Proud to Be All Over the Map

“Mira que bonito y sabroso bailan el mambo los Mexicanos / mueven la cintura y los hombros igualito que los Cubanos . . .”

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In a recording studio in Burbank, Raul Malo is tacking a verse from “Bonito y sabroso” by the late, great Cuban singer Beny More onto the end of “Me voy pa’l pueblo,” a song made famous decades ago by Mexico’s foremost interpreters of romantic boleros, the Trio Los Panchos.

Just what the babalu is going on here?

It’s startling enough to hear the convincing performance by Malo, who came to fame in the early ‘90s as lead singer of the Nashville-based, pop/alt-country band the Mavericks. It’s just as surprising to see the musicians and singers who are providing accompaniment: Cesar Rosas and David Hidalgo from Los Lobos, whose forays into Latin music have mostly leaned toward the accordion-based sound of the Mexican border region; and Texan singers Ruben Ramos and Rick Trevino, whose respective tejano and country musical roots are miles from the tropical sounds being created here on this night.

But in the back of the room, an older, bespectacled, slender gentleman nods his approval at the recording. If “Nacho” Camarena is happy, then the new direction taken by Los Super Seven on its second album must be on the mark.

“I wasn’t sure they could successfully perform this music,” says Camarena, a prolific record collector and amateur musicologist in Guadalajara, Mexico, who served as a consultant to the project. “But they did it, and it sounds marvelous.”

The refrain from More’s “Bonito y sabroso” translates to: “Look how well Mexicans dance the mambo /They move and sway just like the Cubans do.”

Listening to the results on the new Super Seven album, it appears Mexicans--in this case, Mexican Americans--can also play and sing mambos just like los Cubanos.

This ad hoc “supergroup,” which won a Grammy in 1999 for best Mexican American music performance, is turning into a sort of Latin music travelogue.

The ensemble, whose first disc focused on music from the U.S.-Mexico border region, has taken an alternate route for its follow-up album, which is being released Tuesday on Columbia/Legacy. Titled “Canto” (which can translate to “song” or “I sing”), the album takes more of a pan-Latin approach and has a decidedly tropical feel. (See review, Page 66.)

And there’s a slightly different crew of musical travel guides. Returning are the versatile Rosas and Hidalgo, who both contributed original songs to the album, and Ramos and Trevino--singers whose interest in a wide range of musical styles helped them adapt to the new approach.

But because of the change in direction, the Tex-Mex oriented musicians from the first album--Freddy Fender, Flaco Jimenez and Joe Ely--aren’t on the new disc. They’re replaced by Brazilian legend Caetano Veloso, Peruvian diva Susana Baca and Malo, who grew up in a Cuban household in Miami.

And, there’s actually an eighth major contributor--L.A. keyboardist Alberto Salas, who arranged the album, working closely with producer Steve Berlin, the Lobos’ saxophonist-keyboardist who reprises his role from the first album.

If this all seems like a recipe with a lot of odd ingredients, consider these facts: Cuban mambo king Perez Prado actually made his name in Mexico; two of the original members of the Trio Los Panchos were Mexican, but the third, Hernando Aviles, was Puerto Rican; and talented Puerto Rican musicians have been coming to the mainland since the island became a commonwealth in 1917.

While various genres of Latin music have distinct roots, the sounds have traveled far and wide throughout the hemisphere, feeding and seeding generations of musicians.

“It’s funny because Latinos always want to take credit for certain little things,” said Malo during a recent visit to L.A. “Take the Trio Los Panchos: I’ve heard Mexicans say they’re Mexican; I’ve heard Puerto Ricans say they’re Puerto Rican. And the truth is, they’re probably both right. And it’s music I listened to growing up.”

Malo laughs when asked if his childhood memories include hearing a Los Panchos recording with Eydie Gorme--an album that was ubiquitous in Mexican American households.

“If you’re Latino and grew up in this country, you have to have it, don’t you?” jokes the singer. “Isn’t it government-issued?

“We’re so close, everybody is so related. The more I travel, the more I realize we’re all the same.”

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Language and geography may provide ties, but that doesn’t mean all Latino musicians can perform all styles of Latin music--the issue at hand as Dan Goodman, who manages Trevino, and Berlin prepared to record a follow-up album that would include a healthy dose of the Cuban style known as son. And there was also the issue of abandoning the format that had earned a Grammy and widespread praise for the first disc.

Titled “Los Super Seven,” the first album grew out of a showcase in 1997 at South by Southwest, the annual music conference in Austin, Texas. Goodman had organized a program that featured his client along with several border-music champions.

By the following year, Goodman and Berlin had assembled the group and they recorded the album in Austin. The disc became a cult hit, selling 63,000 copies, and gave a boost to Trevino, a former Nashville “hat act” embarking on a career redirection. And it introduced a wider audience to Ramos, a music veteran whose gravelly voice and suave stage presence were highlights of the band’s live performances.

