A new Latin tempo lights the night

MORE than three decades ago, Latino entertainment in Los Angeles started a steady march out of its cultural ghetto. Mariachi stars moved from the Million Dollar Theater on scruffy downtown Broadway to the Universal Amphitheatre. Top salsa bands graduated from dances in hotel ballrooms to showcases at the Hollywood Bowl.

But while Latino artists now get regular billing at major concert venues around Southern California, the Latin music club scene is still one of the most hidden -- and exciting -- parts of L.A. night life. Only one Latin club has gained significant name recognition among a broad cross-section of L.A.: the Conga Room on Wilshire Boulevard. But if you think that it’s the whole enchilada, you’re making a big mistake.

Over the last year or two, an entire smorgasbord of Latin clubs and ballrooms has opened across the basin. Some are grand spaces, like the Granada in Alhambra, a tropical ballroom that specializes in salsa. Or A Mi Hacienda, a sprawling new spot in Pico Rivera, where uniformed valets greet a cowboy clientele. A wealth of beautiful smaller spaces is thriving too, like Mama Juana’s, a home for a totally new style of mariachi music. Even veteran clubs like 18-year-old JC Fandango in Anaheim have survived and thrived by adapting to new musical trends -- in this case, becoming the Southland’s premier venue for rock en espanol.

For music lovers with sufficient drive and gasoline, it’s possible in a single week in Southern California to hear flamenco in Riverside, Spanish rock in Anaheim, norteno music in Pico Rivera, a female mariachi near Universal City and a great New York salsa band in Alhambra.

So come along, and bring your dancing shoes.

A salsa ballroom

If you associate salsa dancing with dark, sweaty and crowded nightclubs, welcome to the Granada, a four-level salsa palace in the heart of what was once sleepy downtown Alhambra. It’s the latest and grandest gathering spot for L.A.’s salsa glitterati, as well as step-counting newcomers to the sensual Afro-Caribbean dance rhythm.

With an ornate facade and a decor of polished wood and wrought iron, the Granada re-creates the open and genteel ambience of an old-fashioned tropical ballroom. The main room has a huge dance floor (made of wood salvaged from a bowling alley); its molded ceilings soar 24 feet high. Large windows and a well-lighted interior allow passersby to easily see the action on the dance floor. And salsa dancing is almost as much fun to watch as to perform.

On a recent evening, the crowd was mixed, as good salsa crowds tend to be. There were a few kids and a few old-timers. Snappy dressers and casual dressers. The sexy and the sedate. A few showoffs and a lot of novices.

With New York’s Manny Oquendo and Libre doing a scorching set, one man with salt-and-pepper hair and elegant manners takes his partner by the hand. His steps are slow, graceful and measured, easing into the mellow layer of the polyrhythmic cha-cha-cha, dancing with swing but no sweat.

“That’s the way my father taught me,” Alvin Watkins says after stepping outside for a smoke. “He said, ‘If you’re going to dance it, dance it suave.’ ”

Watkins, an L.A. native and retired dental technician who does home remodeling, says he was so thrilled when he learned the Granada was opening, he volunteered to help owner Enzo Cordoba get it ready.

Cordoba, a professional dancer and choreographer, bought the grand 1929 building in 2002. City redevelopment money helped rehab the former home of the Red Cross. There was trouble in its previous incarnation, a billiard hall in the 1990s, and the city sought to replace it with “something upscale,” he says.

“We don’t want to let just anybody in,” says Cordoba, who moved his nearby dance studio, Let’s Dance LA, to the new building. “I’d rather be a little more expensive, a little more exclusive.”

The Granada, with a tapas bar on the mezzanine and two discos on the top floor, is now the centerpiece of Alhambra’s new night scene, comprising a cluster of new clubs and restaurants drawing patrons from all across the basin.

For Watkins, the suave dancer, it’s a social affair. This night, he spots his old friend David Viscarra, who’s been dancing salsa since the ‘60s at fabled but defunct haunts like Virginia’s near MacArthur Park and the Boom Boom Room in East L.A.

“What’s up, Dave?” Watkins says. “What are you doin’ on this side” of town?

“All of the city is my side,” Viscarra says.

Rocking O.C.

JC Fandango is hidden away in the corner of a drab Anaheim strip mall, sandwiched between an auto parts store and a coin-operated laundry. Not exactly the venue you’d expect to draw the biggest names in salsa and rock en espanol.

