Electric Bassist Will Take a Simpler Approach

Abraham Laboriel’s appearance at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library tonight is a step back from his role as electric bassist and busy studio musician. In a concert that marks the opening of photographer Tony Gleaton’s exhibit at the library, “Mexico Negro: El Legado Africano (Black Mexico: The African Legacy),” the Mexico City native will play mostly acoustic guitar in a program of music drawn from his youth.

It’s a project close to Laboriel’s heart. His father, Juan Jose Laboriel, 86, is one of Mexico’s most respected black musicians, composers and actors. Laboriel says he will perform a number of his father’s compositions, as well as other traditional pieces, in a trio setting that includes saxophonist-flutist Justo Almario and percussionist Alex Acuna.

“Some of the great black composers of Latin America have lived in Mexico at different times and they wrote some fantastic music,” Laboriel explained in a phone conversation earlier this week from his home in Woodland Hills. “I’m going to try to include a small cross-section of that. Alex will be playing mostly small, Latin percussion (instruments) and Justo mostly flute. I’ll play some bass but mostly acoustic guitar in the style of the Mexican troubadours.”

The 35-year-old Laboriel is best known for his work as bassist in support of such musicians as Lee Ritenour, Al Jarreau, Stevie Wonder and Joe Zawinul, as well as being co-leader of the Latin-jazz fusion band Koinonia. He stays busy with studio assignments, having participated in dozens of sessions for films and television ranging from “The Color Purple,” “48 HRS.” and “Terms of Endearment” to “Knots Landing” and “Designing Women.” But tonight’s concert is a return to his roots.

He credits his father with his earliest musical exposure. “When my father came to Mexico (from Honduras) about 60 years ago, he became involved with the great Bohemian life that existed in the Yucatan at that time. There, they had developed a very strong, unique style of composing, singing and playing the guitar, and my father became familiar with the traditions and the composers. Then, when he came to Mexico City, he got in with all the different composers and entertainers there and they were constantly exchanging musical ideas.

“It’s very sad that his work is unpublished, and I have always wanted to perform it for an audience. The San Juan Library has created a temple or shrine to preserving music that needs to be shared. This is an opportunity to present a side of me that I rarely show.”

A descendant of black Mexican slaves, his father was also an important figure among Mexico City’s black population. “He was the Actors Guild representative for black actors in Mexico, of which there were very, very few. So he was always going out looking for actors, going to the different African embassies or the Cuban embassy trying to find out where the blacks were so he could get them involved as extras or other special roles in films.”

Laboriel’s brother, Jose Jr., was also influential. “He was the lead singer of one of Mexico’s first rock ‘n’ roll bands in the late ‘50s, early ‘60s (using the name Johnny Laboriel). Even though I grew up in Mexico City, my inclination was always to work in American music because of my brother’s success. All the American publishing companies were constantly sending him American music to translate into Spanish and play on his records. So I got exposed to a wide variety of music, all the way from Lambert, Hendricks & Ross doing vocal arrangements of Count Basie and Duke Ellington, to Buck Owens & the Buckaroos.”

During the second of two years Laboriel spent studying aeronautics in Mexico, he gave up music completely. “But it hurt me so much emotionally,” he said, “that I begged my parents to let me study music for one year, and if that didn’t work I’d return to engineering.”

When he learned that the National School of Music’s degree in composition would require 11 years of study, he turned his eyes to the United States, where he got an audition at the Boston Conservatory.

“The teacher there very wisely noticed my inclination wasn’t toward classical music. He asked me if I had heard of the Berklee School of Music and I told him no. He said he thought I would be much happier there, but if I didn’t like it, I could always come back. I will always be grateful to him,” he said.

After completing his studies at Berklee in 1972, the bassist toured with Johnny Mathis and Henry Mancini. His Mancini connections led to an abundance of studio work after Laboriel moved to Los Angeles in 1976.

In addition to free-lance session work, Laboriel is involved with the Latin American All Stars, which includes Almario, Acuna and guitarist Ricardo Silviera. (“Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Brazil,” he quipped.) He’s also begun work on his first solo album with keyboardist-producer Greg Mathiesen. Koinonia, though on “official hiatus” for the last two years, according to Laboriel, reunited twice last spring: once in Orange County to play a benefit for abused children, and again at the Baked Potato in North Hollywood to pay tribute to the club’s late owner, Shelly Salusman.

Tonight’s concert is a definite departure for Laboriel. “It’s going to be very intimate, very ballad-oriented,” he said, laughing. “We’ll be troubadours coming under your window to serenade.”

Abraham Laboriel appears tonight at 7 and 9 with Alex Acuna and Justo Almario at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, 31495 El Camino Real, San Juan Capistrano. A $2 donation is suggested. Tony Gleaton’s photographic exhibition, “Black Mexico: The African Legacy,” runs through Oct. 31. Information: (714) 493-1752.