Still, a follow-up album was never initially envisioned, and once it began to materialize, the project’s executive producer was determined not to take the easy route.

“The biggest decision we made was to make this album without the bajo sexto and accordion,” says Goodman. “It just never made sense to do something we’d already done. I wanted everyone to come in with a different perspective and to be challenged.”

Despite its change in direction, the roots of the new album can be found in the planning of the original when Goodman called Berkeley-based Arhoolie Records and spoke with Chris Strachwitz, who has been unearthing and releasing vintage Mexican music since the 1960s.

“When I was doing song research for the first album,” Goodman recalls, “I called Chris and he mentioned Nacho. I filed his name away and when we started talking about the second record I gave him a call.

“He invited me down to Guadalajara, and the first couple of days we just spent in his living room, listening to his enormous collection of 78s. And then we started driving. Nacho has a lot of friends and fellow record-collectors throughout Mexico because for 30 years he had a government job that required him to drive around the country. He got to know every single regional music, and from one town to the next he knew every musical nuance.”

And Camarena’s knowledge extends beyond Mexico’s borders. Digging into his collection, which he estimates at 47,000 songs, Camarena played for Goodman the Los Panchos recording of “Me voy pa’l pueblo,” a rich, romantic version that was popular in Mexico in the late 1940s. But he relayed how the song had been recorded by many Cuban artists, including Beny More.

Consequently, on “Canto” the song has more of a mambo feel, which is largely due to the contributions made by the honorary eighth member of Los Super Seven.

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“When I got back from Mexico,” Goodman says, “I started asking about musicians who would be good for the project, and David Hidalgo recommended Alberto Salas and he ended up becoming the bandleader and arranger--he really did the heavy lifting.”

Hidalgo met Salas when the Lobos guitarist and songwriter produced an album by Chicano R&B; singer Little Willie G., which was recorded at Salas’ home studio in South Gate.

If there was anyone in the Super Seven project who might legitimately feel apprehensive about the mix of material and musicians, it would be Salas, a gifted talent who is of Costa Rican and Cuban descent and who plays with the acclaimed local band Cuba L.A.

“When Steve [Berlin] first shared with me that the vocalists were coming from Texas, it was in the back of my mind that it may be a problem,” Salas admits. “But once everyone added their personality into the style, it clicked. None of them are true soneros, but they take what they know how to do and put that into this context and it works. The feeling is there.”

The album also features a range of other styles. Veloso, the Brazilian icon who led the tropicalismo movement in the ‘70s, performs two of his compositions in Portuguese. Baca, known in the U.S. through David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, sings the lullaby-like Cuban number “Drumi Mobila.”

Rosas, considered Los Lobos’ resident musicologist, contributed an original composition, “Campesino,” and “El Pescador,” a Mexican huapango that fits in because the style is from Veracruz--a region heavily influenced by the same African rhythms found in the Caribbean.

But the album’s most striking moments are in the tropical numbers. Aside from “Pueblo,” Malo also offers up a dramatic rendering of Ernesto Lecuona’s “Siboney.”

Hidalgo and his Lobos writing partner Louie Perez offer two typically idiosyncratic pieces, including the album’s only English-language song, “Teresa,” which has been released as a single to radio. And on “Calle Dieciseis,” they prove they can write in the traditional son style. Hidalgo shares the vocal with Ramos, who then takes the lead on the playful but charged son montuno “Compay Gato.”

Trevino sings lead on the Colombian “Paloma Guaramera” and another older Cuban dance number, “El que siembra su maiz.”

In fact, Trevino recently finished an all-Spanish solo album of material that had been considered for the Super Seven project, which is turning into somewhat of a cottage industry. Berlin produced Trevino’s album, which is being released in May by Vanguard Records, and Rosas, Hidalgo, Ramos and Malo all came out to help.

Malo, in turn, is preparing to record his own solo album, which he’ll co-produce with Berlin. Malo says the material will likely be split evenly between original English and Spanish songs and it will be on the Higher Octave label, which has released two albums by Buena Vista Social Club alum Eliades Ochoa.

Speaking of the Buena Vista phenomenon, it could be that some critics may accuse Los Super Seven of trying to jump on the Cuban music bandwagon. If so, the album’s executive producer is prepared to respond.

“It’s always an issue of uninformed people arriving at conclusions without paying attention,” Goodman says. “People who really listen to the record will know there’s no similarity at all, musically and otherwise. We’re not trying to re-create old records. We certainly want to capture their spirit, but we also want to make them more listenable from a contemporary perspective.”

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Los Super Seven plays Wednesday at the House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, 9 p.m. $17.50. (323) 848-5100.