Pop Music Review : Anacaona Flavors Salsa With an Afro-Cuban Beat

It’s not often that you get to see a salsa band whose members include a female conguera and a pregnant saxophonist.

But CubaUs Anacaona is much more than a group made up exclusively of women. During an intriguing U.S. debut performance Friday at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City, the 12 musicians made you forget all about gender, summoning the same breathless, magical energy that defines more popular Cuban outfits such as Los Van Van or Adalberto Alvarez y Su Son.

Like those groups, Anacaona mixes the traditional roots of Afro-Caribbean music with the dizzying and aesthetically questionable ‘90s style known as timba. Understandably, the band was at its most exciting when playing less timba-oriented material, such as its buoyant tributes to legends Benny More , Chapottin and Machito.

It was then that the group created a rich wall of sound, with the triple percussion (congas, timbales and drum kit), four horns section and two keyboards floating in the air without overlapping one another.

Curiously, the concert’s most powerful moment came during the timba number “Senora de Nadie,” when pianist Janisett MacPherson Zapata offered a solo of overwhelming beauty. Not only was it technically peerless, but it also expressed a wide range of emotions with volcanic intensity, and was cheered by an audience that clearly understood it was witnessing a rare moment of Afro-Cuban perfection.