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<\/p>\nWhile the Santa Cruz Latin Collective came together in 2017, its roots extend back to the early 1970s. The Bay Area has a proud history of Latin and Afro-Cuban music, and that music initially broke through in a big way thanks to a scene featuring four local bands: Sapo, Malo, Azteca and Santana. Sapo and Malo scored local, regional and sometimes national hits with their music, but by the late \u201870s their popularity had crested. Oscar Estrella had been a founding member of Sapo, and after that group broke up, he wrote \u201cNobody\u2019s Perfect,\u201d a song included on the debut album from ex-Malo guitarist (and brother of Carlos) Jorge Santana.<\/p>\n
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In the years and decades that followed, Estrella kept in contact and sometimes made music with other former members of those groundbreaking Latin rock bands. And in 2017 he met a youthful fellow musician and serious fan of that \u201870s scene, Jimmy Palafox. \u201cWhen I got out of high school,\u201d recalls percussionist Palafox, \u201cI wanted to put a Latin music project together.\u201d His goal was to create a group that would pick up musically from where Santana had left off after their first three groundbreaking albums. He and Estrella began working together, initially as a studio project. \u201cAnd then 2020 hit,\u201d Palafox recalls. \u201cWe never got around to performing those songs live.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the duo continued to write songs. \u201cThat\u2019s all we had to do during that time,\u201d Palafox says with a laugh. \u201cWe wrote 12 or 13 songs.\u201d Once the worst of the pandemic passed, they began assembling a group, adding bassist Noah Mogor (who\u2019s also in Floratura), Flat Sun Society percussionist Tubbyz, former Malo drummer David George, vocalist Luis Felipe Argueta from Orquesta Latin Heat and other members of the Latin music community. \u201cThe band ended up being half young musicians and half music veterans from back in the day,\u201d Palafox says. A schedule of live performances began in 2021. \u201cWe\u2019ve already played about 60 shows,\u201d Palafox says.<\/p>\n
In addition to playing concert dates, the group has begun work on an album. \u201cWe\u2019ve also started making a documentary film,\u201d says Palafox. \u201cWe\u2019re going to feature members of Santana, Malo, Sapo and Azteca talking about their histories and how all that is merging with Santa Cruz Latin Collective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palafox says that he and his band mates aren\u2019t in it for the money. \u201cThe documentary is going to go on YouTube for everyone to see for free,\u201d he says. \u201cSame thing for the album, which will probably come out next year.\u201d He emphasizes that Santa Cruz Latin Collective\u2019s goal is all about \u201creinventing the music in our own way, and keeping Latin rock music alive.\u201d He says that with its emphasis on percussion, the group blends the blues with Afro-Cuban traditions. \u201cIt\u2019s music to get people up and dancing,\u201d Palafox enthuses. \u201cThis thing with veterans and younger people getting together to make music, it\u2019s not a regular occurrence. It\u2019s special.\u201d facebook.com\/SCLatinCollective<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While the Santa Cruz Latin Collective came together in 2017, its roots extend back to the early 1970s. The Bay Area has a proud history of Latin and Afro-Cuban music, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,62],"tags":[5390,5394],"class_list":["post-27293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indie","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-santa-cruz","tag-santa-cruz-latin-collective","cat-39-id","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27295,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27293\/revisions\/27295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}