Latin Love Affair : Bassist/bandleader Johnny Martinez’s Salsa Machine works several nights a week--and has for about 35 years.

Johnny Martinez began his musical career as a jazz bassist, working in Chicago with various bands in the early ‘50s, enjoying the music but not making much money. Then one night he subbed with a Latin band.

“I made $40, and I had been making $10 or $12 playing with jazz bands,” remembered the native of Jalisco, Mexico, who moved to Chicago when he was 5. “I thought, ‘Hey, this is it!’ ”

About 40 years later, Latin music is still it for Martinez, who moved to Southern California in the late ‘50s.

A steadfast, if not major, player in the Los Angeles salsa scene, his invigorating, propulsive 10-piece Salsa Machine works from three to five nights a week--and has, with varying personnel, for about 35 years.

The bassist/bandleader’s continued affection has more to do with personal, rather than financial, reward.

“Latin music is very romantic. It’s not anti-anything,” said an enthusiastic Martinez, now 65, who plays tonight at the Salsa Cabaret at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City. “Sometimes it’s aggressive, sometimes it’s soothing, but it’s always romantic and never nerve-racking.”

Martinez said he plays strictly salsa, Spanish for sauce , a term, he said, that is the Latin equivalent of soul . First used in a musical sense in the early ‘60s, salsa is generally regarded by musicians as an umbrella title under which fall many kinds of highly rhythmic Afro-Cuban music from such Latin American countries as Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba.

The bassist said that by listening closely, people can distinguish between the salsa coming out of Central America and the Latin music that derives from Puerto Rico, and, in the United States, from New York City.

“The music from Central America, while certainly progressive and modern, is more typical, not as jazz-based as the music from New York or Puerto Rico, which I really like,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Glendale.

Violinist Susie Hansen, who leads her own first-rate Latin-jazz-salsa band, said Martinez is known for keeping jazz feeling in his arrangements and jazz soloing in his performances.

“Johnny’s band always swings. It has a good, compelling rhythmic groove,” said Hansen in a separate interview. “And he makes room for a couple of soloists on every tune. A lot of bands don’t do that.”

Martinez said he keeps up to date by listening to club DJs at intermission, and tuning in to such popular Latin broadcasts as “Canto Tropical,” airing 7 to 10 p.m. Saturdays on KPFK-FM (90.7), and “Alma del Barrio,” which airs weekends on KXLU-FM (88.9).

“When I hear something new and good, I either get a DJ to make me a copy of it or go buy the album. I don’t like to tape music off the radio, because that deprives both the musicians and record company of money,” he said.

“Then I write an arrangement of the tune, making my own version of it.”

Martinez, who studied at the Midwestern Conservatory of Music in Chicago, gets a great deal of pleasure out of concocting a new chart.

He estimates he’s written well over 2,000 arrangements for his band, which features two trumpets, trombone, saxophone, vocalist and rhythm.

“Each horn has a different color and it’s interesting to make an arrangement weave in and out of those different colors,” he said. “That’s what I love. You imagine what it will sound like, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s the challenge.”

Martinez, who led his first band in 1954 and spent 1955 through 1957 working with renowned Spanish bandleader Xavier Cugat, said the Latin scene in Los Angeles is not what it used to be, but it’s OK.

“In the ‘50s, on Sunset Boulevard alone, there were over 20 clubs,” he remembered, where such big names as Rene Touzet and Jackie Costanza played for good salaries. “Today, there are still a lot of clubs but there are also a lot of bands that don’t charge much, so we all have to work for less. Still, everybody who’s good deserves a chance.”

Where and When What: Johnny Martinez plays at the Salsa Cabaret at the Sportsmen’s Lodge, 4234 Coldwater Canyon Ave., Studio City. Hours: 7:15 to 11 tonight. Cost: $10 (with no minimum), $8, with $7 minimum. Call: (818) 984-0202. What: Johnny Martinez plays every Saturday, 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., at Stevens Steak and Seafood House, 5332 E. Stevens Place, City of Commerce. Cost: $5 cover, or no cover with dinner purchase. Call: (213) 723-9856. What: Johnny Martinez performs Sundays and Wednesdays, 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., at the Quiet Cannon, 901 N. Via San Clemente, Montebello. Cover: $5 Wednesdays, $7 Sundays. Call: (213) 724-9284.