Revival house

Posted Saturday, November 24, 2007

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The smell of chicken soup wafts through Club Tropigala as waiters in stiff black jackets prepare for the dinner hour, setting the long, white-clothed tables with china and crystal and straightening the worn velvet chairs. The candles on each table flicker under the current of the air conditioning, set to freezing as if to show off a luxurious new invention. The surroundings are faded, but preserved, the evening's preparations pretty much the way they were in the '60s, when the Fontainebleau hotel was ultra-modern and the Tropigala was the glamorous La Ronde night club, where the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. performed.
Into this scene steps Cuban singer Amaury Gutierrez, with his nappy hair, carpenter jeans, second-hand T-shirt, and sneakers. Playing his guitar, he walks down the steps, brushing past the bamboo banisters, weaving through the tables to the stage, and easily poses in front of the gold lamé curtain for photos promoting his performance at the club this Friday. The waiters, used to witnessing a parade of stars -- or those who once or almost were, anyway -- don't pause. But the hostess watches from the doorway, declaring Gutierrez even more handsome than in the picture on his CD.
The singer may seem out of place in a venue that for two decades has devoted itself almost exclusively to nostalgic exercises in Cuban song and dance, and he would be, except that the club, very quietly, has become a showcase for some of Havana's most popular young artists, especially those who decamped to Miami expecting to find similar success and have so far failed. These include Manolin, the charismatic singer known as the Salsa Doctor, and lately, Havana hit maker Carlos Manuel. If to some, this may qualify the Tropigala as a sort of elephants' graveyard for performers of the euphoric '90s timba era in Havana, for others (particularly more recent arrivals from Cuba), it can be the best place in town now to hear the artists they know and love.
Indeed, with big, young bands like Manuel's reigning over the room, with its retro decor, nightclub-style stage, and easy table-hopping access, the Tropigala recalls not so much Havana's famed Tropicana nightclub (which inspired Tropigala's name), but the Palacio de la Salsa at the Riviera Hotel, a '90s hot spot before it was targeted as a den of prostitution and other ''capitalist vices'' and shut down.
Gutierrez arrived in Miami three months ago (after living and recording in Mexico City for more than a decade) and this weekend's appearance at Tropigala will be his first concert here with a band. He'll perform with Sarabanda, a group that formerly worked with Willy Chirino, adding a touch of rumba to the singer's guitar-based sound.
An engaging singer/songwriter who emerged from Havana's '80s scene, Gutierrez is on firm musical ground on his latest album Se me pegó tu nombre (Your Name Stuck in My Head). Writing and performing in a style that pulls from the romantic bolero, American rock and jazz vocals, and rock en español bands like Maná, Gutierrez is arguably one of the most notable interpreters of the Latin pop ballad today.
Recorded in Mexico and just released in the United States on Universal, Se me pegó has achieved widespread commercial appeal without being saccharine. On most tracks, production is thankfully sparse, focused on voice and guitar. Gutierrez calls it ``a record that reflects who I am.''
At 40, Gutierrez is a mature artist who seems unlikely to suffer the musical identity crisis that's plagued some of his Cuban compatriots who've come to Miami. (Among them, Manolin, who bombed with a misguided romance album recorded here for BMG and has since kept a low profile; Manuel, who waywardly performed with mariachis at the Jackie Gleason Theater last year; and of course, Albita, whose chameleon-like career has most recently nose-dived into a painful stab at electronic dance music.)
Rather than musical opportunity, it was personal concerns that brought Gutierrez here. He says he received telephoned death threats to his home in Mexico City for anti-Castro statements he'd frequently made publicly, although never through his music; his lyrics stick to romantic subject matter.
''Although this city doesn't have the bohemian life that I need spiritually, it has other things like sun, sea, and friends,'' Gutierrez says of Miami. Perhaps most importantly, he sees Miami as a place where he can record and a base from which to tour.
''Latin America, New York, Spain, that's where my audience is,'' he says. And, surely, at the Tropigala.
Amaury Gutierrez performs 9:30 p.m. Friday, June 11, at Club Tropigala, in the Fontainebleau Hilton, 4441 Collins Ave., Miami Beach. Tickets are $25. For more info, call 305-672-7469.