POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Talent Gets Lost in an Overbooked Fiesta

Analyzing the musical merits of Sunday’s AT&T; Fiesta Broadway would make as much sense as a serious study of Hulk Hogan’s fighting abilities--he’s big, he’s huge, but he isn’t for real.

Let’s face it: The annual free event in the streets of downtown L.A. is a promotional haven for record labels who present their artists to a large audience, for companies that get to expose their products to more than 100,000 in a single day and for television (KMEX Channel 34 taped a special to be broadcast later nationally). The music--seemingly the real draw of the event--is secondary.

Following its usual more-is-better philosophy, the seventh annual edition simply booked too many acts and was forced to cram them together, denying them sufficient time to showcase their talents.

Even some big names suffered from the scheduling. Take Tito Puente, who closed the event. The Latin jazz legend delivered a watered-down, Tito-for-the-masses version of himself in a salsa set of just three songs. One was the predictable “Oye como va,” with Tito Puente Jr. on vocals, and another was a forgettable version of “Amor prohibido,” a tribute to Selena led by singer Yolanda Duque. With more time to play, he might have straightened things out.

As in previous years, the good salseros were the ones who stole the show. Oscar D’Leon and Marc Anthony were the perfect touch for the Marlboro stage (the best looking and best organized of the six stages), and 21-year-old Beatriz Montes, billed as “the new ranchera voice,” offered a flawless performance backed by L.A.’s Mariachi Latino on the small Target stage. Expect her next year on one of the main stages--she is the best female mariachi vocalist to arrive in the last few years.

Despite the usual unevenness of talent, this year’s fiesta (the first to carry the AT&T; name in its title) showed a genuine desire to do things better, especially in the areas of crowd control and, most important, in what took place onstage. Only nine of the 28 headliners sang to recorded tracks. The rest played live, which seems the logical thing to do but was a rarity at earlier fiestas. Overall, the event is still a great place for the not-too-picky to be entertained.

This year’s lower turnout--the police estimate was 150,000 to 170,000, compared to 300,000 last year--made maneuvering comfortable, and like all previous editions, except 1994, the atmosphere was trouble-free. Police said there were only three or four arrests Sunday.