rumba rhythms. Despite their purported 14 years experience their performance was a shambles. The inability of the percussion to create melodies, poor tuning, lack of musical discipline and integration in the band as a whole meant that there was no meaningful call and response, no light and shade…no ying-yang.

Enthusiasm and sonic density (and there was plenty of that) are nothing without the aforementioned creative prerequisites. The Aussie-Brazilian dance troupe Capoeira are a staple of the festival and their demonstrations of capoeira, a genre that combines drumming, dancing and very athletic martial arts moves were dependably entertaining. After a short break Jimmy Bosch's band consisting of flautist, saxophonist, Jimmy's wailing trombone, bongos, congas, timbales, bassist and pianist took the stage. Cuban cum Colombian electric violinist Alfredo De La Fey may have been the nominal drawcard but the co-operative interplay of all the musicians completely altered the aural dynamic as they launched into a montuno-salsa that pulsed the dance floor with its steamy grooves. At one stage in the piece Alfredo came prancing along the gang-plank of the stageboat wowing the dancing audience with the flailing pizzicatos of his electrified violin. It was an absolute joy to hear the consummate musicality of this band and the wonderful melodies played on the various, impeccably tuned percussion instruments. Yes, folks, the drum is a musical instrument. What impressed also about this 1 ½ hour concert, apart from the superb solos played by Jimmy and the other musicians, long-time vocalist Frankie Vazquez's richly timbred singing or the masterful integration and balance between arrangement and improvisation was the deep sense of musical roots that emanated from the melodies and rhythms. A broad range of afro-latin styles was purveyed, often in the course of one eloquently escalating performance, as the band shifted from one genre to the next with an ease that always fed the groove…salsa, charanga, jazz, cha cha cha, funk etc.

The last third of the performance featured some awesome percussion displays from the musicians where melodicism and sure sense of musical design nurtured the often hair-raising tempos at which the instruments were played, and not vice versa (take note Oz based latino bands). Here too elements of rap in the rhythms and vocals added another layer of excitement while respecting the tradition of polyrhythmic call and response. Plenty of creative incident to keep the most demanding listener's brain firing then. If only you could stop dancing, that is. I don't know if I should mention this, because there's no room to move as it is. The Africans, a large percussion group based in Australia seem to have become a regular fixture of the festival, starting their performance on the dance floor at the top of the Convention Centre stairs at about the same time as the Aquashell one finishes. Their thunderous rhythms on a bevy of percussion instruments…yes, all immaculately tuned…is sending hundreds of people into trance-dance fits. Good luck next year.