It was founded in 1986 by Jose and Ofelia Castellanos, an Orange County couple who had the idea of featuring the best tropical music acts from around the world in an upscale supper club.

The upscale part is debatable, but JC Fandango did indeed draw marquee salsa acts over the years, such as Celia Cruz, Willie Colon and Oscar D’Leon.

It wasn’t until after Jose Castellanos died in 1992 and his sons began running the business that the club moved into the rock arena, with a second room next door featuring DJ house and techno music. Two years later, the club started bringing live alt-Latino bands from Latin America, and today it ranks as one of the region’s premier venues for Spanish rock.

The most exciting acts in the genre -- Fabulosos Cadillacs, Cafe Tacuba and the legendary Manu Chao -- have played this out-of-the-way nightspot. And in coming weeks, the stellar lineup continues, starting tonight with Mexico’s respected rappers Control Machete and continuing with Fito Paez, Alex Lora and El Gran Silencio.

The shift from salsa to rock made economic sense. Large, big-name salsa bands are more expensive than smaller rock outfits. Plus, salsa fans don’t come out to see name acts as they once did.

“Rock fans are more fanatical,” says Javier Castellanos, 34, who manages the club with his mother and siblings, Jose Marco and Hector.

Javier is the rock expert in the family. On a recent weeknight, he stood outside the club as Zoe, a new Mexican rock group, played loudly inside for a 16-and-older crowd.

The club hasn’t changed much in all these years, with its sunken dance floor, terraced restaurant seating and faux palm trees. With so much success, why not move?

“We get ripped sometimes for being in a shopping center,” Javier Castellanos says, “but people keep on coming.”

Mariachi Divas

Nestor Pleitez, an unusually outgoing accountant, is a regular at Mama Juana’s, a small Latin club across from Universal City. He roams the perimeter of the dance floor as comfortably as his own living room, sleeves on his sport coat rolled up, ‘80s disco style.

At one point, he faces the stage to shout out his approval for an impressive falsetto by a vocalist with Mariachi Divas, the wonderful, all-female house band Wednesday nights.

“Que barbara!” He yells his piropo, a flirtatious compliment, in Spanish. “I must marry you, my love. But I’ll marry you every night.”

The small, friendly crowd in the little club laughs.

“Music is a virus,” Pleitez says, leaning over and adding a pinch to make his point. “It bites you and you’re doomed. I have introduced a lot of friends to Latin music, be it mariachi, be it salsa, be it tango. And once you love it, it is the love of your life.”

Owner Darrell Alatorre, son of former L.A. City Councilman Richard Alatorre, says this is the intimate Latin club he always dreamed of opening. May 1 is Mama Juana’s first anniversary.

“It’s not the typical club atmosphere,” he says. “We don’t have the big guys at the door. It’s not a big place with a lot of thump, thump. It’s a good vibe here. It’s like an old classic lounge.”

The ardent fans of Mariachi Divas make Mama Juana’s a weekly destination. L.A. has other female mariachis, but none that feature congas and timbales. The percussion, added to the traditional violins, guitars and trumpet, make this the mariachi band you can dance to.

They even invented a new genre -- the “rancherengue,” a blend of ranchera and merengue.

The fusion wasn’t planned, says founder and director Cindy Shea, who studied trumpet with Arturo Sandoval and played with Celia Cruz. But it was inevitable as the band started attracting diverse members -- Panamanian, Costa Rican, Japanese and of course Mexican -- from L.A.’s Latino music scene, including former Quetzal violinist Rocio Marron.

“It wasn’t necessarily a cultural vision,” says Shea, an Irish-Italian American, “but now I’m so proud of that. Our makeup represents L.A., because it’s just a combination of people from all over the world, and we bring it all together.”

A country hacienda

You know you’ve come to a classy country place as soon as you pull into the well-lighted parking lot of A Mi Hacienda, a massive restaurant and dance hall on Whittier Boulevard in Pico Rivera. Valets wearing double-breasted suits with monogrammed burgundy vests graciously greet you before uniformed security guards at the door thoroughly frisk you.

Just inside stands the patriarch of this family-owned nightclub, Andres Garcia, dressed all in black except for a black and white tie to match his waitresses’ miniskirts. Hailing from Durango in northern Mexico, Garcia has been operating clubs for his fellow immigrants for three decades. And though his son and nephew help run the business, he’s always there to keep an eye on things.

