The Worthy Get Ignored

By awarding the Latin rock/alternative performance Grammy to the Chris Perez Band, the recording academy has symbolically spat in the face of rock en espan~ol, Latin music’s most vital genre.

Expecting the voters to reward the deserving Cafe Tacuba’s “Reves/Yosoy” was unrealistic--it’s an ahead-of-its-time album that demands patience and perseverance from the listener.

But the Latin rock category had other worthy nominees: Jaguares, Fabulosos Cadillacs and even the soft-rock musings of Enanitos Verdes would have been a better choice than Perez.

The Texan is a gifted guitarist, but his material is too middle-of-the-road and derivative to generate any serious sparks. “Resurrection” lacks the alternative point of view and disregard for the mainstream that define the most exciting names in the rock en espan~ol landscape.

Most of the other Latin categories are plagued with similar missteps. In the pop arena, Ruben Blades’ “Tiempos” is a lukewarm affair compared to the red-hot urgency of the collections by Juan Luis Guerra and Carlos Vives.

In the salsa field, the albums by India and Oscar D’Leon were equally good, if not better, than that of winner Los Van Van. One suspects they walked away with a Grammy just because of the current Cuban craze.

But that doesn’t explain why voters missed the opportunity of a lifetime to recognize veteran Cuban sonero Ibrahim Ferrer in the traditional tropical category, where Tito Puente was, nevertheless, a worthy winner.

And Vicente Fernandez’s tribute to Los Dandys would have been a more fitting Mexican-American winner than Placido Domingo’s mariachi collection.

The only clearly deserving winner of the evening was Elvis Crespo. Of course there wasn’t really any competition in the merengue category. If there were, the voters probably would have got it wrong.