Floating Clinic Is Banking on the Latin Beat

Can a Latin jazz-based show draw 8,000 fans to the San Diego Sports Arena? Promoters are betting that their multigenerational lineup will lure listeners of all ages to this Friday night’s “Percussion Showdown,” a fund-raiser to supply medical care to underdeveloped countries.

No question the performers are top-notch: percussionist Pete Escovedo and his daughter Sheila E., percussion legend Tito Puente, jazz and pop singer Angela Bofill and the Maureen Haley Dancers from San Jose.

But the enterprise hasn’t had entirely smooth sledding. The Starlight Bowl and San Diego State University amphitheater were initially discussed for the show but weren’t available.

Next, the promoters tried to book the large tented rooftop space at the new San Diego Convention Center, but they were refused, partly because emergency fire equipment isn’t yet in working order, but also because “the city doesn’t want to promote concerts there, just trade shows, which is real stupid,” said Victor Backer, entertainment consultant to Pocket.

Finally, the promoters settled on the Sports Arena, set up, with room for dancing, to use a little more than half of the 14,000 seats.

“There’s a resurgence of Latin jazz music,” promoter Maurice Gardere said. “It’s the kind of music where, even if someone’s never heard it, they hear it and they love it.”

“They feel Sheila E.’s popularity is going to be strong,” said a local promoter who works with Latin artists. But her drawing power may have dwindled since the release of her last album three years ago, he said. With minimal advertising and publicity for the local concert, “I don’t think they’re going to pull that kind of crowd.”

Regardless of the size of the audience, though, the music promises to be top drawer.

Escovedo and his daughter returned Monday from Aruba, an island off Venezuela, where they played to a crowd of 7,000 at a weekend music festival also featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Natalie Cole, Hilton Ruiz and Kevin Eubanks.

“We’ll be playing San Diego with my 10-piece orchestra,” Escovedo said by phone from his home in Alameda, near Oakland. “I come out and do two or three tunes with the band, then I bring out Tito and we do two or three things. Then Sheila comes out and we do some songs together.”

The Latin set climaxes with a percussion showdown featuring Puente and the Escovedos, “a wild timbales finale, usually a song Tito did called ‘El Rey del Timbale’ (The King of Timbale),” Escovedo said.

Bofill will play her own set, but there is a connection to the Latin-based artists; both Pete Escovedo and Sheila E. play on a new album she’s recording.

Escovedo, too, is working on an album and is searching for a record label deal. His last release, “Mr. E,” was nominated for a Grammy two years ago.

Interest in Latin-flavored music seems to be high, Escovedo said.

“For us, it’s sort of like the popularity has always been there. It goes in cycles, and there are always new audiences. We’ve had this surge of Latin music coming back, artists mixing jazz and Latin, making it easier for people to understand. If it’s all Latin vocals, you lose the mixed audience. Now that Latin has become more instrumental music, Americans don’t have to worry about the words.

“Younger audiences are accepting it also. It’s always been good dance music. With the jazz influence, it’s not only danceable but listenable.”

Aside from his own projects, Escovedo laid down percussion tracks for singer Bobby McFerrin’s new album last week.

Sheila E. was groomed by her father before she hit it big through her association with Prince and successful solo projects.

“She started with me when she was 15, but she was already playing before that,” Escovedo said. “She started on drums when she was 6 or 7.”

Soon, she worked with Santana, Azteca, George Duke, Herbie Hancock, Con Funk Shun, Spyro Gyra, Lionel Richie, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Jeffrey Osborne.

After the release of the 1987 “Sheila E.,” she hit the road for two tours with Prince, and more recently sang two songs in the movie “Ford Fairlane,” starring controversial comic Andrew Dice Clay.

Puente claims 120 recordings, 400 compositions and three Grammys spread over four decades in the music business.

Along with his own substantial body of original Latin jazz music, Puente pioneered the breaking down of borders between musical styles by playing with jazz artists like Cal Tjader and Woody Herman, and by giving a Latin spin to tunes from artists as diverse as Stevie Wonder and John Coltrane.

Bofill worked her way through college playing in Latin bands. The daughter of a Cuban father and Puerto Rican mother, she grew up around music ranging from Latin to the Platters, Dinah Washington and Burt Bacharach.

Her new album will be her ninth, and her first since the 1988 “Intuition.”

According to promoter Gardere, Sheila E.’s cousin, the artists agreed to work for reduced fees. If all concerts in the four-show “Percussion Showdown Tour” of Sacramento, San Diego, Bakersfield and San Jose sell out, 65% of the take--or $600,000 to $700,000--will go toward outfitting a 295-foot yacht as a floating hospital at a total cost of $1.5 million.

The idea is the brainchild of Gardere’s Los Angele-based Pocket Promotions.