‘King of Latin jazz’ returns to Union Theater

Poncho Sanchez, the “king of Latin music,” returns to the Wisconsin Union Theater on Saturday, Feb 8, at 8 p.m., and ticket holders will be able to continue dancing after all the encores are over.

Poncho Sanchez’s performance in the theater four years ago has become legendary. As lore has it, the band played to a full house and the audience responded enthusiastically – but stayed in their seats. After the intermission, Sanchez, a big, lively conguero who plays with great joy, asked the crowd to stand up. They did. “Now dance,” he said – and they did, until the end of the evening. “The show was a knockout,” says Michael Goldberg, the theater’s director, “and when it was over, the crowd cheered and the band played on … and on.”

Those who attend this year’s performance may keep the ticket stub for free admission to a dance party with the Tony Castaneda Latin Jazz Quartet, first place winner in the 2001 and 2002 Isthmus readers poll “best local jazz band” category. The party will start immediately after the performance and will last until 1:30 am.

When Sanchez was featured on the cover of the November 2001 issue of Jazz Times, the publication called him “the new king of Latin jazz.” The Chicago Tribune recently asked, “Why is Poncho Sanchez’s Latin Jazz Ensemble the best band of its kind in America?” Sanchez, says the Tribune, is one of the most lyrical of Latin American percussionists, finding melody and line where others do not.

“Sanchez is to Latin jazz what Count Basie was to blues-based swing: a musician who knows how to find precisely the right pace, tone, and attitude for each composition,” the Tribune says. The band is like “a magnificent Swiss watch ticking on a Latin beat.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer agrees: “Poncho Sanchez and his seven-member ensemble were fire, but they were also finesse and sophistication.”

Grammy-winner Sanchez grew up in Norwalk, southern California, among Mexican-Americans who were creating “a new bilingual-bicultural heritage that fused elements of their traditional Mexican roots with American popular culture,” notes Jazztimes.com. As the youngest of 11 children, Sanchez recalls hearing his sisters dancing to the sounds of Machito, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader and Cuban bands, while his brothers were listening to doo-wop and early rhythm and blues. Mambo and cha-cha were also in the air. In sixth grade, Sanchez bought a guitar and became a vocalist in a band. He later taught himself to play flute and percussion and, at age 18, started focusing on the conga.

In 1975, working in an aluminum foundry for a living and playing in the evenings and weekends, Sanchez had an opportunity to play with his idol, vibraphonist Cal Tjader. That chance collaboration led to seven years with Tjader’s band, which ended only with the latter’s death. In 1980, Sanchez formed his own band – and the rest is history.

“Latin jazz is American music,” says Sanchez, who now has 21 albums, several awards and innumerable performances to his name. “[It] was born in the United States with Dizzie Gillespie and Chano Pozo in the 1940s. If you were born in the USA, that’s your music.”

The show is sponsored by the Wisconsin Union Directorate, with additional support from WORT, 89.9 FM. Tickets: $30, public, $29, Union members; $14.50, UW–Madison students. Information: (608) 262-2201.