Electric Violinist Gets Jolt From Jazz : Music: ‘I’m crazy about the rhythm’ of Latin music, says Susie Hansen. She is performing at Maxwell’s in Huntington Beach.

Watching electric violinist Susie Hansen onstage is to see, and hear, a woman captivated by what she does.

On a recent Sunday, Hansen was leading her salsa band--she also plays Latin/jazz--at an outdoor venue in Marina del Rey. Her approach to the rhythmically dynamic music was infectious: When she soloed, she bent her knees, leaned back, closed her eyes and played long, smoothly curving lines, then shorter, biting ones. Sometimes she danced while she played, but even when she stood in one place, her body never stopped moving.

“I’m crazy about the rhythm,” said Hansen, who leads her Latin/jazz quintet tonight through Sunday at Maxwell’s by the Sea in Huntington Beach.

“Those Afro-Cuban rhythms go through your whole body, making you move, bringing you both excitement and a kind of peace,” she said. “People come up to me, ask me what the music is called, tell me how much they love it, how compelling they find the rhythms,” Hansen said in a phone interview from her home in Los Angeles.

But Latin music isn’t just about rhythm, noted Hansen, a native of Chicago. The tunes also boast a sense of intricacy.

“There are forms to these tunes, but within those forms, there’s a chance for melodic sophistication,” she said. “The forms help people stay with the music, so they don’t feel left behind. . . . The sophistication allows the musicians not to be bored, which is really the ultimate necessity, in music and in life.”

When Hansen plays salsa, the form of Latin music that originated in Cuba and that is designed for dancing, she employs a large ensemble--up to nine pieces--and uses two vocalists.

“The music is song-oriented, but I still want it to have a jazz flavor, make it improvisational, but with that hard-driving, irresistible rhythm,” she said.

Latin/jazz utilizes the same rhythms, she said, but in this style Hansen narrows her band down to four or five pieces, and jazz soloing takes precedence over vocals or danceability.

The repertoire also changes: With her salsa band, Hansen mostly performs originals; with her Latin/jazz band, a number of standards, such as “Nature Boy,” “Green Dolphin Street” and “Old Devil Moon” are delivered.

At Maxwell’s, Hansen will be accompanied by Mark Gutierrez, piano and guitar; Jon Pintoff, bass; Michael O’Day, congas and other percussion, and Ronnie Gutierrez, drums.

Hansen started on violin as a child, but then gave it up in high school. “I was into boys and it was not cool to play the violin,” she said. In college, she devoted her energies to another love: math. She ultimately earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology but, after graduate school, her zest for music returned, redoubled.

She was living in Chicago in 1986 when she fell into what has turned out to be the unshakable grasp of Latin sounds.

“I was playing with my own be-bop band at a citywide festival and the band that appeared before me, Victor Parra’s Mambo Express, had fired its violinist the week before,” she recalled. “Victor had heard me and asked me to play with him. I said, ‘I don’t know how,’ and he said, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get it,’ and you know, he was right.”

She learned the style by a time-honored method: She jumped in with both feet.

“In Victor’s band, there were no rehearsals, no written music, no tunes I knew. People would turn to me and sing parts for me to play and I was expected to do it,” she said with a laugh. This wasn’t working, so Hansen started taping gigs, borrowing records, doing research. A year and a half later, she had her own band, and, in 1988, she moved to Los Angeles, where she played for Bobby Matos and Bongo Logic and shared leadership of a band with conga drummer Papo Conga before becoming her own boss. She’s done well, often working four to five nights a week.

That’s not to say she hasn’t encountered some difficulties moving from a supporting to a leading role.

“There have been some guys in the band who just couldn’t take direction, and certainly not explicit demands from a woman, and one by one they’ve left,” she said. “But now the guys have been with me for 1 1/2 years, so there’s no one who has issues about it.”

Hansen has just completed her first album, which she also produced, and is seeking a label. to release it. Getting a recording on the market is essential, she said.

“Without a record, you stay on the same plane, do the local gigs,” she said. “In order to tour and do big concerts, you need an album.”

* Susie Hansen’s Latin/jazz quintet plays tonight and Saturday at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4 and 6 p.m., at Maxwell’s by the Sea, 317 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach. $5 cover, $7 minimum. (714) 536-2555.