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.

by the El Reportero news service

Cristina Fernández

On 10 December the prefects of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, Cochabamba and Pando announced that they did not recognise the new constitution and declared their departments autonomous.

The prefects’ move was inevitable, given the way the new constitution was drafted and the constituent assembly’s refusal to conform to their wishes on regional autonomy.

The key issue is whether the prefects will get political and international support for their stance. So far they have not. The main opposition party, Podemos, criticized their demands for being unconstitutional. Internationally, those presidents who mustered in Buenos Aires for President Cristina Fernández’s inauguration gave unequivocal backing to President Evo Morales and his new constitution.

Abstention costs Chávez referendum; moderate opposition triumphs

President Hugo Chávez suffered his first defeat in 12 national votes since he took office in 1998, when his constitutional reform proposals were narrowly rejected in a referendum on 2 December. He was undone by an abstention rate of some 44.1%. The defeat could, however, strengthen him: several Latin American heads of state praised his quick acceptance of the outcome as providing irrefutable proof of his democratic credentials. Dictators do not admit defeats.

FMI asks Nicaragua for complementary measures to support growth

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (Thomson Financial) – The International Monetary Fund (FMI) asked to Nicaragua ‘ to realize without delay ‘ a series of measures in the field of energy, fiscal, and financier, to support macroeconomic stability and to consolidate the climate of investment,’ according to a bulletin of this entity issued on Tuesday.

“To support growth in half term it ­will be necessary to carry out an agenda of complementary measures in the sectors of energy, fiscal, and financier,” the IMF assistant director, the Brazilian Murilo Portugal, proposed to the Nicaraguan authorities at the end of a visit to Nicaragua.

The official made a two-day visit to the country and held interviews with the government economic team and President Daniel Ortega to value the agreed economic program with this organism.

According to Portugal the measures in the field of energy, fiscal and financier, which were not detailed, will have to be carried out ‘ without delay ‘ to forge consensuses and to develop capacity of implementation.

During conversations with the economic team, there was coincidence in the importance of supporting macroeconomic stability and of consolidating the climate of investment to promote growth and social results, Portugal said.

Also he considered as encouraging ‘ the advances in the energy field ‘ that te government develops, and other actions that will be pushed in the next months to face the ‘endemic’ energy fraud problem.

Nicaragua has maintained growth and has improved social indicators, ‘ even if the level of poverty stays high ‘, admitted the official.

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by Alex Meneses Miyashita

­Duncan Hunter

Republican presidential candidates failed to provide convincing or clear answers on issues of key importance to Latinos during an Univisión sponsored debate at 7the University of Miami Dec. 9.

Immigration was its central issue, with instant interpretation provided for the network’s Spanish-speaking audience.

Participating were Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul, John McCain, and Duncan Hunter.

In spite of pointed questioning by anchors Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, the seven presidential contenders used the 90-minute forum to stress the need for border security but offered little else in specifics on how to resolve the nation’s immigration dilemma.

Fred Thompson

The general reaction was given voice by Democratic National Committee spokesperson Luis Miranda.

“They seem unable to deal with the possibility of doing anything other than forcing the 12 million (undocumented) people who are here to self-deport,” Miranda told Weekly Report. “They refuse to acknowledge that the undocumented immigrants who are already here have three million children.”

Univisión sponsored a debate by Democrats Sept. 9, with somewhat similar concerns expressed about straight answers.

John McCain

Miranda also claimed the GOP candidates promised to “continue more of the failed policies of the Bush Administration. Whether it was on Iraq, healthcare or education, they essentially promised to stay the course.”

Republican Hispanic National Assembly chair Danny Vargas offered another perspective, saying the candidates “were able to talk about values we share in common,” such as family, education and opportunity.

“We’ve got some great candidates who have a wealth of experience and are able to talk about issues that are important to the Hispanic community,” he said.

The GOP candidates concurred on securing the nation’s borders before addressing other immigrationrelated issues.

Mitt Romney

Giuliani said he sup ports physical and technological barriers along the border.

Romney called for an employment verification system.

Only Huckabee explicitly stated favoring a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants so long as they go to the back of the line and border security has been dealt with.

McCain, who introduced legislation to legalize the undocumented in the past, did not state a position other than to say the issue should be dealt with compassionately.

Ron Paul

Hunter said legalization would only create a new wave of unauthorized migration.

The candidates avoided answering whether they supported keeping some three million U.S.-born children and their undocumented: parents together.

Asked about anti-Latino sentiment as a result of the immigration debate, they referred back to securing the borders. Hunter said Latinos do not want permeable borders.

They praised the community’s participation in the military throughout the debate. Only Paul favored an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Rudy Giuliani

He received boos when he called for opening dialogue with Venezuela and Cuba.

Absent were Alan Keyes and Tom Tancredo.

Tancredo explained, “Bilingualism is a great asset for any individual but it has perilous consequences for a nation. As such, a Spanish debate has no place in a presidential campaign.

­Huckabee called it a much bigger risk not to have participated at all. Hispanic Link.