An earful at Bocado by Chet Williamson

The new guys have come a long way in a hurry. Six months ago they started playing together. Their early gigs were playing at house parties for family and friends. Today, they are in residence every Thursday at Bocado, drawing steady crowds and getting better and better.

The new kids on the block are Pueblo Nuevo, a trio playing refreshing music of the Latin kind, featuring rumba and cambia rhythms from Colombia, bossa novas and sambas from Brazil, Argentinean tangos and Cuban son, not to mention boleros, salsas, merengues or any other rhythm that you can name emanating from the Afro-Caribbean experience.

The new people are guitarist Paulo Alzate, bassist/guitarist Jose Castillo and percussionist Johnatan Latorre. Think: The Gipsy Kings with Caetano Veloso meets The Buena Vista Social Club, only these guys are all in their 20s and they live in the area.

Alzate lives in Bolton, but he hails from Colombia where he went to music school to study voice. He says he picked up guitar as a way to accompany himself. "I studied voice in the conservatory of music for five years and guitar for a couple," he says. "I had a band in Colombia. All my life I've been a singer. That's my forte. My thing is to sing."

Pueblo Nuevo Both Castillo and Latorre live in Worcester. Alzate says Pueblo Nuevo started as a duo. "I had a band before," he says. "It was just Johnatan and me. We didn't really have a name. The Jose came into the picture. He was the best friend of Johnatan."

Alzate started working with Latorre in September. Castillo came on board in November. From the beginning the trio knew they had something special. "With Johnatan, as soon as I started playing, he was following me so easy. I was like, ‘Why don't we do something?'"
In full agreement, Latorre says, "We haven't been playing for a long time but we got together and it was like chemistry. We connected. We get along so well. That's the best thing."

Where Alzate blocks out the chords and sings the song, Castillo elaborates and expands with his freewheeling improvisational lines on guitar. He is a fearless soloist who complements every song with his tasty licks. "Jose is really established," Alzate says. "He studied at Berklee College. Every time we play, he doesn't really have a particular part. He just goes."

In addition to playing at parties, Pueblo Nuevo has also appeared at openings and functions at ARTSWorcester, the Worcester Art Museum and Centro Las Americas before scoring the Bocado date.

A couple of months ago the three amigos started going around to area restaurants looking for gigs. "I heard about Block 5," Alzate says. "I went there first asking if we could play Latin jazz there. They said ‘We have a new restaurant called Bocado.' Fortunately I found Mike Covino [one of the owners]. I showed him my marketing folio and he said, ‘OK, let's do it.'"
Alzate says that it is known that Latin bands play salsa, merengue and bachata music. "Pueblo Nuevo is different," he says. "I came from Colombia with a lot of rumba in my repertoire. I have flamenco mixed with pop. I have cambia mixed with rock and Spanish."

Bocado's a nice little weekly showcase for Pueblo Nuevo. The group views the place as their anchor and hopes to fan out from there. "My plan is to go for it, further than Massachusetts, out of Worcester first, then to Boston and hopefully go to New York," Alzate says. Latorre adds, "Of course we have to practice more, but I think we will get there."

It's already happening. Pueblo Nuevo plays in Lawrence on July 13. In the meantime, catch them every Thursday night right here in Worcester.

(Courtesy of Worcester Magazine)

The Beautiful People...

Firstable .... The band members...

(Sorry girls, I'm taking the pictures)

We have a terrific time with Salsa Storm at Bocado last night. We will have one like this next month for our special event "Tormenta de Salsa en nuestro Pueblo Nuevo"... what you think? Ehh? (I just made that up) :) ...
... Althought, I could take more pictures, because of the incompetence of somebody who didn't put the battery to charge, I took some where it shows just the 1/4 of the Beautiful People that follows our Band... ... and goes to Bocado to have fun also...

In the News...

Apparently, we've been in a couple of artivcles from Worcester Magazine...

WELL DONE Pueblo Nuevo. I guess, we are hitting good in the city.

Take a look:

Dollars for scholars

Written by Chet Williamson Monday, 04 June 2007

The 12th annual Worcester Latino Dollars for Scholars awards dinner held its largest event to date Saturday night (June 2). More than 400 people showed up at the DCU Convention Center to recognize and congratulate 45 deserving high school and college students.

The students honored will be heading to Becker, Clark, Quinsigamond, WSC, Holy Cross, as well as such national institutions as Brigham Young, Pace University, Vassar and Yale. Scholarships were awarded to students who achieved a grade point average of 2.7 or better.

