End of Conga line
IT’S the last call for the Conga Room.
After eight years at its Miracle Mile location on Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles’ premier Latin music nightclub is going dark at the end of the month -- at least for now.
Although owners plan to reopen in about two years at a new, larger location within the downtown entertainment complex being built across from Staples Center, the demise of the trailblazing club’s first incarnation leaves a vacuum in the city’s cultural landscape.
One of the first concept clubs in its field, the Conga Room turned an abandoned health spa used by drug addicts into a glamorous showcase for some of the best performers in Latin and world music. More than a mere nightspot, the colorful space had served as a sociological experiment in a city where most Latin clubs have been historically segregated in Latin neighborhoods.
Situated strategically near La Brea Boulevard, an urban Maginot line dividing the city’s predominantly white Westside and its people-of-color core, the venue became a safe multicultural middle ground where racial divisions dissolved in the face of a common love for dancing and good music. Celebrities rubbed shoulders with secretaries, experienced hoofers showed off next to unabashed beginners, and people of all races demonstrated that, yes, they can all get along.
“It’s very comfortable,” said Jack Gulyan, 49, a club regular who owns a smog test shop. “There are no fights or arguments. You just have fun, dance and go home.”
Dancing right along with Gulyan and other salsa fans on a recent Saturday night was the Conga Room’s founder and majority owner, Brad Gluckstein. A successful Jewish American real estate broker, the Los Angeles native is himself the prototype of the customer he set out to attract -- upscale non-Latinos who love to dance salsa and just needed a place to feel comfortable.
“Everybody talked about ‘crossover,’ ” says Gluckstein. “It was the big buzz word in the ‘90s, and I think the Conga Room really did it.... It provided a place for Latinos that was authentic, but at the same time, it eliminated the stereotype that a Latino venue is [necessarily] unsafe and made it inviting to non-Latinos as well.”
The Conga Room opened in February of 1998, a pivotal moment for the popularity of Latin music in the U.S. Guitarist Ry Cooder had just released his “Buena Vista Social Club” album, sparking a new boom in Afro-Cuban music. Singers Shakira and Ricky Martin were poised to sweep the pop charts the following year. And the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences was about to launch its first international spinoff, the Latin Grammys.
“When we opened, all things Latin were muy caliente,” said Gluckstein, who runs his real estate firm, Apex Realty, from offices nearby on Wilshire.
The venue started with an initial investment of $2.5 million and a splash of publicity, thanks in large measure to the cachet attached to its celebrity investors, including singer Jennifer Lopez, actor Jimmy Smits and comedian Paul Rodriguez. It debuted as Los Angeles’ flashy new salsa dance spot featuring none other than legendary Afro-Cuban diva Celia Cruz for three nights on the inaugural weekend.
The club quickly built a unique reputation by being the first in town to book the hottest Cuban bands out of Havana.
The roster of artists who started appearing on the club’s small marquee was as exciting as the 1960s British invasion for rock fans -- Bamboleo, Afro-Cuban All Stars, Los Van Van, Pablo Milanes. It also provided a startling signal that the cultural boycott of Cuba was weakening.
For Los Angeles music fans, the Conga Room offered the chance to see world-class acts in an intimate setting for 350 people. What the public didn’t know is that club managers booked some of those big names knowing they’d lose money for the night.
It was all a strategy to build the club’s reputation, says Gluckstein, as long as “there were political, civic or advertorial consequences that would benefit the brand.”
Sure enough, the Conga Room became the place Latino civic and political leaders celebrated birthdays, held fundraisers, and partied during the Democratic Convention and after Latin Grammy shows.
The club is actually a cluster of separate rooms, plus La Boca Restaurant on the first floor. As guests climb a flight of steps, a framed picture of the club’s celebrity investors looks down on them from overhead. The first room at the top, behind a barrier of artificial flowers, is the Conga Lounge, a small space with conga drums painted on the wall. To the right is a large open area with a bright red bar in front of the Toro Lounge, a disco that features club music.
