The Salsa Must Go On! Maraca Drops Out But Odara Steps In as This Thursday’s Pier Concert Headliner

By Tomm Carroll
Music Critic

August 6 -- One of the unfortunate side effects of our paranoid, discriminatory federal government in this post-9/11 world is the increased difficulty for musicians from certain State Department-designated countries to obtain visas to come to the United States to perform.

Case in point: Internationally acclaimed Cuban jazz star Maraca and his band, who, after a reported six months of work by immigration attorneys, have not been able to obtain visas. Consequently, they will not be performing at the Santa Monica Pier Twilight Dance Series concert Thursday night as scheduled.

“This feels like déjà vu,” said Katharine King, producer of the Twilight Dance Series. “Four years ago, we had a similar situation with the Cuban group Bambeleo involving high drama up to the last minute.” Bambaleo wound up cancelling their pier appearance as well.

But the show -- and the Salsa -- must go on, and Afro-Cuban band Odara, already in town and having just played Santa Monica’s Temple Bar, has stepped in at the last minute to replace Maraca in the headlining slot.

Odara’s singer-songwriter-arrangers Lazaro Galarraga and Guillermo Cespedes specialize in the Cuban Son style, a mixture of African and Spanish musical styles that eventually came to be the national music of Cuba.

The band also incorporates Rhumba, Cha cha cha, Guaracha, Bembe and Tumba Francesca styles into their World Salsa music. Odara, which means “firmly rooted, well grounded, or balanced” in the Afro-Cuban folkloric tradition, also features Humberto “Nengue” Hernandez on timbales, Richard Marquez on congas, Joel Pena on Cuban “tres” guitar, Iris Cepeda on background vocals, Raimundo Someyan and John Fumo on trumpet, Rahsaan Fredricks on bass and Gary Eisenberg on trumpet and valve trombone.

Still opening the show as perviously announced, Chicago-born electric violinist Susie Hansen and her accompanying crew of some of Los Angeles' finest Latin musicians are a long-time favorite in L.A., where she has been based since 1990.

Hansen combines her own interpretation of traditional Cuban charanga -- a predecessor of Salsa that features both violin and flute -- with intoxicating Afro-Cuban rhythms and the harmonies of straight-ahead jazz. Her most recent album is last summer’s The Salsa Never Ends.