HiFF ’16: Cold Nights Hot Salsa

Don’t tell the Quebecois language police, but you might be able to hear a little Spanish in Montreal salsa clubs. It turns out there is quite a burgeoning salsa scene in the French Canadian city. Victor Contreras and Katia Morales are two of Montreal’s most talented salsa dancers, who have a serious enough chance at the World Salsa Championship to attract a documentarian’s attention. Edwin Gailits follows the partners (on and off the dance floor) as they train and compete in Cold Nights Hot Salsa (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Harlem International Film Festival.

It is easy to see why Gailits thought Morales and Contreras were such an appealing couple. They represent both the new and old conceptions of salsa. Once considered a smoldering couple’s dance perfect for encouraging close contact, it has become style that showcases physical virtuosity. They became a couple through dance and they are good enough to compete on an international level.

It seems like salsa has more competing titles than the sport of boxing, so Contreras and Morales will have several chances to stake a championship claim. As they start to place higher, they try to pick up a few steps from salsa’s royalty: elite champions-turned judges Billy Fajardo & Katie Marlow and the Mambo King godfather of salsa, Eddie Torres.

There is some spectacularly cinematic dancing and a good deal of correspondingly hot music (including a Bobby Sanabria selection) in Cold Nights, but none of it is played live. However, Gailits was arguably a year or two too early. In subsequent tournaments, Morales and Contreras would go on a championship run, but they were still underdogs while Gailits crew was around. They would also miss a lot of off-stage financial drama involving championship impresario Albert Torres’ former organization.

Still, it is rather fascinating to see salsa start to establish itself as a global competitive pursuit. Montreal is still not Miami, but it seems to be well represented at each competition. It is a nice film, but a shorty by feature standards, barely stretching seconds over an hour in total running time. Still, fans of salsa and those who appreciate the music and culture that spawned it should enjoy this intimate account of potential champions finding their voice (in terms of choreography) when it screens this Friday (9/16) at MIST, as part of the 2016 Harlem International Film Festival.

Sex, Love & Salsa: What’s It All About, Julian?

Evidently, Julian Suarez is a Salsa dancer who never saw Michael Caine in Alfie.  If he had, he might have been forewarned players like himself always realize just a little too late when it is time to settle down.  At least he has respectable taste in music from what we can tell from Adrian Manzano’s Sex, Love & Salsa (a.k.a. BQE, trailer here), which opens tonight in Brooklyn.

Suarez thinks he is so good at putting on the moves he actually gives classes to other aspiring pick-up artists.  He also fancies himself a future reality TV-documentary franchise, so he and his cronies compulsively film their Casanova antics.  He will have his work cut out for him trying to thaw Maria, a professionally trained Salsa dancer who recognizes a player when she sees one.  On the other side of the spectrum, he is a little too successful seducing the very young and very inexperienced Genny (practically from the block). Ingrid, his somewhat older friend-with-benefits might be a better fit, but all her talk about suddenly wanting a baby has him kind of spooked.

As a director, Manzano relies too heavily on hand-held cameras and as-seen-through-the-omnipresent-video-camera perspectives.  However, he stages a very stylish formal dance number down the stretch. As a screenwriter, he created one intriguing female character in Ingrid, and gives Maria a few interesting moments, but poor Genny badly illustrates the principle of diminishing returns.  As his lead actor, I’ll leave it the women of New York to judge how convincing Manzano is as an irresistible lades man.  Anyone, anyone?  Bueller, Bueller?

Regardless, Manzano gives viewers a nice slice of New York nightlife, showcasing a number of talented Salsa bands and dancers.  Shot on location in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens (wherever that is), SLS has a vivid sense of place, often feeling like a tour of neighborhood Salsa clubs, which is cool.  Maleche Stewart’s black-and-white-with-flashes-of-color cinematography is also quite visually appealing.  It sounds kind of harsh, but SLS would probably be a better movie if there was less story and more dancing.

