by Juliet Blalack
Machete creator nominated John Santos’ Quintet Papá Mambo, plays at the DeYoung Museum, while children enjoy his music. (photo by Jennifer Salgado)
The story behind The John Santos Quintet is much like their music: many different elements making perfect sense together.
The band’s roots are in percussion jams at the Mission’s Dolores Park, where John Calloway and John Santos first met. Calloway, who plays flute and some percussion, started playing with Santos regularly in 1976.
Santos met fellow percussionist Orestes Vilato on a visit, strolling down a New York street. He had heard of Vilato and asked his friend to introduce them. Vilato has worked with Carlos Santana and Gloria Estefan. As piano player Marco Diaz puts it, Santos and Vilato are “legends in their own right.”
The three of them played in The Machete Ensemble, a dynamic and well-respected group that worked in both Cuba and the United States. The band was forced to split up last year, after 21 years of music.
“The arts programs are drying up,” said Santos. He explained that touring with eleven people was complicated and expensive. Practicalities aside, Santos does see the smaller group as an opportunity for him to “dig down inside and become a better player.”
“I think the people just absorb the music better than with big arrangements,” said Vilato.
Diaz’s piano playing style caught Santos’ attention when he was putting together a post-Machete band. Diaz splits his time between the quintet, his other band, Vission Latina, recording with side projects, and participating in the San Francisco Symphony’s Adventures in Music program.
“They make you tap into a different part of your creativity,” said Diaz of his many musical endeavors. Diaz said he uses studio time to convey ideas as quickly and efficiently as possible, but when he plays live is “trying to capture a dancing audience.”
Santos also recruited Saul Sierra, who plays the baby bass with a steady ease. Sierra arrived in the bay area in 1999, after a Boston college career that won him an Outstanding Performer Award and a U.S. Scholarship tour.
So far, The John Santos Quintet has traveled to Wisconsin, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
“The group is a very young group, so we’re just starting to go different places,” said Vilato. Last month, the group treated San Francisco to their talent during the De Young Museum’s extended hours.
“They used to bring us on fi eld trips here to the De Young. It’s nice to be back,” Santos told the audience before beginning.
Among the band’s percussion palette was a chekere and a guiro. The chekere sounds like a lower-pitched maraca and resembles a large gourd encased in netting and beads. The guiro is an egg-shaped wood piece with ridges carved into it.
Brushing a stick over its edges emits a sharp rapping sound.
The group launched their set with Equinox by John Coltrane. Children began hopping around near the front of the stage, with Santos’ daughter among the first dancers.
After an upbeat tune that rose with a crash of timbales, the band switched to a slow, sensual piece with distinct piano and pattering maracas.
While playing a piece by Diaz, the musicians were so synergized it was difficult to discern any one instrument.
The music became feisty, yet not overpowering. It was more rhythmic than jazz, yet borrowed the extemporaneous style.
“All of those pieces are vehicles for improvisation,” said Santos.
During the second half of the concert, the dance fl oor steadily fi lled up with people of all ages dancing tango, salsa, and anything they could make up. The energy built up throughout the night, and felt sadly cut short when the band stopped playing. It isn’t surprising that the band has been nominated for an award from Latin Jazz Corner.
“If it doesn’t hit them the fi rst time, it hits them the second time. It’s contagious, it’s an epidemic,” said Vilato.
