October 30, 2010: Day Two in the City

The collectors’ festival was an interesting experience. This is an annual event where vendors sell LPs, CDs, books, and other Latin music paraphernalia. Panels are also held throughout the day. This year, the closing event was a concert by the Mambo Legends Orchestra. The event ran from 1-10pm at the Taíno Towers on 123rd St and 2nd Avenue in East Harlem. Did the Taíno Towers ever hear of the federal disabilities act? There was an elevator from the lobby to the main hall but otherwise it was stairs everywhere. I prefer stairs to elevators and I could handle them, but they were a challenge to others not as young or fit.

I spotted a few interesting LPs but they were scratched so I did not buy them. The place was really an indoors flea market. A knowledgeable friend, who shall remain nameless, told me, with an air of disdain: “There’s nothing here.” I spotted a vendor that was selling only books but decided that I was not going to pay $40 for a paperback that I could probably get for much less on Amazon or Alibris.

Later, at the Saigon Grill, another friend, who is an erudite and well-respected bandleader, said to our dinner companion about his purchase of Candido’s recording with Billy Taylor: “All those records have been digitalized and made into CDs.” I did not press him, but I assumed he meant all the records that have a collectible value, like Candido’s. Our companion rejoined: “Yes, but I prefer the LP!!” I saw a Cachao LP that I regret not buying. Recently I did an online search for Cachao and that one record did not come up. Oh well, it was scratched anyway.

So maybe my knowledgeable friends exaggerated a bit: there were treasures here and there and not everything has been digitalized and made into a CD.

It was good to eat arroz con gandules, even if the rice was ciego (I think there were three gandules in the rice I got), pernil, and two delicious alcapurrias de carne. I did not enjoy paying $3 for a coke but I had to drink something.

The two panels of the event were very poorly attended. My guess is that most attendees could not care less about the history of the Village Gate. Ironically, while the participants at the first panel were bemoaning the death of Salsa Meets Jazz, Salsa was being sold in droves by the vendors and was being blasted by the DJs to the mass audience downstairs.

I left that panel trying to decide whether the Village Gate closed because Art D’Lugoff could not afford a new more expensive lease or whether he could not afford the new lease because of some bad investments in Canada. Several explanations were offered, but to me it is clear that Salsa Meets Jazz died simply because there was no venue to host the series. There may have been more to it. I did not find the merengue and hip hop explanation persuasive. There certainly was a demographic shift during the 1980s that may have eroded the market base of the series, along with the demise of radio shows and inadequate advertising.

The highlight of this panel was Orlando Godoy’s video clip showing the trumpet battle between Arturo Sandoval and Piro Rodríguez at the Gate. Sandoval seemed dumbfounded and taken aback by his inability to best Rodríguez. The clip shows Rodríguez making a gracious overture to Sandoval after the trades that Sandoval barely reciprocates. But of course, in battle, it is easier to be gracious when you are the winner.

During the second panel, Burt D’Lugoff started by saying he had nothing to add to what had been said by the previous presenters and that he had no expertise. Yet, he turned out to be very informative and engaging. He told us that Bob Dylan composed some memorable songs at the Gate because he was friends with the lighting technician, who would let Dylan crash there. It was not because Art D’Lugoff was friends with Dylan or was acting like his mentor. D’Lugoff knew that Dylan was squatting but simply looked the other way. Another sojourner at the Gate was Sam Shepard, who worked as a dishwasher there before he became known as a playwright and actor of substance. Before he was famous, Woody Allen did over one hundred appearances at the Gate as an opener for some other act. Bill Cosby also did his standup at the Gate long before he was the Bill Cosby we all know.

Burt also said that he and his brother were “on the left,” and therefore were not very well-liked in the neighborhood, especially by residents who resented all those blacks coming to the Gate. The police tried to extort the D’Lugoff brothers but they resisted. It is amazing that they did not wound up dead as a result. Art also worked with Jane Jacobs to prevent Robert Moses from razing Washington Park to build a highway. That may have been Moses one and only defeat.

The story that impressed me the most was the one about D’Lugoff’s booking of blacklisted folk artists during the McCarthy period (this is before the Village Gate). He rented a theatre expecting a crowd of 300; 3,000 showed up. I thought, “Gee, I wish that had happened to me when I started Jazz/Latino.” I did my first series expecting thousands and instead got 300. According to Burt, after the successful show his brother said: “We got something here,” and from there went on to become an impresario. Previously he had tried law school (“Both Art and the law school agreed that he did not belong there,” said Burt), taxi driving, and other subsistence occupations.

Before the concert I spotted Assemblyman José Rivera eating everything in sight while pontificating on who knows what; I did not pay attention to what he said. I concentrated on my alcapurrias. Then it was Mambo Legends time and they were spectacular. I was standing right in front of the stage watching José Madera, George Delgado, and Dandy Rodríguez do their seamless percussion choreography but my meditation was interrupted by two obnoxious and probably drunk individuals who kept shouting while intermittently playing maracas and cowbell along with the band. Well, to say that they were playing along is too generous a statement. Dandy and Madera were momentarily bemused but George kept a face as straight as his tumbao.

From a corner of the stage Bobby Sanabria beckoned me to join him. Frankly, I wanted to stay on my spot but I could not say no to Bobby Sanabria. Before I went up the stage, I saw Dandy Rodríguez perform a neat little trick. When the montuno was approaching, and I’m talking split seconds here, he picked up his bell, which he keeps on top of his case on his right side, and passed it from his right to his left hand under his right thigh. I thought, “Cool. Now, that’s grace under pressure.” Randy Brecker sat in with the legends. And Reinaldo Jorge, Sam Burtis, and Pete Nater blew their horns as well. So there was morning and there was evening, a second day. And it was good.