I saw the Teton Valley-based Latin Jazz band Calle Mambo tonight at the Music on Main concert in Victor, Idaho, the first of a six week series of weekly concerts.  Nice big park for the venue, weather was great, plenty of room and plenty of people from very young to pretty old, good food and beer.  

Calle Mambo was the headliner, and they put on a very cool show.  Big band, 4 horns, keys, 2 guitars, bass, drums, 3 singers, percussionist/lead singer, and a pair of dancers.   The dancers were a lot of fun, and I would have liked them to be more up front.  Eventually they came off the stage and down into the audience, and a lot of people started dancing with them, which was also cool.

The band didn’t didn’t play any originals so far as I know. They chose a good batch of covers that included the expected (Marc Antony’s “Let Me Know” and Paul Simon’s “Late in The Evening”) and less expected (Bill Withers’s “Use Me Up”).  They played everything with a lot of groove, feeling, and precision, with lots of well played solos, and it got me moving and kept me listening.

It’s nice to know there are more than a few good musicians in the Teton Valley playing different styles.  I play a lot of different stuff too, and I’m looking forward to playing with some of these folks.Â