The Pico Rivera club, which was at a nearby site for 23 years, has featured top names in norteno and banda music, including a kid from neighboring Paramount named Adan Sanchez, who went on to become one of Southern California’s biggest Mexican music stars before his death in a car crash last month. The next star may be among the hopefuls who perform every Sunday at the Hacienda’s amateur competitions, such as the popular singer who calls himself “El Cuervo,” the Crow.

Last week, the Garcias celebrated their first anniversary at their new location, 18,000 square feet on three acres of what was formerly a trash-strewn lot. It’s the first club of its kind built from the ground up, they proudly state.

“We wanted to have a place that would be worthy of our community, a place for the entire family,” says Juan Erasmo Garcia, the son.

The main hall is enormous, with high, black ceilings and huge expanses of white walls. Over the dance floor is a concave structure, like an inverted satellite dish, that reflects colored strobe lights.

The decor may be contemporary, but the clientele is all country. They drink Coronas, served six at a time in silver ice buckets. The guys wear jeans with snakeskin boots, big silver belt buckles and cowboy hats in either black or white.

When they all go out to dance, the floor becomes a sea of bobbing Stetsons. No flashy dancing here. Mostly shuffling two-steps, danced cheek-to-cheek, or a fast and bouncy zapateado, so aerobic it helps keep most of them trim.

A slightly plump woman with a shy smile scribbles a request on a napkin, and gets up the nerve to approach the band, Energia Nortena, an excellent norteno quartet with pure high-pitched harmonies, a mean electric bass and a dazzling squeezebox. Her request is a heartbreak anthem titled “Que Me Lleve el Diablo” (May the Devil Take Me).

The woman says she hasn’t been out on the town in 10 years. Her husband, the macho type, loved to go out by himself but demanded that she stay home. Now she’s free of him, and this is the night she’s been waiting for. She’s even lost weight, she says proudly, spreading her arms out beyond her hips as a measure of her progress.

“I’ve been waiting a long, long time to come to a place like this, pretty and peaceful,” says Ana of Riverside, who declines to give her last name out of lingering fear of her ex. “People come here to enjoy themselves. Real wholesome.”

Ferrari of flamenco

In Spain, the so-called tablaos that feature flamenco dinner shows are often packed with American tourists. After those from Southern California come home, many head to Riverside’s Cafe Sevilla for a nostalgic reminder of carefree nights of passion and sangria.

This is one of the happening nightspots in the Inland Empire, with a Lamborghini, Ferrari and yellow Humvee in the parking lot testifying to the affluence of the clientele. The tab for the show and a three-course paella dinner topped $200 on a recent Saturday.

“We’re so glad you’re here this evening to experience flamenco -- not flamingo!” says dancer Linda Andrade, director of the house ensemble named Sakai Flamenco (Flamenco Eyes). “Feel free to shout out if anyone does anything to excite you.”

The crowd did just that for a powerful young dancer named Artoro Nazarri sporting a ponytail, a goatee and an earring. But don’t let the gypsy look fool you. He’s Persian. Women swoon when he soon sheds his coat to reveal a muscular torso in a sleeveless tank top. But the sexy gimmick also allows viewers to appreciate how much control this dance requires, even when moves are soft and slow.

From their table next to the stage, Sam Zawahra, 32, and his date, Yara Alves, 24, appreciated the subtleties of a dance known for its flashy footwork and dramatic poses.

“I’m amazed there’s so much physical ability involved,” says Alves, a high school PE instructor. “They’re so quick with their legs and their upper bodies are so calm.”

Zawahra, who works on race cars in Rancho Cucamonga, is most impressed by the location of the club, which he considers perfect for a romantic date.

“Nothing against Riverside,” he says, “but it’s a surprise.”

This night, guest performers include Juan Talavera, one of the busiest and best-known flamenco instructors in Southern California. Talavera, with his curly graying hair, doesn’t have the sheer power of his younger counterpart. But with his long, lean profile, he makes up for it in grace and elegance.

Talavera has so much quiet command that he’s able to win the attention of the house even after a break to celebrate various birthdays, anniversaries, engagements and graduations, with sparklers instead of candles brought to the tables. He quieted the buzz in the 120-seat room, not with loud and flashy footwork, but with concentration and feeling.

