Of all places, it was in the “home of the blues” and “the birthplace of rock ’n’ roll” where a teenage transplant from Puerto Rico discovered that she was born to sing salsa.
“A couple of years after I moved to Memphis,” Melina Almodóvar says, “I had been experimenting with different rock and blues bands. And this group of musicians wanted to do a salsa band there. I always knew of salsa, but I never actually tried to perform it. And I found out that I could sing it. I really enjoyed it, and it moved my soul. I said, oh my gosh, this is my life.”
Some three decades later, Almodóvar is known as “La Muñeca de la Salsa” (“The Doll of Salsa”), a dynamic vocalist and songwriter with hits on the tropical music charts and a producer of both the Hollywood and Miami Beach Salsa Fests. And on September 27, she will be one of three headliners at the Hispanic Heritage Festival in Pembroke Pines.
“When I hear that conga and the timbales, when I feel that force behind a salsa band — you know, when you love something and it just kind of loves you back — it just makes me feel like that’s where I’m supposed to be,” Almodóvar says.
Held at the Charles F. Dodge City Center during Hispanic Heritage Month, the Pines festival also features percussionist Phil Cachi Velez and his Cachi y Saoco Nuevo Band, and Frankie Ruiz Jr., “El Hijo de la Salsa” (“Son of the Salsa”). Roaming flamenco dancers and mariachi musicians are among other musical highlights. For the kids, there is a “Meet and Greet” with characters from Encanto. Among diversions for parents and grandparents are a “Hispanic Man Cave” set with domino tables and a live cigar roller; “La Cocina de Mamá” interactive kitchen space; and “El Mercado,” a market of traditional Hispanic cultural items from various countries.
On the main stage, Almodóvar and her 12-piece orchestra will perform her original music, accompanied by dancers dressed in colorful salsa outfits.
“It’s going to be a tropical explosion of different styles of salsa,” Almodóvar says, adding that her show will include a medley tribute to Celia Cruz, the legendary late “Queen of Salsa.”
“She’s my North Star, not only because of the talent that she had, but also the type of person she was.”
Almodóvar’s appearance here is sandwiched between her performance as the sole female artist at the National Salsa Day festival in Orlando and her Miami Beach Salsa Fest on Octobr. 5. Melina Almodóvar Live From Hollywood Salsa Fest, recorded in July at the ArtsPark at Young Circle, is available on all music streaming platforms. The video of the show has amassed over 200,000 views on YouTube.
“I love playing at festivals,” says the singer, who moved to Pembroke Pines from South Beach 10 years ago. “I also like theaters. It’s very nice and comfortable, and not hot — because these festivals are really hot. But the festivals have a very important cultural component, which is the food, the atmosphere — people bring their flags, their kids, their family members. And that’s really what I love, that component of bringing the community together.”
But, Almodóvar says, it’s the music itself that cultivates perhaps a deeper connection.
“It really connects to your roots, your homeland. It brings people back to where they grew up. Maybe a younger person would be connected to this music through their grandparents or their parents. For all these Latin countries — Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Peru, Chile — salsa is very interwoven in all of our cultures. It brings everybody together.”
It’s that quality of the music that Almodóvar says gives it its name.
“Salsa is exactly what it is. It’s a salsa — you know, a salsa that you make with different elements. It’s like a mixture of all of our cultures. You can sit there and listen — ‘Oh, that kind of sounds like my music.’ It’s una salsa.”
The genre grew out of Puerto Rican and Cuban influences in New York in the ’60s and ’70s, she adds.
“Before that, it was just different rhythms. What we’re trying to do is keep this type of music alive so that other generations can experience it and be connected to it. Because really, if we don’t, nobody’s gonna, you know?
“It could die to reggaeton or whatever. And we don’t want that.”
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Percussionist Phil Cachi Velez has a bit of a different take on reggaeton. He sees the more contemporary melange of styles popularized by Puerto Rican musicians as a catalyst for salsa to grow its fan base. Velez, the leader of Cachi y Saoco Nuevo Band, points specifically to reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny and his recent album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, which celebrates Puerto Rican culture and has roused a surge of interest in salsa as well as the style of dancing that goes with it.
“The fact that Bad Bunny put out an album and it’s salsa, that’s huge,” says Velez, originally a New York musician who relocated to Pembroke Pines 15 years ago. “It introduces salsa to a younger generation, which now potentially opens the door for artists like myself to engage a new audience.”
“I think reggaeton has definitely evolved,” says Velez, who produced a couple of early reggaeton albums. “Back then, it was more electronic dance. It has gotten to a place where reggaetoneros like Bad Bunny or Karol G have tried to adapt and adopt that live instrumentation and added salsa rhythms. And I’m all for it.”
Velez’s own introduction to salsa came early at the hands of his father, Phil “Pipo” Velez, a percussionist who played with his son’s godfather, Ismael Miranda, a member of the legendary salsa group, Fania All-Stars.
“My dad used to sit me and my brothers down and say, ‘OK, you need to learn this rhythm. You need to play this rhythm.’ And we would alternate percussion instruments — bongos, congas, timbales. I was young — 6, 7 years old at the time — and it hurt my hands. As I got older, I wanted to be outside playing with my friends or watching cartoons, something other than playing percussion, right?”
When he was 17 years old, Velez put the percussion aside and studied audio engineering/sound recording — until he felt himself mysteriously drawn back to the drums five years later.
“A few months after my dad passed away, I just happened to pass by a pawn shop in the Bronx. There was a set of congas that I liked. And something just told me you need to go in. And I went in and I just impulsively said, ‘Here’s a deposit. I’ll be back on Friday to pick them up.’ I took them home and started playing again. And it wasn’t until that day that I realized that I had been missing something. After that, I didn’t look back. It was percussion full-time.”
It was there in New York that Velez formed his Cachi y Saoco Nuevo Band, playing the harder-edged iteration of salsa known as salsa dura at “a truckload of television shows and festivals” and venues such as Carnegie Hall.
“I don’t want to use the word aggressive, but there is a hard-core salsa swing to it,” he says of salsa dura, contrasting it with the more popular, pop-inflected salsa romantica. “That’s that type of salsa that makes you want to hold your woman close to you — you know, the sing-in-her-ear style of salsa. There’s a little bit more grace and fluidness when you’re dancing salsa romantica.”
In 2012, Velez reincarnated the band in South Florida. Here, he appreciates being able to perform at festivals year-round.
“You are outdoors and people are sitting down,” Velez says. “They bring their chairs, their blankets, their baskets, their cheese, their crackers, their wine and everything else. And they are enjoying the music. You know, they’ll come up and say, ‘Oh, I loved the arrangement.’
“They’re not just dancing,” he adds, comparing festivals to the clubs he played in New York. “When you’re in a club, you’re not looking at the drums — you’re dancing all night long.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Hispanic Heritage Festival
WHEN: 5 p.m. – 9 p.m., Saturday, September. 27
COST: Free
WHERE: Charles F. Dodge City Center, 601 City Center Way, Pembroke Pines
INFORMATION: ppines.com/1755/Hispanic-Heritage-Festival
