He Hears the Sound of Revolution--and Likes It : Latin jazz: Bobby Matos thinks ‘the whole Afro-Cuban scene is exploding.’ He performs in Long Beach this evening.

Percussionist Bobby Matos, who will lead his 10-piece Heritage Ensemble at the Long Beach Museum of Art tonight, sees more than a resurgence in Latin jazz. He sees a revolution.

A native New Yorker who learned his craft as a youngster, following revered conga player Patato Valdez from gig to gig around the city, he thinks “the whole Afro-Cuban scene is exploding. It’s a whole movement that people are becoming aware of” in the wake of the film “The Mambo Kings.”

“Inside that resurgent interest in traditional Latin jazz are some very revolutionary aspects,” Matos said on the phone from his home in L.A.’s Silverlake area, “aspects that are now seeping into the music of the more traditional players, like Tito Puente and Poncho Sanchez.”

He wasn’t putting down those giants of Latin music. On the contrary, as someone who has developed from the same tradition, he said he has nothing but respect for them.

“When I play, someone always comes up and says ‘Wow, you sound just like Tito Puente or Mongo Santamaria,’ and that’s a great compliment. That’s the kind of stuff we grew up with, the Tito Puentes and Machitos and the Mario Bauzas. They represent the best of that style, like Poncho today.”

Matos doesn’t have much patience, though, with the pop-oriented side of the music. “Today’s commercial salsa bands--they’re like the sound of fingernails on a blackboard to me. They’re all arranged around the vocalist, and it’s more important that the vocalist have a nice haircut and clothes, and that he’s cute, than that he sings in tune or knows what he’s doing. They’re selling image and trying to create pop stars. They’re making pop arrangements out of salsa rhythms and not playing with feeling.

“That’s the antithesis of what great Afro-Cuban music can be. Great Afro-Cuban dance music always borrowed from jazz. Machito, Mario Bauza, Eddie Palmieri, people who were geniuses of the dance field, they were always playing Afro-Cuban jazz. And it was full of feeling.”

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In any case, 53-year-old Matos--who grew up listening to Billie Holiday, the Modern Jazz Quartet and Dizzy Gillespie as well as Machito, Puente and Cal Tjader--maintains things are swinging back to the creative, as opposed to the commercial, side of the ledger. He sees Afro-Caribbean musicians searching out new forms to incorporate with their tradition.

“There’s another thing happening now, the awareness of what Miles Davis was doing at one point during the period after John Coltrane was in the band, the period of Wayne Shorter and (Davis’ 1967 recording) ‘Nefertiti.’ Not so much the electronic stuff, but the modal period when Miles was asking, ‘What can we do beyond the contemporary be-bop chords?’ ”

Matos pointed to a new generation that includes saxophonist David Sanchez, pianist Danilo Perez, trumpeter-percussionist Jerry Gonzales (who leads the Fort Apache Band) and his bassist-brother Andy Gonzales.

“These cats are all about trying to find a new way to express the music so that we can grow and go on to the next step. That’s very important. Otherwise, we’re just copying what we’ve heard before.”

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He is especially high on Sanchez. “He’s only in his 20s and he’s just where Sonny Rollins once was. Like Sonny, he’s overturning the concepts of what people think a saxophone solo should be, giving you something revolutionary to hear.”

That kind of forward thinking is reflected on Matos’ own latest album “Collage: Afro-Cuban Jazz” on the Night Life label. Utilizing the new developments in the music is, he said, “like being awakened into a whole new world, like being a painter who has been given a whole new palette to work with. Especially in live performances, we’re trying to show a wider kaleidoscope of colors, a wider range of intensity.”

Tonight in Long Beach, his new wrinkles will include percussionist-actor Ismael East Carb reading poetry by Langston Hughes and the late Cuban poet Nicholas Tuillen while the Heritage Ensemble provides background.

“I’ve been working on a project combining poetry and music for the last two years on a (Los Angeles) Cultural Affairs grant,” Matos said. “I always felt that poetry was made to be presented to music, not in a hip-hop style but with actors in a more dramatic, more cinematic way. This will be just a sample.”

Matos also has spent the last two years in a variety of educational programs for children and teen-agers, working with teens at Los Angeles’ Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center and participating in programs sponsored by the California Arts Council and the L.A. Music Center.

Such work, he said, not only has its own rewards but goes a long way toward developing understanding between ethnic groups. “Most of the kids have no idea how the music relates to their culture. After they learn the roots of Afro-Caribbean music, they tell us they hadn’t realized that the black culture and the Latin culture had anything in common. I think that’s amazing.”

* Bobby Matos and the Heritage Ensemble play tonight at 7 at the Long Beach Museum of Art, 2300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. $10 for non-members, $8 for members. (310) 439-2119.