Appreciating ‘Latin Dance Music’ as Art : Featherweight Appraisal

I am sorry to have to say this, but I found Leonard Feather’s review of Poncho Sanchez (“Poncho Sanchez’s Conga Line,” Calendar, Feb. 3) not only musically ignorant and culturally offensive but also bordering on racial insensitivity.

In my opinion, Feather is not qualified to review Sanchez’s music. This is demonstrated in his deficient use of Western musical terms to delineate the complex dimension of the Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban musical forms.

Feather is still archaically making use of terminology such as harmony, melody and rhythm. I do not deny the presence of such concepts in music, nor their importance, but Feather does not understand that these three elements cannot be divided so simplistically as he does in describing the complex guajeo patterns of the piano as a “two-bar phrase repeated ad infinitum by David Torres,” the pianist.

Feather proceeds with his musical wisdom by asking, “Is this simply repetitious monotony or hypnotic enchantment?”

The complexity and difficulty of maintaining these patterns is a “science,” but Feather does not seem to understand that from Africa to the Americas, all instruments, from drums to bass, are essential factors in the multi-organized associations of rhythm, harmony and melody.

The conga technique of Poncho Sanchez is as melodic and harmonic as it is rhythmic.

I have dedicated the larger portion of my life to researching the music of Latin America, especially that of Mexico and Cuba, in addition to the music of Chicanos and their Latinos in the United States. Poncho Sanchez is one of the case studies in a book I have in print examining the musical life of Mexican Americans in Los Angeles. I have also performed as a musician with Sanchez and have coordinated many workshops and master classes at UCLA with him as clinician.

Feather has molded his career as a “leading critic” in the field of jazz, an African-American musical culture that earlier in this century was referred to as music of the brothels and as “devil music.” Such descriptions were as wrong as Feather’s final sentence in his pitiful Sanchez review:

“The idiom represented here is essentially Latin dance music and entertainment. Assessing it as art would be a critical lack of judgment.”

Oh, really Mr. Feather? Let’s debate the issue.