Chapman Revues the Latin Roots of Rock : Music: University show traces largely unheralded role in rhythms ranging from ragtime to reggae.

After 20 years of staging rock ‘n’ roll revues at Chapman University, you’d think Paul Frizler would have covered all the bases by now. But when someone suggested showcasing the Latin roots of popular music in the United States, Frizler was stumped.

Sure, there was “La Bamba,” Santana and Los Lobos, but beyond that? “I thought, ‘Oh God, it’s going to be a very short show,’ ” Frizler said. But what he found was that music from Latin America and the Caribbean has played a surprisingly rich role in popular music, one that goes largely unheralded.

“It’s really the root that nobody explores,” Frizler said, as he ticks off the Latino influences on performers such as Madonna, Ben E. King, the Police, and the group that did “Love Potion No. 9.”

Tonight, he brings it all together in “From Ragtime to Reggae: The Latin Roots of Rock and Roll.” Opening tonight in Chapman Auditorium, the splashy revue continues for the next three weekends, through March 5.

The original idea for the show came from Allen Levy, an associate professor of public relations who had tried to sell it as a TV project a few years ago.

“When I started researching the actual songs and influences, I noticed two things. First, there isn’t very much literature” on the subject, Levy said.

Second, he found a much wider influence than even he expected. “What I thought was a trickle turned out to be a roaring river,” he said.

Chronologically, the show ranges from W. C. Handy’s 1914 ragtime standard “St. Louis Blues” (with its tango-inspired interlude) to such contemporary artists as Gloria Estefan and Los Lobos. One of the surprises that greeted Levy in his research was the interplay around the end of the 19th Century between tango, which swept up from Argentina, and early jazz.

Tango “scandalized white America” because of its overt sexuality, Levy said, although a sanitized version later became popular. “Before that, the only people who really loved the tango (in the U.S.) were African Americans,” Levy said.

“Right from there this Latin river flows through all forms of American popular music,” said Levy, who co-wrote and co-produced the show with Frizler, who directs. The point of the revue is “to illuminate and celebrate a trend in American popular music that no one has ever revealed, not that I’ve seen.”

Added Levy: “Everybody talks about multiculturalism. It’s the buzzword of the ‘90s, right? We are doing something about it.”

The “Latin Roots” show fits right in with the university’s current “Celebration of Latino Culture,” a yearlong project that includes a steady calendar of lectures, concerts and other events.

“The idea was that we wanted to be able to find a way to bring consciousness about various cultures” to the campus, said Cory Salcedo, a Chapman University administrator who is coordinating the program. The show, she said, will be a central event of the celebration.

As with Frizler’s past productions, this is a “clone show,” in which costumed students and alumni portray the actual performers who sang the hits. Well before the “Beatlemania” stage show played across the country and before the explosion of Elvis impersonators, Frizler was dressing up his stars and turning them into everyone from Peggy Lee to Madonna.

The current show incorporates the research by Frizler and Levy into a production that is “painlessly educational,” Levy hopes. “It’s not just a historical travelogue, it’s a celebration. We party in this show.”

Opening with Richie Valens’ rendition of “La Bamba,” a rock ‘n’ roll translation of a Mexican folk tune, the “Latin Roots” show moves into the largely unspoken influence of Latin rhythms on such ‘50s and ‘60s performers as the Clovers (“Love Potion No. 9”), Ben E. King (“Spanish Harlem”), the Drifters (“Under the Boardwalk”) and even Van Morrison, whose “Brown-Eyed Girl” was inspired, lyrically and musically, by a trip to Mexico.

Such roots can be hard to spot, but are undeniably there, especially in the rhythms, Levy said.

Then the program reaches back to Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” before exploring the big-band era, from the Latin influence on mainstream performers (Jimmy Dorsey’s “Tangerine,” for instance) to the Cuban invasion of such stars as Desi Arnaz and Xavier Cugat. In the show, Thora Fletcher of Mission Viejo sings a la Dinah Washington in a sultry “What a Difference a Day Makes,” a hit song that was originally written in Spanish.

