Sonora Carruseles’ Exciting Local Debut

The name Sonora Carruseles doesn’t mean much to most Latin music fans around the world. In Los Angeles, however, it’s a different story.

Here, a small group of hard-core salsa fans has turned this superb Colombian combo into a cult sensation of sorts.

The band’s popularity among Angelenos was apparent during its long-overdue local debut on Thursday at the Sportsmen’s Lodge, where hundreds of fans chanted along with Carruseles’ hyperactive, impossibly tight salsa-con-swing jams, such as “Al Son de los Cueros” and “Arranca en Fa.”

The group’s status is certainly surprising--but also perfectly understandable. Carruseles is arguably the most exciting salsa band to come out during the ‘90s, a lukewarm decade for the tropical field.

Carruseles picks forgotten nuggets from the classic salsa era of the late ‘60s and ‘70s, updating them with faster tempos and modern arrangements that sound sparkling and airy.

Besides its occasional incursions into cumbia territory (this is, after all, a Colombian band), Carruseles has a weakness for the vintage boogaloo genre, a recently resurrected style marked by R&B; inflections and a wide-eyed innocence that takes it to the border of lounge music.

At Sportsmen’s Lodge, Carruseles satisfied the fans’ thirst for its many hits. But the performance was miles away from duplicating the orgiastic energy and savoir-faire of its recordings.

This discrepancy reflects the nature of its record label, the legendary Discos Fuentes. Because the company specializes in the creation of musical concepts, many of its groups are loosely structured units.

In the case of Carruseles, the seasoned perfection of the recordings was achieved by enlisting some of the most talented musicians in Colombia--many of whom are not in the band’s touring incarnation.

Percussionist Diego Gale, the group’s co-leader, did his best to guide the 16-piece combo into salsa hyperdrive. Still, if Carruseles wants to give a faithful representation of its studio sound, it should stick to a defined lineup and strive for the cohesion that only years of touring together can bring.