Still, Susan Quinn gives a rich, multifaceted performance as the tough but vulnerable Ingrid.  Likewise, Gabrielle Ruiz lends the film a genuinely seductive screen presence and some nice Salsa chops as the less than impressed Maria.  Marisol Carrere and Jorge Hoyos also do some nice work as Suarez’s mother and father, rescuing an overwritten family breakfast scene.  The rest of the ensemble is a little spotty.

Manzano earns credit for not indulging in cheap pay-offs, but viewers will still have a pretty good idea where it is all heading.  There are a lot of talented musicians gigging in New York Salsa bands, including moonlighting jazz players, so if SLS is good for business than that’s great.  Unfortunately, the awkward drama does not always well serve the hot Salsa vibe.  Mostly for diehard Salsa fans and chauvinistic Brooklynites, Sex, Love & Salsa opens tonight (11/14) at indieScreen in the County of Kings, with Salsa dancing to follow each nightly screening.

Salsa Cinema: Big Shot-Caller

While deeply rooted in the cultural environment of 1970’s El Barrio, salsa music has developed a truly international appeal. It also has a passionate rhythmic drive perfect for dancing that directly appeals to the awkward protagonist of Marlene Rhein’s salsa-flavored indie drama, The Big Shot Caller (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

For protagonist Jaime Lessor, salsa simply represents freedom, passion, and a brief respite from being an uptight white guy. However, his unfortunate eye condition (Nystagmus) leads him to bury his dancing ambitions, instead immersing himself in wage-slave drudgery. Lessor’s family ties are also severely frayed. He rarely visits a father who only cares about his next poker game, and he is doggedly avoiding his estranged sister Lianne, who ran away from home fifteen years ago.

Initially, Lessor only agrees to see Lianne to get advice about a rare romantic prospect, Elissa, an Upper Manhattan party girl. It is pretty clear Lessor and Elissa are not going to work, but she is a woman giving him attention, so he falls hard. When the inevitable happens, it sends him into a personal tailspin. Depressed and suddenly unemployed, he turns to the only one who will take him in: his wayward hipster sister. At first, the ungrateful loser is miserable to be around, but slowly he and Lianne re-establish their relationship.

At its heart, Caller is a sibling story more than anything else. Music does play a significant role, but it never eclipses the personal drama. The big dance comes and goes, but life goes on. Salsa fans might be a bit disappointed the music is not more prominent in the film, but they will enjoy hearing up-and-coming salsa band La Excelencia perform two tunes.

Jaime and Lianne Lessor are played by real-life brother-and-sister David Rhein and writer-director Marlene Rhein. They are indeed convincing in the roles, as one would expect. Marlene Rhein, a former music video director who worked with the likes of 2Pac Shakur and Amy Winehouse, helms with considerable sensitivity and uses New York locations to excellent effect. As a screenwriter, she steers clear of easy sentiment and delivers some of the film’s best lines as the sarcastic but vulnerable Lianne.

At times Caller is painfully believable—life can be that way. It is strong feature debut for the Rheins, nicely enhanced by the salsa flavor and New York attitude. A favorite at last year’s New York Latino and ACE Film Festivals, Caller starts its regular theatrical run Friday(5/15) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

Sounding Salsa

Sounding Salsa: Performing Latin Music in New York City
By Christopher Washburne
Temple University Press

Although AMG categorizes Christopher Washburne as a jazz musician and he is known for leading the Latin jazz band Syotos, the trombonist and Columbia University academic has worked as a sideman in New York salsa bands for many years. As a result, Washburne has a unique part-insider, part-outsider vantage point on the music, which informs his new scholarly analysis of the music, Sounding Salsa.

In truth, Sounding has elements of two separate books for very different audiences. Much of Washburne’s sociological analysis of Salsa is preoccupied with issues of racial authenticity and exclusion. Most familiar with the Fania glory days will probably have some idea of how salsa expresses Hispanic empowerment in general, and Puerto Rican pride in particular. Washburne dedicates much of his time to such discussions, which quickly become repetitive.

