My friend was stopped. Hands spread like he was about to clap, mouth open to shout, he just stood there. Around him, the crowd danced and sung and pounded fists to the music of a ten member band out of L.A.: Ozomatli.
"What's wrong?"
He kept staring at the stage. Then, over the roar: "I've never seen anything like it."
I looked back at the band. Hadn't seen anything like a bunch of guys in their twenties and thirties hitting a groove?
The drummer behind his kit kept this fierce, unsmiling stare. Beside him, a grinning man called Yamaguchi played bongos, and another, nicknamed El Niño, spun some kind of African-looking drum or added a cymbal line. They were making these polyrhythms that kept snaking in and out of recognition. A salsa beat slid into reggae, dropped heavy into funk, and then snapped towards straight hip-hop.
A DJ, bent over his turntables, scratched along. And sometimes a guy in dreads stepped forward, mic in hand, and mc'ed for a while. He had this genial, slightly self-deprecating, slightly randy attitude. When he dropped into the crowd at one point and started dancing with the front-row women, he emerged a little winded and dazed. "Man, you people can dance!"
The bass player - a big, goofy-looking white guy - connected to the audience along the same lines. He had this one move where he stood still, bass guitar across his waist, and did a slow grind that ended with a snap of the hips. Big grin on his face. A kind of ludicrous come-on - larger than life, funny - but in the midst of all the rhythm and dancing, it made perfect sense.
Next to the bass player, a bald-headed, dark-browed guitar player would occasionally step up to sing lead, and his voice had all the sweetness of doo-wop, of Buddy Holly and Richie Valens. He sang in English sometimes, sometimes Spanish: the croon of a modern, urban bolero. If you closed your eyes, he was a matinee idol; open them, and he was somebody's sweet-looking poppa.
There were more. As I tried to see what my friend was seeing - what had stopped him - I realized the view was panoramic: too much going on to track. And the band seemed even larger because the players kept switching roles. The guy on sax would pick up a clarinet or drop back to the electric keyboard. And the guy next to him, while his instrument was the trombone, would swing it away from his mouth and become a dancer: jogging in place, spinning and freezing, a quick slide of the hips, an ass shake. He had the look of a slacker - goatee, thin body, sweat pants, short hair - but without the stoned-out detachment. He was cheerleader to the groove.
When they swung into the horn line, it was like with the percussion: you recognized the type of music but .... A straight R&B riff merged with the slow bite of some Mexican ballad, and then jived off into ... not Miles Davis? Not "Sketches of Spain." Or was it?
The third horn player -- the tenth guy on stage -- had a big head of black hair, goatee and moustache: an LA beatnik with parents from Chile, maybe, or Cuba. A mournful Che in shades. He played trumpet, down and cruel, hammering the accents home like you'd work silver. And when he sang harmony, he'd cover one ear with his hand so he could get just the right ache beside the melody line.
The agenda was clear: party. Okay, political party. With songs about New Orleans and immigration. But, slow or fast, they made the crowd move. A couple were built around schoolyard chants that then segued into long Arabic melody lines. One -- the title track from the band's new CD, "Don't Mess with the Dragon" -- seemed to be a kung fu protest: as if the march against globalization was being led by Bruce Lee. The clear hit was called "After Party," and, as the sweet-voiced lead singer floated through the tune, the crowd cheered like it was already Top Ten, already defining the summer of 2007.
Every one danced. Except my friend, frozen beside me.
"All the different music, right? All the styles? That's what you've never heard before?"
Ozomatli looked done. They'd put their instruments down, the crowd was cheering
"Yea," my friend shouts. "All working together. And without a leader. You know? Without a leader."
They aren't done. The band members each pick up a drum or grab a horn, jump into the crowd, and march to the center of the hall. There, they start a new beat: people high-fiving the trombone player, harmonizing with the harmony singers, blending in.
"Or maybe they're all leaders?" my friend shouts.
He's moving now. He's joined a long line of dancers that zigzag through the hall.
Pounding, chanting, Ozomatli disappears.