Sometimes a concert is more than a performance. Saturday night’s sold-out show at the Freight & Salvage may have been billed as a celebration marking the release of John Santos’s new album, Horizontes, along with the 40th anniversary of the launch of his label, Machete Records. But the evening cast an even wider net.
The Oakland percussionist has been at the forefront of the Bay Area’s Latin jazz scene since the 1970s, and just about every detail of the presentation at the Freight spoke to his communitarian ethic, passionate quest for social justice, and abiding commitment to the musicians who built the scene.
His sextet — featuring bassist Saul Sierra, drummer David Flores, flutist John Calloway, saxophonist Charlie Gurke, and pianist and trumpeter Marco Diaz — was steadily augmented by a revolving cast of collaborators throughout the night, starting with percussionist Javier Navarrette on a flute-powered version of “Descarga con Changüí.”
Before long, the stage was packed with friends, colleagues, and family, as Santos’s 17-year-old son, Marcel Joao, took over the piano chair for Un Levantamiento (An uprising), the Oakland Symphony and Living Jazz commission that premiered last October at the Paramount Theatre. Like the orchestral version of Santos’s suite, the arrangement here was done by Sierra, who made full use of the instrumental resources onstage without crowding the music.
Un Levantamiento draws on traditional Puerto Rican forms like danza, plena, and Aguinaldo. Saturday’s performance featured verse artfully recited by Maria Cora, powerhouse vocals by Christelle Durandy and Juan Luis Pérez, blazing work on the Puerto Rican cuatro by Pedro Pastrana, and the expert bowing of violinist Anthony Blea. The generational reach from Marcel Joao Santos to 80-year-old timbales legend Orestes Vilató, who took several beautifully sculpted solos over the course of the evening, embodied a message that Santos made explicit several times during the show.
Vilató, a key Santos collaborator for some four decades, wasn’t the only former bandmate showcased. Vocalist Willie Ludwig, an early associate now living in Veracruz, joined for an Afro-Cuban cantation to the folk spirit Chango. Durandy and Pérez were particularly potent on a changüí-infused tribute to José Manuel “Mañengue” Hidalgo, the late, legendary Puerto Rican conguero. And so it went throughout the night, as Santos honored the ancestors, welcomed the rising generation, and demonstrated how music connects to a much larger story about cultural and spiritual resilience and resistance.
