Palmieri Celebrates His Salsa Era

In popular music, we often treasure artists by eras. We collect early Bob Dylan. Study the Beatles before and after “Sgt. Pepper’s.” Buy boxed sets of the Nat King Cole trio on Capitol.

In salsa, connoisseurs will always rave about the early years of Eddie Palmieri with his band La Perfecta. For its live-wire excitement and lasting influence, few eras in Afro-Cuban music can match it.

The eclectic pianist, who headlined the Conga Room on Thursday, formed his rebel unit in 1961, making a brash New York arrival with a sound that was raw and lusty, as unpredictable as a street fight. He assaulted the Latin music scene with eight musicians, challenging the big bands of the two Titos, Puente and Rodriguez, which had as many as 20 players. Lean and flexible, La Perfecta became known as the band with the crazy roaring elephants, a nod to its distinctive two-trombone lineup led by the late Barry Rogers, Palmieri’s co-founder and kindred spirit.

Revered by its fans and feared by its rivals, La Perfecta took over Sunday nights at the Palladium, where it drew a mixed crowd of Latinos and African Americans. The people came to dance, of course. But they also came to see what in the world would happen.

No two performances were the same. The band surprised even its director.

“The eagerness to get to the bandstand the next day was quite nourishing, because you never knew when the band was going to take off next,” Palmieri, 64, said this week. “I was the most happy fella.”

That happiness lit up the pianist’s face once again Thursday at the Conga Room, where he opened the club’s series of career retrospectives on artists with a significant body of work. In one of the most memorable salsa events of recent years, Palmieri used the first night of a two-night stand to re-create the era of La Perfecta, which remains one of the most influential bands in all of Afro-Cuban music.

“I never thought that I would do what maybe could be called La Perfecta blasphemy,” the trim musician told the audience, admitting his doubts about a revival without Rogers. “But have we got a surprise for you. You’re going to see it and hear it, and you’re not going to believe it.”

By the end of the night, Palmieri had made believers of the adoring crowd, most of them too young to remember the band.

The Conga Room concert was truly historic because Palmieri had not attempted a revival after the group disbanded in 1968. So buried was the memory of his landmark work that he no longer had the charts to the compositions. The arrangements used Thursday had to be reproduced by ear by listening to La Perfecta’s old albums on the Tico and Alegre labels. (Most of their recordings are available on CD reissues.)

The technical task was accomplished by Conrad Herwig, Palmieri’s compadre and his phenomenal trombonist, along with Herwig’s 20-year-old collaborator, Doug Beavers. For the 70-minute performance, they resuscitated such classics as the combustible “Azucar Pa’ Ti,” the tasty cha-cha-cha “Lazaro y su Microfono” and Palmieri’s signature song from the ‘60s, “El Molestoso,” which means “the pest.”

In those days, Palmieri had the reputation of a mad genius, bearded and temperamental. He was known for arriving late or not at all. He’d throw fits on stage or quit after two numbers, as if he were the Van Gogh of salsa.

“My kid brother is a nut,” older brother Charlie, his fellow pianist and “complete inspiration,” wrote on the liner notes of the younger Palmieri’s first album.

Maturity must mellow the soul. Palmieri was charming and disciplined on Thursday, in total command of himself, his band and his instrument. He frequently smiled and signaled to friends in the crowd, which pressed against the bandstand as in the old days.

And as he did the old days, Palmieri surrounded himself with top-notch musicians, though only Johnny Rodriguez, a driving piston on the bongo and cowbell, had played with the original band. Palmieri obviously enjoys this new bunch, openly admiring a bass riff by Joe Santiago, smiling at a sharp timbal run by Jose Clausell, and even shaking hands with singer Herman Olivera after one particularly soulful ballad.

Palmieri has said he’s a “frustrated percussionist, so I take it out on the piano.” Watching him attack the keyboard is half the show. He hunches over it, pausing then pouncing. He hits a chord then pulls back as if he’s been shocked. He finds a sublime theme, then tilts his head back, eyes closed, mouth open and tongue wagging involuntarily.

Palmieri closed Thursday’s show with a frenzied percussion jam session featuring three conga players, including guest Francisco Aguabella, who was invited onstage by the bandleader.

Palmieri, always the restless spirit, went on to other musical accomplishments after La Perfecta. In 1975 he recorded “The Sun of Latin Music,” one of those albums music nuts want to have when stranded on an island. It won the first Grammy awarded in the tropical field, the first of five in Palmieri’s career. His scheduled second show on Friday was to focus on his rich Latin jazz work, which included a fruitful collaboration with Cal Tjader.

Future Conga Room retrospectives will feature the work of Poncho Sanchez in November, Arturo Sandoval in February and Sheila E with Pete Escovedo in March. As usual, Palmieri has set the pace by proving that in the right hands, great music can stay as fresh as the day it was created.