Sanchez to spice up Lied
with Latin, mamba music
By Josh Krauter
Staff writer
This weekend, a hot Latin hybrid of
sounds that has pleased audience^ in
locales as varied as Arkansas and
Thailand will take the Lied Center
stage.
Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz
Band will perform a percussion-heavy
blend of Latin jazz, be-bop and soul
music, complete with cover songs and
originals Saturday night. And though
Sanchez and his band have played all
over the world, this marks their first
visit to Nebraska.
“It’s the only state we haven’t played
in,” Sanchez said, though a few seconds
later, he said his group might not have
played in North Dakota and Wyoming,
either. Sanchez said he has played so
many shows that he can’t remember.
One gig fresh in his mind, however,
was in Thailand. Sanchez and two of his
band members were invited to jam with
the king ofThailand last week. The king
plays saxophone and trumpet and want
ed to play with Sanchez.
Another big show was this year’s
Grammy Awards. Sanqhez picked a
best Latin Jazz Performance Grammy
for his album, “Latin Soul,” and per
formed on the television broadcast with
the Buena Vista Social Club.
He previously had been nominated
as a solo artist three times, and had won
twice as a member of other musicians’
groups, once in 1980 as a member of
Cal Tjader’s band and the other in 1982
as a member of Claire Fisher’s band.
In addition to the Grammy Award
honors, Sanchez and his band have
released 19 albums and will celebrate
their 20th anniversary in May.
“There are three original members
still, and most have been in the band for
at least 10 years, so it’s a pretty good
gig,” he said in a telephone interview.
Sanchez’ varied sound came
together early. He was bom in Laredo,
Texas, but moved to Norwalk, Calif., a
suburb of Los Angeles, as a young
Courtesy photo
Pancho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz Band will perform their brand of be-bop
soul music at the Lied this weekend. The band knows more than 200 songs,
and Sanchez said they never play the same set list twice.
child. The youngest of 11 children,
Sanchez was inspired by the music his
six sisters and four brothers played
around the house.
“My sisters started liking the first
wave of Latin jazz and mambo,” he
said. “Every day I heard it around the
house.”
His mother and father, originally
from Mexico, played Tex-Mex polka
records, but it was the Latin jazz music
favored by his sisters, and the jazz
records of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie
Parker, played by his brothers, that real
ly inspired him.
In the ’60s, while Sanchez’ friends
were rocking out to die Beades and Jimi
Hendrix, Sanchez was grooving to the
soul sounds of Sam and Dave, the
Temptations and James Brown, in addi
tion to his jazz influences.
Sanchez, a conga player and vocal
ist, said all these sounds have a good
chance of coming out at the Lied show.
“I’m going to mix it up a little bit
with jazz standards, a few ballads, and
^ancho bancez
.atin Jazz Band
WHERE: Lied Center for
Performing Arts, 12th and
R streets
WHEN: Saturday, March 8
Pre-performance talks begin
55 and 30 minutes before
the show.
COST: $32, $28 and $24,
half price for students
THE SKINNY: Latin jazz,
mamba and blues swing on
the Lied Center stage.
I’ll spice it up with a little hot salsa. We
might even play some funky stuff if the
mood strikes us,” he said.
Sanchez said his band has a reper
toire of more than 200 songs, and he
never plays the same set list twice.
“With 200 tunes, you’d be a fool to
play the exact same songs every night,”
he said.
Tonight the Nebraska Repertory
Theatre and the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln Theater depart
ment are set to premiere a story that
hits very close to home.
“Match Play,” the Nebraska
Premieres production for the 2000
season, is a three-character play cen
tering on a busy newspaper with a
budding love story underlying the
rigmarole of the journalism business.
The play’s author, William
McCleery, graduated from UNL in
1931 and actually spent time as editor
of the Daily Nebraskan and as a
reporter at the Omaha World-Herald.
“Match Play,” which features
Sasha Dobson, Kristopher Kling and
Joel Story, a local Equity actor, cen
ters on a family newspaper in dire
need of financial backing to avoid
being taken over by an corporate
newspaper.
The production, which is being
put on in the Studio Theatre at UNL’s
Temple building, is directed by visit
ing professor Ken McCulough and
opens tonight.
Other performances include
Saturday and March 21-25, and all
shows start at 7:30 p.m.
Thefollowing is a brief list of events
this weekend. For more information,
call the venue.
CONCERTS:
Duggan s Pub, 440 S. 11th St.
(402)477-3513
Friday and Saturday: The
Gratefiil Dudes
Knickerbocker's. 901 OSt.
(40*2) 476-6865
Friday: Project Wet, Heroic
Dose
Saturday: Bastard Son, Oil
Seventh Street Loft, 512 S.
Seventh St.
(402)477-8311
Saturday: Bach’s “The
Musical Offering”
- ' •.
Lied Center for Performing
Arts, 310 N. 12th St.
(402) 472-4747
Saturday: Poncho
Sanchez/Latin Jazz Band
Royal Grove, 340 W.
Comhusker
Highway
(402) 474-2332
Friday: Nine Live Cats
Saturday: 2 Live Crew
The Zoo Bar, 136 N. 14th St.
