Latin Jazz

It's taken three years for the Smithsonian's traveling exhibition on Latin jazz to get to L.A., leisurely winding through Washington, New York, Denver and even Kalamazoo, Mich., on its way West. Historically, that's much the same route taken by this eclectic strain of music, cultivated by migrations of musicians in the U.S. melting pots of New York and New Orleans during the first half of the last century.

At the end of the "Latin Jazz Explosion" on Tuesday at the Hollywood Bowl, Tito Puente achieved what had seemed impossible during the previous 2 1/2 hours: breaking the ice and making the crowd dance in the aisles. It was a near-capacity crowd that had chatted, picnicked, laughed and held family discussions while Eddie Palmieri, Ruben Blades and Tito Puente offered a sample of some of the most important Latin music of the second half of the century.

Editor's note: The documentary "Calle 54," which reopened Friday in Los Angeles (it had a one-week Academy run late last year), is Spanish director Fernando Trueba's love letter to Latin jazz. Here Trueba writes about his longtime relationship with the music and the musical greats who play it. I think that the only reason why I make films is because I am not able to write novels, paint or make music. By making films, one has the feeling of doing a little bit of all of that.

Like most employees caught in a change of management, longtime DJ José Rizo worried about his future when a new boss took over earlier this year at L.A.'s only full-time jazz station, KJZZ-FM (88.1). What would it mean for his 17-year run as host of "Jazz on the Latin Side," a weekly show spotlighting the best in Latin jazz from across the world? Rizo, 50, worried that his program might lose its prime Friday night slot. Then he took a call from the station's new general manager, Saul Levine.

Percussionist Bobby Matos, who will lead his 10-piece Heritage Ensemble at the Long Beach Museum of Art tonight, sees more than a resurgence in Latin jazz. He sees a revolution. A native New Yorker who learned his craft as a youngster, following revered conga player Patato Valdez from gig to gig around the city, he thinks "the whole Afro-Cuban scene is exploding. It's a whole movement that people are becoming aware of" in the wake of the film "The Mambo Kings."

Latin jazz is generally focused on the Caribbean in general and Cuba in particular. But as a general category, it is far more inclusive. The gifted Colombian saxophonist Justo Almario is correct when he insists that the scope be widened to include the many transformative aspects of the art emerging from Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Spain and Portugal. This month, two jazz singers from opposite coasts of South America -- Luciana Souza and Claudia Acuna -- are releasing new albums.

The scene is Havana, 1977. A cruise ship docks and is met by a surprisingly large, effusive crowd. As a familiar-looking figure with a small chin goatee and horn-rimmed glasses disembarks, the crowd cheers. Dizzy Gillespie looks up, surprised, and smiles his patented grin. The ship, a jazz cruise that includes a number of other well-known players, is making a non-performing stop on its Caribbean itinerary.

When the Recording Academy consolidated last year's Grammy nominations by eliminating 31 categories in R&B, American roots music, classical, Latin, jazz, country, pop and rock fields, the changes felt out of key for some musicians. There were grumblings, protests, petitions and a group of Latin jazz artists even filed a class action lawsuit to contest the restructuring, which brought the total number of categories down to 78 from 109. This year, the Recording Academy has added three new categories to previously scaled back fields with the addition of awards for classical compendium, Latin jazz album and urban contemporary album.

Composer and pianist Lalo Schifrin is best known as a movie composer, for obvious reasons. Schifrin has written more than 100 scores for film and television, including the memorable "Mission: Impossible" TV series in the '60s and, more recently, the Jackie Chan blockbuster "Rush Hour."

Graciela Perez Grillo, an Afro-Cuban music pioneer who was known as the First Lady of Latin Jazz, has died. She was 94. Graciela, as she was known professionally, died April 6 of natural causes at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, where she had been hospitalized for some time, according to her representative, Richie Viera. "She was almost the last of those great musicians who came here from Cuba in the 1940s and early 1950s," WSKQ-FM (97.9) radio host Polito Vega told the New York Daily News.