Viva la Difference
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You’d think this would bode well for the 11th annual Viva! Chicago Latin Music Festival, which takes place next weekend in Grant Park: by all indications it should be the most diverse and exciting edition yet. But with the exception of Malo, a veteran Los Angeles rock band featuring Carlos Santana’s brother Jorge, all 14 acts performing on the Petrillo Music Shell stage are from either Mexico or Puerto Rico. And while Puerto Rican salsa singers Brenda K. Starr and Tito Nieves have the talent to warrant their popularity, and legendary Mexican vocal trio Los Panchos and prolific balladeer Armando Manzanero hold some historical interest, overall the lineup’s depressingly bland. Nearly everything attendees will hear at the two-day event will be salsa, merengue, cumbia, regional Mexican music, or pop. Cumbia’s roots are Colombian, merengue’s are Dominican, and salsa’s are Cuban, but there are no offerings from those countries, or from Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Panama, Belize, or Ecuador–all of which have distinct and vibrant musical traditions.
Flores–who’s outspokenly criticized Viva! Chicago before–says the committee he was on was convened under Eugene Sawyer, but never asked back under Daley, who came into office in the spring of ’89. Munoz, who previously worked as a sales rep and liaison to the Latino community for 7UP, told me he consults local Latino radio and TV stations in his programming decisions; his city bio says the selection process is designed to “best represent the diversity of Chicago” and is “based on Billboard Magazine, CD sales, radio-play (or air-time), name recognition, and cost-effectiveness.”
Munoz also cites the festival’s $100,000 talent budget as a limiting factor in general, but while he’s correct that some groups–like Mana, who can sell out the Rosemont Horizon–are out of his reach, there are plenty of fascinating rock bands with broad appeal that are not, including Bloque and Cafe Tacuba, Aterciopelados, Los Amigos Invisibles, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Bersuit, Los de Abajo, and El Gran Silencio. Many of these groups are in the U.S. right now as part of the Watcha tour, a new rock-en-español version of the popular Warped tour. On Thursday two of them, Control Machete and Illya Kuryaki, were to perform at Orbit, a restaurant and lounge in Logan Square, suggesting that they or other bands might have been willing to take a Viva! Chicago detour.