The Worcester Latino Dollars for Scholars program is an affiliate of the Scholarship America Foundation, which is the largest private sector scholarship organization in the country. Its mission is to provide support and assistance to local scholarship efforts. Since its founding in 1995, Latin Dollars has awarded nearly 400 scholarships and raised more than $180,000.
“I’m very pleased to see more Latino kids graduating from high school,” says Centro Las America’s Arts and Cultural Director Dolly Vasquez. “I know because every year they have to give out more awards and that’s a very good thing.”

The event attracted a host of celebrities and politicos including the head of Centro Las Americas and former City Councilor Juan Gomez; City Council candidates Maritza Cruz, Sam Rosario and Grace Ross; Gladys Rodriquez-Parker from U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern’s office; City Councilor Kate Toomey and Mayor Konnie Lukes, who in her speech said to the scholarship recipients, “Someday I hope to see some of you standing up on the stage in the future representing city government.”
Latin Dollars program also presented community service awards. This year’s honorees included Paul Hernandez of the Oak Hill Community Development Corporation, Boys & Girls Club boxing trainer Carlos Garcia, Laurie Krushefsky of the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance and former world champion boxer Jose Antonio Rivera. The dinner and awards ceremony also featured live music from Pueblo Nuevo and a deejay.

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Spanish TV in English

Written by Chet Williamson Tuesday, 29 May 2007

It was just about a year ago that Robert Ochoa-Schutz, Maria Florez and Maritza Cruz came up with an idea for their television show. The three friends were sitting around talking about the demographics within the Worcester Latino community, “especially the many different types of Latino cultures – Columbian, Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican,” says Ochoa-Schutz. “We were surprised that there was never a show that addressed Latino issues.”
The group recognized that there are various Spanish-speaking media in town, singling out local access TV on WCCA, but said they wanted to program in English. “Many of us are second- and third-generation Latinos and our primary language is English, but we strongly identify with our Latino cultures and traditions. We thought, wouldn’t it be fun if we had a show showcasing that,” Ochoa-Schutz says.
So the newly organized multimedia productions company, called Mari Mari Enterprises, formulated a proposal and brought it to Charter Communications. Within a couple of months they were on the air. The show is called “Worcester Latino” and airs on CHTR, Channel 3 on Thursday and Fridays at 9:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 4:30pm. The English-speaking show features politics, education, and the arts. It is aired to more than 40 cities and towns in Central New England. The hosts include Ochoa-Schutz, Florez, Cruz and local personality Jaime Flores.
“The first thing we did was to contact Jamie Flores,” says Ochoa-Schutz. “He is a well known journalist with Hispano Vocero. He has a radio program and had a news program on Channel 13. We asked him if he would be comfortable doing it in English.” Ochoa-Schutz says at first the concept of the show was to make it a news format. “As it evolved we decided that we wanted it to be more of a news magazine,” he says. “It evolved from one host to four. It has more of a conversational feel. So we invited guests from the entertainment, political or educational field. We tried to make it like we are having conversation over café con leche in a kitchen.”
The producers say the mission of the “Worcester Latino” is “to empower, educate and entertain our viewers. We look at issues from a Latino perspective. Because we are an English-speaking show it allows the community at large to understand the pulse of how the Latino community works.” Ochoa-Schutz says the selling point to Charter was the fact that Latinos are a growing demographic.

“We are the fastest-growing minority in the country,” he says. “Being the largest minority in the country it may behoove them to have a program that may reach a demographic that has pretty much been neglected.”

Since making its debut, “Worcester Latino has invited an array of guests ranging from boxer Jose Antonio Rivera and Lt. Gov. Tim Murray to Dolly Vasquez and the musical group Pueblo Nuevo.” Ochoa-Schutz says so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive and not just in the Latino population. “What surprised us was the response from the non-Latin community,” he says. “The reaction is because we talk about the differences between cultures, many people think that a Latino is a Latino is a Latino. When they realize that Mexican perspective differ markedly from Cuban and Puerto Rican … we show the difference within our cultures. It’s really educational. I know that people have viewed the show based on diversity understanding and to better understand what is going on in the population.”

All four hosts live in Worcester. Cruz was raised here. Jamie Flores has been here for more than 30 years. Maria Florez and Ochoa-Schutz have been here for more than 10 years. Ochoa says though “Worcester Latino is in English the show is by default innately bi-lingual. “We fall into Spanish because that is the rhythm of our communications within the Latino community,” he says. “We revert to Spanish. It’s more of naturalness. We are aware that there are a lot of programs available in Spanish. Our mission is to get our culture into the psyche of the community at large."
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