From the pre-rock era until today, Latin music has inspired a succession of dance crazes, from the tango and the rumba through to the more recent lambada and salsa. The show covers these with a quick history, then explores Cole Porter’s fascination with the beguine rhythm from Martinique (as in “Night and Day”).

Act One also includes a section on the perpetuation of Latino stereotypes in popular music, including “Manana,” popularized by Peggy Lee (which exemplifies the “lazy Mexican” stereotype, Levy said) and Pat Boone’s hit “Speedy Gonzalez,” with its shifty protagonist and the exaggerated accents of the backup singers. (“Rosarita come quickly, down at the Quick Stop they’re giving Green Stamps with tequila,” goes one line.)

“I was leery of doing it. I wasn’t sure the audience would get the ironic distance,” Levy said. But Frizler, who has explored stereotypes in popular music before, was all for including the songs, and they contacted a Latino student association on campus.

Sharon Frey, president of Macondo, said she finds the approach educational for both Latinos and others alike. “It’s more objective if you have both sides of the coin,” she said.

Act Two is heavy on Caribbean influences, starting with calypso and soca (with Buster Poindexter’s hit remake of “Hot Hot Hot”) and moving to reggae. The way mainstream performers incorporated these rhythms is a big part of the show: there’s the Police (“Roxanne”), UB40 (“Red Red Wine”), Blondie (“The Tide Is High”) and Madonna (“I’m Going Bananas”).

“La Bamba” is reprised for the closing number, this time as performed by Los Lobos.

The big time spread presents a challenge for performers. Kaja Holland, an alumnus appearing in her third production, goes from being one of the Andrews Sisters, to Mary Martin to Madonna.

“It’s a lot of wigs,” the brunette said. “I don’t get to use my real hair at all.”

Auditions were a monthlong process for Frizler, followed by about six weeks of rehearsals. Because Chapman has a strong music department, he said, he has a rich pool of vocal talent to draw from, but casting harmony groups such as the Andrews Sisters still posed a challenge.

Originally the outgrowth of a fraternity skit, Frizler’s musical stage shows have over the years turned into a popular celebration of rock’s history and byways, utilizing almost 100 singers, musicians, dancers and technical people.

The off-the-cuff, “let’s put on a show” spirit of the early days has slowly given way to a more polished veneer, but the revue remains an all-volunteer labor of love. Many continue to take part in the show long after they leave school, although Vicky Miller of Orange holds a particular distinction: She’s the only person to have appeared in all 20 of them.

She has watched as the semiannual event has grown in scope, gaining a “bigger budget, better equipment, more support from the school,” she said. “It used to be on a wing and a prayer. Now we’ve even got a costume budget.”

“I basically do it because it’s fun,” Miller said, and although the late-night rehearsals sometimes test her resolve, “Paul does inspire an incredible amount of loyalty.”

The 1975 show was billed as a look back at 20 years of rock history, and Frizler has updated that every five years since, giving himself a crash course in the latest pop trends every time around (the 1990 show included performances of songs by such then-new artists as rappers Public Enemy and socially conscious folk singer Tracy Chapman).

In the off years, he’s taken time to explore some off-center rock topics, as in 1992’s satiric revue, “A Comical Look at Rock and Roll and Other Outrageous Musical Hilarities.” One program explored the African American roots of rock ‘n’ roll, an influence that has been much better documented than the Latin.

Although Frizler’s revue is now staged every two years, the current show marks both the 20th year and the 20th production. That’s because, in the beginning, Frizler produced a show every semester, a memory that amazes him now. “I can’t even imagine doing it every year now,” he said.

He said this might be his last production, partly because of all the work, partly because he worries about pushing his luck. Most past productions have sold out their entire seven-performance runs in the 950-seat hall, and Frizler wonders if the streak will someday desert him.

“They’ve all been too successful,” Frizler said. “The law of averages is going to catch up with me.”