Still, \o7timba\f7 fans will miss the more progressive sound of Delgado's Cuban recordings. The singer admits making some concessions -- letting George select most of the songs, softening those driving Cuban bass lines and slowing down the tempo for more conservative stateside salsa tastes.
But he promises he won't hold back on stage.
"Besides, I'm never going to lose the essence of who I am," he says. "Everything around me might sound Puerto Rican, but I am Cuban, and nobody can take the Cubano out of me."
Interestingly, Delgado will share the Hollywood Bowl stage this weekend with Arturo Sandoval, the former trumpeter with Irakere who caused waves when he defected from Cuba to the U.S. a generation ago. (Artists such as Sandoval and Paquito D'Rivera, also formerly of Irakere, have found more acceptance in U.S. jazz circles than have exiles working the salsa dance scene.) Sandoval and Delgado will showcase different Afro-Cuban styles, pre- and post-Castro: The former with a big-band tribute to 1950s mambo and the latter with a taste of 1990s \o7timba\f7, a style, ironically, foreshadowed by Irakere's earlier experimentations.
"Being here doesn't give me any greater control over things, such as whether I can get the radio to play my songs or not," the singer says. "The only thing I can control is myself and my willingness to work and expose my music a little more to the public, which will have the last word. That's the biggest censor an artist can have -- the public that listens to your music."
\o7Issac Delgado and his band perform at the 29th Annual Playboy Jazz Festival, today at 2:30 p.m., Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. $17.50 to $130. (323) 850-2000 , or for full lineups go to www.hollywoodbowl.com.
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Relationships and addictions, linked
If you're not in the mood today for loud Latin jazz at the Hollywood Bowl, you can head to the Ford Amphitheatre for an afternoon of poetry and introspection. Former gang member and award-winning author Luis J. Rodriguez will be performing "Notes of a Bald Cricket," described as a stream-of-consciousness poem exploring past relationships and addictions, which sometimes are the same thing. The piece is directed by Ruben "Funkahuatl" Guevara with a soundtrack of R&B oldies.
