Get Out Saturday: Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band @ EMP's Sky Church

When your band's roster (Gonzalez on trumpet and congas; Andy Gonzalez, bass; Larry Willis, piano; Steve Berrios, drums; Joe Ford, sax/flute) has been in place since 1990, you have time to develop the musical telepathy that makes jazz jazz. And when that telepathy communicates both the bebop-and-beyond mainstream and Puerto Rican popular music (via the Bronx), you have an unusually savory mix.

We first heard the Fort Apache Band on a very early (1988) CD, Rumba Para Monk, on the marvelous (now defunct) Sunnyside label, and we knew right away that the title was no accident -- here was a band completely at ease not only with thick Latin rhythms, but also with the aggressive harmonies and loose-limbed soloing that come with all varieties of bop. There were, in other words, equal portions of rhumba and Monk. More recently (2005) there is Rumba Buhaina, a tribute to Art Blakey. To cover one of jazz's greatest drummers in a Latin style takes...well, what's Spanish for chutzpah? But it works. Gonzalez doesn't just borrow from jazz and from Latino music; he stands in two traditions and deepens them both.

Gonzalez &co. are performing as part of the EMP exhibition American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music. That's a story worth hearing.

Saturday, Jan. 19th // EMP // 7pm // $12 EMP members, $15 for everybody else // All ages, cash bar.