(402) 435-8754
Friday: James Solbeig
Saturday: Curtis Salgado
THEATER:
Mary Riepma Ross Film
Theater,
12th and R streets
(402) 472-2461
All weekend: “Tumbleweeds”
Star City Dinner Theatre,
Eighth and Q streets
(402) 477-8277
All weekend: “Driving Miss
Daisy”
Studio Theatre, Third floor of
the Temple Building, 12th and
R streets
(402) 472-20736
Friday and Saturday: “Match
Play”
GALLERIES:
Burkholder Project, 719 P St.
(402) 477-3305
All weekend: John
Nollendorfs, Avery Woods,
Richard Terrell
Haydon Gallery, 335 N.
Eighth St.
(402) 475-5421
All weekend: Nancy Palmeri
Noyes Gallery, 119 S. Ninth
St.
(402) 475-1061
All weekend: Nebraska
Mothers Association Annual
Creative Arts Exhibition, Tony
Guido, Jeanette Nakada
Rotunda Gallery, Nebraska
Union, 14th and R streets
(402) 472-2631
All weekend: Undergraduate
Studio Art Survey Exhibition
The Sheldon Memorial Art
Gallery, 12th and R streets
(402) 472-2461
All weekend: MFA Portfolio:
“Past and Present,” “Visions
of the Prairie”
The Venue, 1247 S. 11th St.
(402)475-8368
All weekend: “Taste of
Kansas City:” Barb Wishnow
Jacobs, Jane Booth, Tera
Dawley
Balloon dance, musical
dominate Lied Center
■ Campus cultural events
opening during spring
break vacation.
By Josh Nkhols
Staff writer
Gigantic inflatable balloons and
an American musical masterpiece
don’t seem to have anything in com
mon - and they don’t.
Except for the fact that both will
grace the stage next week at the Lied
Center for Performing Arts.
If you couldn’t swing the cash for
that exotic spring break vacation, the
Lied may have some alternative enter
tainment to soothe that stuck-in
Nebraska spring break depression.
Next Tuesday and Wednesday, the
Fred Garbo Inflatable Theater
Company will do a show at 7 each
night.
The show is a theatrical perfor
mance consisting of objects similar to
what UNL students have come to love
in the UNL inflatable mascot Li’F
Red.
Characters in the performance,
played by Fred Garbo and partner
Daielma Santos, include a gigantic
dog named “Puff, the Air-dale” and
“Fred Zeplin, The Inflatable Man.”
Incorporated in with these tunny,
fascinating objects is juggling, danc
ing, tumbling and humor.
In a telephone interview, Garbo
said the performance is a difficult one
to describe and that one must actually
see it to understand the artistic beauty
and humor involved.
“It’s not like anything you’ve ever
seen,” he said.
According to the Fred Garbo Web
site, the show begins when a 10-foot
cylindrical, worm-like object slithers
onto the stage.
Before long, the blown-up shapes
on stage begin to expand, retract,
shake and bounce all over in an array
of bright colors.
After a while, Santos, a ballerina,
dances onto stage.
The skirt she is wearing begins to
grow and grow until it has become a
gown. She is then engulfed and car
ried away by one of the gigantic bal
loons.
Garbo described the performance
as one that keeps the audience con
stantly amused and a little confused.
“The audience is constantly sur
prised by the illusions on stage,” he
said.
“It is magical, but not a magic
show.”
■ • ••
Garbo, who was Barkley the Dog
on Sesame Street in the ’80s, has been
inventing inflatables and traveling
with Santos for the past ten years.
Santos has performed throughout
the United States and Europe as both
a performer and a choreographer.
The show is being promoted as
part of the Lied Center’s family series,
but Garbo said their show usually is
done for adults and by no means is
directed at children, although it is a
show that children are sure to enjoy.
“It works for everyone,” Garbo
said.
Later in the week, after the bal
loons have floated, the classic musical
“Show Boat” will be performed all
weekend at the Lied.
The musical, which premiered on
Broadway in 1927, is based on the
Hawkes family and spans four
decades.
It begins shortly after the recon
struction in the deep South and goes
into the 1920s.
Matt Morrison, who plays Steve
Baker, an actor on the showboat, said
it is a story about two people who
meet and marry on a showboat.
The two people are Magnolia
Hawkes, the daughter of a riverboat
owner, and Gaylord Ravenal, a gam
bler and actor.
The musical spans forty years of
the life they share, but the two eventu
ally split up because Gaylord loses all
of their money gambling.
This play was originally created to
deal with the issue of unhappy mar
riage and racial prejudice.
Morrison said his character is an
actor on the showboat for a short time
but is kicked off because of his mar
riage to a half-black, half-white
woman.
He said his character’s situation
was characteristic of the times, when
black people were free by law but still
dealt with constant prejudice and seg
regation.
Morrison also said the script for
this tour has been reworked and tight
ened somewhat from the original
Broadway performance.
But what hasn’t changed, is the
classic music that includes such songs
as “OF Man River,” “Can’t Help
Lovin’ Dat Man” and “Only Make
Believe.”
The music in the performance
was composed by Oscar
Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern,
two of the most successful composers
of the 20th century.
Talks will be held in the Lied’s
Steinhart Room at 55 and 30 minutes
before curtain call.
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Together, We're Making Lives Better
621 Rose Street, Lincoln
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