JAZZ REVIEW : Poncho Sanchez: He Gives It the Works

Move over, James Brown. It’s time to award Poncho Sanchez the crown as “the hardest-working man in show business.”

Few keep more active on the local scene. Sanchez’s eight-piece band can be found playing at least a couple Southern California clubs nearly every weekend and many of the nights in between.

When not seen locally, he’s on the road. Last week, after a concert at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Sanchez flew back just in time to make an appearance in a Studio City restaurant. The band has also made triumphant appearances in Japan and Mexico City in the past few months. Vacation? Never.

Certainly Sunday was no day of rest, despite the three-day weekend, for the conguero and his ensemble. Spread across the spacious bandstand at Randell’s, Sanchez and company worked up a sweat chattering away on salsas, cha-chas and other Latin rhythms, all in top-notch style.

Watching Sanchez work, one can’t help but admire the man’s drive as he pounds his way through percussive-rich jazz standards or takes a turn at the microphone to sing dance songs in Spanish. Likewise, the other seven members of his band have the same, strong work ethic.

The first set, in the tradition of Cal Tjader and Willie Bobo, was one of jazz tunes twisted just so to fit Latin rhythms. The arrangements were magical re-creations of familiar pieces, such as Count Basie’s “Shiny Stockings,” which became a vehicle for Ramon Banda’s rippling timbale work, and the ballad “My Foolish Heart,” which jumped along on Jose (Papo) Rodriguez’s muscular bongo play. The rhythmic emphasis made each of these well-known numbers kick off their shoes and dance.

Sanchez himself turned Gerry Mulligan’s bop-styled “Five Brothers” into a percussive party, taking the lead with short, call-and-response lines on his congas before rifling through a long double-time line that ended with two powerful slaps. The conguero also added snap to saxophonist Eddie Harris’ “Cold Duck Time,” turning the R&B-based; number into a Latin-rhythm extravaganza without losing any of the tune’s funky flavor.

The evening’s most exciting moment came when Sanchez, Rodriguez and Banda picked up large, bead-draped gourds and began to shake and chug along to the beat of Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro-Blue.”

Long a workhorse in the Sanchez repertoire, the tune took on new depth as the three exchanged shimmering sounds and blunt reverberation from the bottom of the gourds. As they built up steam like a train pulling from the station, bassist Tony Banda added the familiar riff that prompted the horns to jump back into the theme.

The band’s principal soloists are the three-man horn section. Saxophonist Scott Martin led the way on “Cinderella,” using his tenor to impart an after-midnight panic to the cha-cha based workout. On pianist David Torres’ “Two, One, Three,” he cruised through an alto solo that closed on a single high-pitched exclamation.

Trombonist Alex Henderson navigated the difficult changes of “Five Brothers” with grace and a surfeit of breath. Trumpeter Jeff Bunnell, a substitute for usual horn man Stan Martin, whose wife had just had a baby, was kept busy with solos on almost every tune and a fluegelhorn feature on “My Foolish Heart.” Bunnell’s strongest work came on Clifford Brown’s “Daahoud,” in which he played with some of the late trumpeter’s fire and creative spark.

Sanchez moved away from his congas to sing “Prestame Tu Corazon,” before pacing the piece with a cowbell while pianist Torres shifted chords back and forth to the salsa beat. Though Sanchez’s vocals aren’t perfectly rendered affairs, they’re sung with enough enthusiasm and rhythmic flair to pass within the band’s fine instrumental framework.