Is there any musical genre that Ozomatli, the multi-cultural band from Los Angeles, can't do? Is there any instrument they can’t play on stage? Those who have seen them certainly know the answers to these questions,… Ozomatli isn’t the LA ambassador for nothing! Hey, April 23 has even been designated as ‘Ozomatli Day’ by the city two years ago, and this says everything.
But I realized I hadn’t seen the band for a long time. When they released their self-titled album back in 1998, they were about everywhere, in Drew Barrymore’s movies included, then after ‘Embrace the Chaos’ in 2001 then ‘Street Signs’ in 2004, I had lost their trace for some reasons… I know they were touring like crazy all over the planet, and were even invited by the U.S. State Department to serve as official Cultural Ambassadors to Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East! There isn’t another band which hasn’t served more humanitarian/political projects than these guys! From offering musical workshops in a Palestinian refugee camp, to organizing a giant music rally in Nepal, to promoting the value of music education in Chinese orphanages, just to name a few of their accomplishments, they have done it all!
This is why they were the perfect band to play at this ‘Earth We’ project, a pre-inaugural event entitled ‘A Green Term Mr. President', hosted by Vibiana downtown Los Angeles, the old cathedral turned eco-party for the night. Before the show, a lot of speakers talked, encouraging us to take action and tweet in unison a message to Obama in order to raise issues of climate changes, limit pollution from power plants, reject fracking, the keystone pipeline and its dirty oil business! Whatever Washington will decide, we have tried to make us heard!
Obviously, beside the speakers and the painters in the courtyard, Ozomatli was the main attraction of the night, drawing a diverse crowd, largely made of Latina…and you can always count on Ozomatli to put a party on. They are a large band, seven on stage, their line-up may have changed over the years, but the core group hasn’t much in 15 years! Many of them are multi-instrumentalists, and there isn’t a real frontman in the group although Raúl Pacheco, on vocals and guitar, could serve as one. But, live, they are also a fluid mosaic, everybody moves around constantly, picks a different instrument and the ensemble is a joyous band, visibly and genuinely happy to play the music.
Not one song could have predicted the style of the next one, the set was an endless fusions of salsa, reggae, and Southern soul R&B, a brew of energizing hip-hop interrupting cumbia, funky rhythm jumping in the middle of bluesy grooves. The whole thing may sometimes have sounded too much like a relentless mash-up of genres, but they did it with such ease and joy, no one had the idea to complain. I just would have to complain a little about the way they sounded in the cathedral since the resonating place was not the best way to enjoy their loud horns, Asdru Sierra’s fierce trumpet, Ulises Bella’s wild and soulful Saxophone, Wil-Dog’s funky bass lines and Justin Porée’s rap delivery… without mentioning their omnipresent kick-ass percussion and drum section assured by Jiro Yamaguchi, Mario Calire and multi-tasking Justin Porée.
They played a long set of songs, mixing compositions off four of their five albums, and even new songs, such as the very R&B and sax-charged ‘Paleta’. With their savant medley of ethnic music, from the indigenous chants of Ya viene el sol’ interpreted by Asdru’s high-pitched croon, the bluesy funkiness of ‘Elysian Persuasion’, the reggae-island riffs of ‘Brighter’, the whipping rhythmic salsa of ‘Tus Ojos’, the long jam during ‘Cumbia de los Muertos’ and the exuberance of the horns, they removed any sense from the expression ‘world music’,… does this still mean anything anymore these days? They ended the set with the ready-for-a-soccer-anthem ‘Como Ves’, a signature song of the band, coming from their debut album,… and we were back 14 years ago!
Setlist
La Gallina
Chango video
Saturday Night
Paleta
Elysian Persuasion
Ya viene el sol
Brighter
Nadas Por Free
Tus Ojos
Cumbia de los Muertos
After Party
La Temperatura
Como Ves
