Standout Percussionist Walks a New Beat--L.A.

Pete Escovedo didn’t waste any time getting down to business Saturday night. Squeezing a 10-piece ensemble onto the tiny stage at La Ve Lee in Studio City, he stood behind his timbales and immediately kicked into high gear with a spirited rendering of “Esta Noche,” the tune’s throbbing Latin jazz rhythms driven by the all-Escovedo percussion section that included son Peter Michael playing drums and daughter Sheila E. working the congas.

The family-affair aspects of the performance reached into the packed audience as well, where wife Juanita and daughter Zina actively cheered the action, shouting support and enthusiasm. Only son Juan was missing, unavailable for this particular engagement, but usually a regular member of the fiery Escovedo Latin jazz ensemble.

“This is it,” said the great Latin jazz percussionist and bandleader after the gig. “This is why we made the move from the Bay Area to Los Angeles--to be closer to our kids. We’ve always tried to get together to play as much as possible, but Sheila and Peter Michael have been living down here for a while. So we figured that, with three kids, nine grandchildren, three great-grandchildren--and another one on the way--we really needed to be closer.”

It wasn’t an easy decision to make, however. Pete and Juanita Escovedo, married for 45 years, have deep roots in Oakland.

“We have been there all our lives,” he said. “My wife was born there, and I was brought up close to Oakland. So to get up and move was an amazing thing for us. We thought about it for quite a while, and we were a little undecided until I closed my jazz club, Mr. E’s. That was what sealed the deal. ‘What do we do now?’ I said. And getting closer to the kids and to the grandkids was the answer.”

The “kids,” of course, have careers of their own. Sheila E., who came to fame under Prince’s wing, plays regularly at the Conga Room, where she is a backer. And Peter Michael led the house band for Martin Short’s short-lived talk show.

It’s probably not surprising that Escovedo has such an intimate musical connection to his offspring. Born in Pittsburg in Contra Costa County in 1935, he had a family band association with his late brother Coke Escovedo. Surprisingly, however, he did not start out with the ambition to be a percussionist.

“When I was a kid going to school,” he recalled, “my first instrument was the saxophone, and my main ambition was to become a jazz musician. I listened at that time to all the guys--Gene Ammons, Charlie Parker. And that jazz influence just stuck with me.”

It stuck with him but became considerably broadened when he hooked up with a friend from New York City who offered a considerably wider musical perspective.

“He started telling me about all this Afro-Cuban music, about Tito Puente, Machito and so forth,” said Escovedo. “So I started listening to them, and then, at a pretty young age, I was fortunate enough to meet them. I met Tito in 1956 and became friends with him--and Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo and Armando Peraza, who I worked with for many years. I got to know Cal Tjader, who was active in the Bay Area, and eventually recorded with him. The point is that people I was surrounded by in the Latin jazz scene were incredible, overwhelming, and it was really because of those associations that I realized the direction I wanted to go.”

After working with brother Coke, as well as younger brother Phil, in the Escovedo Brothers Latin Jazz Sextet--an enormously popular ensemble around the Bay in the early ‘60s--Pete and Coke joined Carlos Santana’s band later in the decade. (A younger half-brother, Alejandro Escovedo, is an Austin-based singer-songwriter.) Touring with Santana for three years, they performed on the albums “Moonflower,” “Oneness” and “Inner Secrets” (as well as the Santana hit rendering of Puente’s “Oye Como Va”).

In the ‘70s, the two brothers formed the band Azteca, recording a pair of albums for Columbia (the eponymous first release, followed by “Pyramid of the Moon”), and created a model that would continue to be the pattern for Escovedo’s later ensembles.

“We were into the rock scene like everybody else was in the ‘70s, along with the Latin rock thing,” he recalled. “But the guys in the Azteca band were all jazz musicians--Tom Harrell, Lenny White, a lot of great players--a Blood, Sweat & Tears kind of thing. And that sound, with all the horns, stayed with me from then on. People always told me that if I got a smaller band, I’d work more, but I knew that if I did I would lose the sound I wanted. And I get such a kick out of just listening to the horn players. Looking over there and hearing the brass section take off--it really fires me up.”

