Vineyard Vibes Is Music Extravaganza

By DANIEL WATERS

Friday night, by the end of the pre-show mambo/salsa lesson, the dance floor at the Hot Tin Roof was already buttock-to-buttock with swaying women in plunging skirts and high heels, gyrating men in flowered tropical shirts. The air was giddy with cologne and perfume and Latin recordings supplied by a lively D.J. People had come for the dancing, the music, the togetherness, but mostly to hear Eguie Castrillo and his Latin Big Band, the second live performance in last weekend's Vineyard Vibes concert series produced by the Berklee College of Music and BR Creative.

At nine-thirty, the rotund and irrepressible Mr. Castrillo took front and center stage with his chrome drums and exuberant smile, silver earrings flashing in the spotlights, leading his 18-piece ensemble in a headlong charge through Para Los Rumberos, a signature Tito Puente number. The brilliant sound of brass, percussion, and piano may have made the club walls bulge outwards a few inches as the crowd became acquainted with this band's two levels of volume: loud and louder. By the end of the first two numbers, the crowd was hooting and clapping and Mr. Castrillo was happily wiping perspiration off his face with a large white towel.

He welcomed the audience, jokingly, to the Palladium (the fabled Manhattan ballroom that was home to Mambo Kings Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, and Machito). "Everybody's gonna dance," Mr. Castrillo told us in no uncertain terms. "Is everybody having fun? Because the fun's just started." There seemed to be no other option.

Then, with singer Manolo Mairena at the microphone (alongside backup singers Georgel Arevalo and Rodrigo Cuevas in their matching red rhinestone shirts), Mr. Castrillo and his big band launched into Puentes' Complicación, another rollicking salsa number that set the dancers in the room to undulating once again.

Most amazing was that the audience was not an overwhelmingly summer crowd, but boasted a substantial number of year-round Islanders thirsty for what summer brings (and what winter will take away). Could that be Sandy the dentist? Phil the barber? Janet from the Tisbury Printer? Did I just see Peggy from the high school? And Ginger from the bank? And Beldan from the artisans' festivals? Just walking the floor was like a wintertime family reunion, and it was heartening to see these hard-working folks stealing a few minutes from their most arduous season to blow off some steam. Even more welcome was seeing dyed-in-the-wool New Englanders parking their inhibitions for one night and immersing themselves in the music and the wash of humanity.

Eguie Castrillo and his Latin Big Band are a tight, bright, energetic ensemble that truly gets the pulse racing. Their arrangements are thoughtful, varied and controlled while at the same time never losing the sense of spontaneity that makes it exciting even to be just a listener to this music. One of the hottest-selling items Friday night (other than cold drinks) was Mr. Castrillo's new CD, a chance for Islanders to preserve and relive the evening's experience.

One number began with Mr. Castrillo playing a drum roll alone, followed by a lengthy and breathtaking drum solo that bore witness to his background as a master conguero. When finally the rest of the band kicked in, Mr. Castrillo's drums still dominated the piece. On the floor, dancers responded with the mambo, pairs coiling and uncoiling in each other's arms like manic loops of DNA.

Announcing intermission, Mr. Castrillo invited the audience to celebrate the fifth birthday of Vineyard Vibes and WCAI-NAN, the Cape and Islands' National Public Radio station. A large, moist vanilla cake with sumptuous chocolate cream filling, supplied by Cakes by Liz, was brought out to mark the moment.

At the beginning of the second set, Mr. Castrillo asked the audience to clear some of the dance floor for his two sets of dancers, Natalia Bernal and Natalie Fernandez joining the two male backup singers introduced earlier. Together, the four performed a beautifully choreographed example of what can be done with the mambo if only one has unlimited energy, youth, flexibility, Latin blood and room to spread out. The audience applauded, delighted, then retook the floor to try some of the fancy moves themselves.

By eleven o'clock, as Mr. Castrillo and his band charged indefatigably along, it became time for this year-round working Islander to go to bed. However, I left the Hot Tin Roof with the happy impression that the music that faded in the distance would go on later, much later into the evening, and that listeners and dancers would go home spent and satisfied. They deserved it, every last moment of it.