However, Washburne deserves credit for his unvarnished description of the business practices and working conditions salsa musicians face. For instance, most jazz and classical musicians in New York are eligible to join Local 802 of the musicians’ union, but for some reason salseros are excluded. Washburne includes a transcript of a phone conversation with a union rep threatening to picket an avant-garde classical session he was to perform on. Washburne countered that they should have been picketing at his last non-union studio session instead, eliciting the following exchange:

“UNION REP: Who was the producer and what label was it for?
CW: Ralph Mercado, RMM and Sony Records. Isn’t Sony a union signatory company?
UNION REP: Oh, well then. Sony does have a recording contract with us, but . . . ah . . . Ralph Mercado is insulated. [ellipsis in Washburne]
CW: Insulated. What is that supposed to mean?
UNION REP: He’s insulated. I’m not personally aware of the details of our relationship with him.” (p. 99)

While links between salsa labels and the Columbian drug trade might be well known among musicians, I have not read it in print before. Sounding might even be newsworthy when Washburne describes business associations between Fania Records founder Larry Masucci, RMM label head Ralph Mercado, and Columbian drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). Washburne writes:

“Both men established relationships with DTOs in order to arrange these and subsequent tours [of Columbia]. Moreover, this symbiotic relationship between the salsa business and DTOs was not confined within Columbia’s borders, but extended well beyond into U.S. cities. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980, numerous salsa venues opened in New York City that served as money laundering fronts.” (p. 138)

Washburne is most revealing when writing about his personal experiences as an eye-witness to violence when playing with salsa bands. He opens the book with a particularly dramatic story of a rehearsal interrupted by a would-be hitman and relates several other such stories, leading him to reflect: “The ease with which I adopted an attitude of ‘We might as well play, get paid, and go home’ was unsettling.” (p. 117)

Clearly, Washburne loves the music and respects his fellow musicians, so he would be uncomfortable writing a book that might be uncharitably described as an expose. However, revealing secret union deals and dangerous working conditions should benefit the musicians, who find themselves in the literal line of fire, yet do not receive the proper residuals for their studio work. After reading Sounding I would very much like to see Washburne write a book for wider audiences that explores these issues in more depth. The book he has written is somewhat uneven, but at times extremely eye-opening.

ACE Film Fest: The Big Shot Caller

While deeply rooted in the cultural environment of 1970’s El Barrio, salsa music has used evolving strategies to appeal to an emerging transnational market. That will be the stuff of an upcoming review of Christopher Washburne’s Sounding Salsa, but it is largely superfluous to Marlene Rhein’s salsa-flavored indy drama, The Big Shot Caller (trailer here), which concluded this year’s ACE Film Fest.

For protagonist Jaime Lessor, salsa simply represents freedom, passion, and a brief respite from being an uptight white guy. However, uncharitable reactions to an unfortunate eye condition (Nystagmus) caused him to bury his dancing ambitions, instead immersing himself in wage-slave drudgery. His family support system is nearly non-existent. He rarely visits a father who only cares about his next poker game, and he is avoiding his estranged sister Lianne, who ran away from home fifteen years ago.

At first, Lessor only agrees to see Lianne to get advice about a rare romantic prospect, Elissa, an Upper Manhattan party girl. It is pretty clear Lessor and Elissa are not going to work, but she is a woman giving him attention, so he falls hard. When the inevitable happens, it sends him into a personal tailspin. Depressed and unemployed, he turns to the only one who will take him in: his sister.

At its heart, Caller is a sibling story more than anything else. Music does play a significant role in the story, but it never eclipses the personal drama. The big dance comes and goes, but life goes on. Salsa fans might be a bit disappointed the music is not more prominent in the film, but they will enjoy hearing up-and-coming salsa band La Excelencia perform two tunes.

Jaime and Lianne Lessor are played by real-life brother-and-sister David and writer-director Marlene Rhein. They are indeed convincing in the roles, as one would expect. Marlene Rhein, a former music video director who worked with the likes of 2Pac Shakur and Amy Winehouse, helms with considerable sensitivity and uses New York locations to good effect. As a screenwriter, she steers clear of easy sentiment and delivers some of the film’s best lines as Lianne.

At times Caller is painfully believable to watch. Life can be that way. It is strong feature debut for the Rheins that deserves to find an audience as it plays the festival circuit.