Anything With a Beat Is Fair Game for Sanchez

“We’re going to play a little bit of everything,” Poncho Sanchez told the packed house Friday night at the Galaxy Concert Theatre.

The conguero/Latin jazz bandleader was true to his word. He gave the enthusiastic audience an array that included steady-grooving mambos (“Mambo Cuco”) and guajiras (“Besame Mama”), upbeat salsa numbers (“Yumbambe”), slinky, slow boleros (“Aunque Tu”), Afro-Cuban jazz (“Afro Blue”)--and even his takes on James Brown’s “Cold Sweat” and Wilson Pickett’s “Funky Broadway.” The fans ate it up, filling the dance floor almost all evening, applauding loudly after each selection.

Sanchez, who apprenticed with vibes ace Cal Tjader from 1975-82 and then led his own bands, is now both one of the Latin music world’s top draws and one of its finest conga drummers.

But the self-taught musician, whose persona is a mix of hipster braggadocio and down-home humility, has never taken his fame for granted, always working hard--and Friday was no exception--to entertain his fans.

His invigorating numbers, outfitted with pleasing melodies and always rhythmically dynamic, were played by a classically smooth rhythm team and by a horn section that was creamy and rich in one passage, biting and aggressive in another.

And while the horns--woodwind player Scott Martin, trumpeter Stan Martin and trombonist Alex Henderson--are an essential part of Sanchez’s group, it’s the rhythm gang that sustained the band’s numbers.

Musical director/keyboardist David Torres and bassist Tony Banda provided a solid repeating-riff bottom to the pieces. Around this, timbalero Ramon Banda and Papo Rodriguez, who plays bongo and guiro (an empty gourd that’s scratched with a stick), joined their leader to create a delicious, enlivening foment.

Though he was generous with his solo space to band members, Sanchez, who sat stage center behind his three gleaming, beige-colored drums, was the star. His solos frequently were as enchanting to watch as to hear.

Sanchez, wearing his usual Kangol cap and sporting a long salt-and-pepper beard, worked with his fingertips wrapped with adhesive tape, issuing a stream of sounds. These ranged from offbeat whaps on his highest-pitched drum interspersed with regular slaps on a lower-sounding drum to steady, foot-tapping rhythmic grooves to furious double-hand attacks. It was all decidedly musical.

On “Afro Blue,” Sanchez, Rodriguez and the Banda brothers all simultaneously played shekeres (large, seeded gourds wrapped with beads), delivering an ethereal scratching sound that filled the room. And Henderson’s improvisations seemed conversational.

The lone drawback was probably the best-received number: Sanchez’s run through the R&B; tunes that ended with the Santana hit “Oye Como Va.” While good for dancing, it was not musically up to par with the rest of the show.

The opening act was Jeff Harris and Friends, a Latin-contemporary jazz band that featured solid solos by sax man Edmond Velasco but failed to generate much rhythmic heat.

* Poncho Sanchez also plays March 23 at the Robert B. Moore Theatre, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. $15-18. (714) 432-5880.