And it continues to fire up audiences, as evidenced at La Ve Lee. As the set continued, the rhythmic excitement building, each number generated more exhortations from the crowd, more interaction between the musicians and the listeners, many seated at tables placed directly against the stage area.

Obviously enjoying every minute of it, Escovedo was all smiles. Tossing drum passages back and forth with daughter Sheila, giving his powerful horn players--especially saxophonist Justo Almario and trumpeter Ramon Flores, as well as pianist Joe Rotondi--opportunities to stretch out, he was the consummate bandleader, fully in charge and digging every minute of what was happening.

Although he has been in Los Angeles since February, Escovedo spent most of the summer fulfilling earlier bookings in the Bay Area, with most of his Southland appearances taking place at outdoor venues rather than clubs.

“We did the Santa Monica Pier, the Long Beach aquarium, the Starlight Bowl in Burbank, places like that,” he said. “And that was nice, because I really don’t like to do clubs all the time. But when you play the outdoor gigs it’s, you know, one set and you’re done and you’re out of there. And at some point there comes a time when you want to feel the closeness of the people. I like to be able to look into their eyes, to feel their reaction, to see if they’re really into the music. And that’s what happens when you get into it with a close-knit crowd in a club.”

High on the list of plans for Escovedo’s Los Angeles future is the goal of opening his own room--Mr. E’s in L.A.

“Definitely,” he said. “Oh, yeah. That was my plan from way back. When I opened my clubs in the Bay Area, my thought always was to create some other jazz rooms--like a Blue Note kind of thing--in other cities. And I kind of targeted three areas, to keep the one in the Bay Area, open one in L.A., and hopefully do one in Hawaii. But now a club in Los Angeles is at the top of the list. And, since we’re living in Valley Glen, I’d like for it to be something on this side of the hill. I think the Sherman Oaks/Studio City area is ready for a first-class Latin jazz room.”

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Adjusting to Different Scene in Southland

Escovedo’s focus upon the local area near where he has settled is understandable. Like many who move to Los Angeles from more centralized cities, he is still adjusting to the wide-open reaches of the Southland with its diverse but largely separate communities.

“In the Bay Area, everyone is so close-knit and everybody lives so close together,” he said. “There’s like a handful of guys that do almost everything, in and out of different bands, and everybody knows what everybody’s doing. But here, because people tour, they’re in the studio, some people just play clubs, some people just stick with salsa or something like that, it’s a different scene.

“Then there’s the fact that everything is so spread out, that people live so far away from each other. There seem to be a lot of musicians around the area where I live, and that’s good. But in San Francisco and the Bay Area, everybody’s maybe 15, 20 minutes apart. Here everything is 45 minutes to an hour apart, and that’s a big difference.”

But it’s an adjustment that Escovedo is making quickly. Now 66, he confesses to having initially had thoughts of retiring at 65--an idea that was totally unacceptable to his family.

“The kids won’t let me,” he said with a laugh. “‘You don’t want to retire,’ they said, ‘You gotta keep playing.’ Meanwhile, I’m huffing and puffing just to keep up with them.”

Maybe so, but there wasn’t any such struggling apparent in a spectacular Escovedo solo that was one of the highlights of his set at La Ve Lee. With Sheila E. by his side--urging him deeper into the rhythm with shouts of “Come on, come on!”--Escovedo displayed the improvisational imagination that has made him a Latin jazz legend.

“Well, the truth is,” he said a bit later, “at this point, I’m not going to play any faster than I did years ago. But as I look at everything in my life and how it’s going, it really comes down to my feeling that, as long as you love what you’re doing, as long as you enjoy it, that’s what matters.

“So I’m just going to have fun,” he concluded, “and continue to do what I love to do--although I’ll be doing it in Los Angeles now. When the time comes when I can’t do it anymore, I’ll know that it’s time to stop. But not yet.”