At top of the stairs to the left is the main room for live music, with a simple stage at one end, a bar at the other and a dance floor in between. Through its ups and downs, the club has managed to hold onto its core fan base, the salsa aficionados. They sometimes put on more of a show than the featured bands. On one recent Saturday, Asians, Anglos, African Americans and Latinos shared the floor with equal ease despite vast disparities in expertise, from awkward but happy beginners to showoffs doing death-defying dips and flips as if rehearsing for the salsa Olympics.
The one thing they had in common: big smiles.
“We wanted to make a place that was classy but not snooty, not foreboding” said Rodriguez, the comedian whose initial investment was $25,000. “It had a good vibe, man.”
Not everyone agrees.
Some patrons and performers say the club developed a snobbish attitude to match its celebrity pretensions, enforced by heavy-handed bouncers. Some say a nightlife elitism is reflected in the very layout of the club’s main ballroom. VIPs are ensconced in two elevated areas, and frequent guests there included Laker owner Jerry Buss, usually accompanied by a bevy of young women, and former NFL football player Karim Abdul-Jabbar, who dated a Conga Room hostess.
For hoi polloi, it’s standing room only. . The lack of seating creates traffic jams on the main floor as ushers brusquely shoo non-VIPs through a single narrow walkway, forcing many to crowd near the rear between the bar and the dance floor.
“I never liked the vibe in that place,” says salsa superstar Ruben Blades, who owns a home in nearby Hancock Park. “It didn’t feel like a Latin club at all.”
The Conga Room’s proposed new location is at L.A. Live, the massive complex planned for downtown that also features a high-rise hotel, a concert theater and a multiplex cinema. The club will double its current capacity of 600, and will also feature a broadcast booth for live radio and TV shows.
The new location offers advantages missing on the Miracle Mile, explains Gluckstein. It will attract pedestrian traffic, tourists and sports fans.
Whether it can restore its success remains to be seen.
Recent years have seen a sharp decline in the popularity of salsa, which was the club’s bread-and-butter and the inspiration for its tropical decor, symbolized by the giant conga framed in neon above its marquee. When salsa faltered, the club scrambled to expand its appeal with rock en Espanol, Brazilian, hip-hop and other styles that brought in a whole different crowd.
The Conga Room’s reputation took a blow in 2002 when a Compton gang member was shot to death during a night of hip-hop music.
Although it remains the only serious violent incident in the club’s history, the killing marked the beginning of the end.
But other factors had already set the stage for the club’s demise.
Business suffered following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which caused the cancellation of the Latin Grammy telecast scheduled that same day. The Conga Room later got a boost when it was chosen to host a belated awards ceremony, but the damage was done.
“After 9/11, we flat-lined,” says Gluckstein.
“I realized several years ago that we had to diversify to truly be, for lack of a better word, the House of Blues for Latin music,” he added.
The club has managed to live up to that billing, despite its ups and downs.
It has drawn top names in Spanish rock (Julieta Venegas), world music (Salif Keita) and Latin American folk (Lila Downs) while still presenting extraordinary Afro-Cuban and salsa artists (Eddie Palmieri, Bebo Valdes & Diego El Cigala).
For at least the last two years, the club has survived by renting itself out to other promoters or private parties.
But its final lineup this month will harken back to the days when it pioneered its own programming with top-quality Latin music, featuring acts such as Brazil’s Bebel Gilberto, Peru’s Susana Baca and Los Angeles’ Los Lobos.
Martin Fleischmann, a concert promoter who ran the club in its early years, is not mourning the end.
“It feels natural,” he said, as Ricardo Lemvo and his salsa band Makina Loca performed recently for one last night, “like it had a life span and now needs a metamorphosis because it achieved what it set out to do.”
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Counting down
Following are highlights of the final performances at the Conga Room, which is closing after May 31. For the full calendar, go to www.congaroom.com.
Thursday: Latin psychedelic-alt rock group Aterciopelados
May 11-12: Brazilian songstress Bebel Gilberto
May 19: Grammy award-winning Latin jazz artist Poncho Sanchez
May 23: Afro-Peruvian singer Susana Baca
May 25: East L.A.’s Los Lobos
May 26: Salsa and Latin rock with Pete Escovedo Orchestra and special guest Sheila E.
May 28: Comedy with host Cheech Marin
May 31: Conga Room All-Stars jam session with members of L.A. Latin bands