The club, which also features tango and salsa shows on different nights, has coved ceilings, arches and one wall covered with surreal imitations of Dali and Picasso, all done in good fun and fluorescent paint that glows in the dark. The attached restaurant and tapas bar occupy a restored part of a train station.

The Sevilla has two other locations, in San Diego and Carlsbad, and plans to open a fourth this year on Pine Street in Long Beach, across from Alegria, another, much more cramped flamenco nightspot.

“We love the place,” said Sevilla regular Gary Gies of Redlands, a retired Air Force officer who spent four years based in Spain and dared to get up on stage to dance. “It’s like going to Spain all over again.”

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‘Alhambra has come alive’

Seemingly overnight, the once sleepy suburb of Alhambra has emerged as the unlikely new center of night life in the San Gabriel Valley. The city’s revitalization plan has shifted into overdrive with a cluster of clubs and restaurants concentrated in a jumping few blocks around a stretch of Main Street, anchored by the Granada, a grand dance complex. Revelers can easily stroll from salsa club to Cuban cigar salon to Mexican cafe to neon hip-hop spot.

“Actually, our downtown was almost desolate at one time,” says Julio Fuentes, the city manager. “There wasn’t much going on there, certainly after 5 o’clock. Now it’s very lively, very active and very festive. Alhambra has come alive.”

Here’s what you’ll find:

1. Havana House, 133 W. Main St.; (626) 576-0547. Cigar lounge.

2. Azul Bar & Nightclub, 127-129 W. Main St.; (626) 282-6320. Contemporary dance music.

3. Zocalo Mexican Restaurant, 118 W. Main St., (626) 458-0317. Live music Thursday through Sunday.

4. The Granada, 17 S. 1st St.; (626) 227-2572. Nightclub with ballroom, restaurants and dance studio.

5. Cuban Bistro, 28 W. Main St.; (626) 308-3350. Live bands for dancing on weekends.

6. Ambiente Restaurant/Nightclub, 45 S. Garfield Ave.; (626) 300-5447. Caribbean/Latin/California cuisine. Comedy, hip-hop and Spanish rock nights.

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Where to go

The Granada, 17 S. 1st St., Alhambra; (626) 227-2572. The newest and largest salsa venue, open until 4 a.m.

JC Fandango, 1086 N. State College Blvd., Anaheim; (714) 758-1057. A showcase for the best in rock en espanol bands, plus salsa bands every weekend.

Mama Juana’s, 3707 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Studio City; (818) 505-8636. Home of the Mariachi Divas, appearing every Wednesday. Hot salsa night on Thursdays.

A Mi Hacienda, 9613 Whittier Blvd., Pico Rivera; (562) 699-2500. A massive new palace for Mexican banda and norteno music.

Cafe Sevilla, 3252 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside; (909) 778-0611. Sold-out flamenco dinner shows Saturday nights, plus tango on Fridays and salsa on Sundays.

Tlaquepaque Restaurant, 111 W. Santa Fe Ave., Placentia; (714) 528-8515. Exciting mariachi shows every weekend near the train tracks in the old downtown.

Cielito Lindo, 1612 N. Santa Anita Ave., South El Monte; (818) 442-1254. The home of Mariachi Sol de Mexico of Jose Hernandez; mariachi brunch on Sundays.

The Sagebrush, 9523 Culver Blvd., Culver City; (310) 450-8770. Salsa in a casual atmosphere every Sunday afternoon and evening.

Floridita Restaurant, 1253 N. Vine St., Hollywood; (323) 871-8612. A veritable Hollywood tradition for salsa lovers Monday nights.

Little Pedro’s Blue Bongo Cafe, 901 E. 1st St., Los Angeles; (323) 270-9049. Variety, catering to downtown mariachi lovers and hip art district denizens.

El Centro Cultural de Mexico, 1522 S. Main St., Santa Ana; (714) 953 9305. A growing venue for Mexican folk, jarocho, rock and nueva cancion.

Club Bahia, 1130 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles; (213) 250-4313. A popular pan-tropical spot in Echo Park, for cumbia, punta, salsa and merengue.

Zabumba Club & Restaurant, 10717 Venice Blvd., West Los Angeles; (310) 841-6525.

Brazilian music on weekends, with samba show Fridays; salsa on Thursdays.