Call it Generation �. Right now the largest sector of the Latino population in the Bay Area is younger than 18. Most of these people are second- and third-generation Americans whose lives are divided between the traditional world of their parents and their American identities. How they assimilate and acculturate defines who they are and where they are going.

    And they have helped reshape the music -- today, musica Latina is no longer for Latinos only. It's a hemispheric gift that breaks down walls and borders. The Bay Area's Latin music is threaded with rock, jazz and funk, a unique weave of roots music and new sounds and attitudes. And it's an expanding scene that draws from the traditional cultures of Mexico, Central/South America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, a multilayered community of musicians and fans of salsa, trad-Mex, Latin jazz, Latin pop and many beyond-category fusions.

    Much like the Bay Area's 1970s Latin rock movement, when the Santana phenomenon spawned bands like Malo, Azteca, Sapo, Dakila and others, there is a healthy band scene right now that is spanning genres. Several Bay Area bands are on the brink of national and international exposure this year. Leading the pack are Los Mocosos, who have an album due in June on local label Six Degrees Records. Right behind them is Orixa, which is already pushing its first single, "Siembra," from the album it will release in late summer.

    "There are a lot of bands springing up," says Greg Landau, a musician and Grammy-nominated producer who teaches ethnomusicology at UC Santa Cruz. "They don't have a lot of venues to play, but they're mixing genres and styles, trying to come up with their own sound."

    The scene is about youth, but take it from one of the elders. Orestes Vilato, 60, is a timbalero who has played with everyone from Jose Fajardo and Ray Barretto to Herbie Hancock and Aretha Franklin to the Fania All Stars and Santana. The Cuban-by-way-of-New York has lived in the Bay Area for24 years.

     "Despite all the things the state of California has been hit with recently," he says, "there is still one truth: There is a lot of talent here. There's a lot of hope, and I believe we still have a future of being something like what New York City used to be."

     Here are some postcards from a tour of the Latin music scene in the Bay Area:
Fruitvale: It's a gorgeous Sunday morning on International Boulevard in Oakland's Fruitvale district, where a Cinco de Mayo parade is moving slowly down the street. Thousands in the predominantly Mexican American community line the street. The clatter of horses' hooves on the asphalt resonates like castanets as Banda Las Palmas sounds a traditional march behind them. The sharp sonic force of clarinets and brass band instruments, supported by a tuba and tambora (bass drum), fills the air as a city block of Mexican charros (cowboys) ride their steeds down the street.

    "Seeing and hearing this music is very important," says Andrea Aguilar, who is tending a booth nearby, "not only for us so that we can stay connected with our roots, but for young people so that they can feel proud about their culture."

    San Francisco: Like a musical stampede, the punk banda combo onstage at Roccapulco cranks up the amps and gets a little mosh pit percolating. A young fan in a bright red T-shirt emblazoned with the face of Che Guevara shakes his head and gyrates before slamming into the pit.

    Julio Mercedes, manager of the cavernous Mission Street club (formerly Cesar's Latin Palace), usually books live salsa dance bands on the weekends. But about a year ago Mercedes started letting local Latino rockers do rock-en- espa�ol shows on Thursday nights. Recently a San Jose radio station, Viva 105. 7 FM, introduced the commercial alter-Latino format to the Bay Area, and tonight the station is hosting a Roccapulco show featuring La Plebe, Orixa and Maria Fatal, from Los Angeles.

    La Plebe (the gang) sets the tone, opening the show with "Despierta" (Wake Up). The song is a social call to arms. "Grab a beer, grab a joint, you might die tomorrow," is how Alberto Cuellar, the group's trumpet-playing bandleader, describes it. Together three years, La Plebe calls its music subversive punk, and its message is to the social conscience of the community.

    Home is where your bloody corazon (heart) is for La Plebe. Part of an underground musical network that exists between the Bay Area and Mexico City, all the members of the band live in San Francisco's Mission District, and their songs are odes to their neighborhood. "La Posata" is about a place they frequent at 24th and Bryant streets; "Exploited Labor" is about day laborers; "Conquista 21" deals with gentrification and a mother trying to hold on to four kids and an apartment; "El Certificate" tells the story of an immigrant boy from Mexico who gets made fun of because he is in the subsidized lunch line for poor kids. "Me hacen burla porque soy pobre y mojado" ("they make fun of me because I'm poor and undocumented") resonates through the dance hall.

    "Youth are receptive to us because we're speaking to them," Cuellar says. "Young people feel disempowered right now, and anytime they can let out some energy and steam, they create a solidarity that they take back home with them."

    Oakland: Last year, San Jose radio station KSOL (Est�reo Sol -- 98.9 FM) broke from its traditional format to try something new. The disc jockeys began playing music by Akwid, a rap duo from South Central Los Angeles who fuse banda with hip-hop beats and lyrics en espa�ol.

    It took off, and brothers Sergio and Francisco Gomez scored a platinum album with "Proyecto Akwid." It redefined what banda could be and inspired a new youth-music category called urban regional.

    "When we started, we didn't know how the public was going to take us," says Sergio, sitting on the back stairs at El Reventon, a Mexican nightclub in downtown Oakland. "When we did our first performance it was a hard-core Mexican crowd. Here we go up with bald heads and jerseys with a banda behind us. At first they stared at us ... what the hell is that? We felt some heat, but fortunately it worked out and we didn't have to change our ways and get all cowboy."

    First-generation Mexican immigrants usually don't stray too far from the traditional sounds of their native culture, but at El Reventon, it's all good. Seeing the cowboy-clad crowd react positively to Akwid's music was surprising. Couples used to dancing Euro-derived polka styles shook their hips and waved their arms, signs of a post-traditional immigrant society evolving.

    San Jose: A lot has changed since the 1940s, when people of color were prohibited from
attending Market Street theaters. Some say the Pete Wilson years in California were a return to those times, with tough anti-immigrant and English-only rhetoric that isolated and segregated immigrant communities.

    In San Jose, Los Tigres del Norte churned out corridos (folk ballads), defending the Mexican working class against these political and social attacks. Playing hard-core conjunto norte�o with accordion, bajo sexto guitar, sax, bass and drums, they flourished as crusaders for the people.

    This past Cinco de Mayo, Los Tigres performed for President Bush, who knows he needs to court the Latino vote in an election year. At the same time, conservative thinkers like Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington are warning the Republican Party of a reconquista (reconquest) of the American Southwest by Mexican Americans, as they grow into the country's largest ethnic minority.

    Berkeley: Marked by the gorgeous mural that adorns its front entrance, La Pe�a Cultural Center in Berkeley is a pillar of Bay Area Latin music -- a home base for some of the area's most creative talents.

    Percussionist, bandleader and Latin music scholar John Santos is one of them. A world-class musician who has played with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Cachao and Pete Escovedo, Santos, 48, is a renaissance man who also is an adviser for the Smithsonian Institution's touring exhibition on Latin jazz, "Combinacion Perfecta." Next year, Santos celebrates 20 years leading the innovative, adventurous Machete Ensemble.

    A spontaneous rumba drumming session ensues inside La Pe�a that feels like the good old days when Santos and his pals played with a joyous communal spirit at San Francisco's Dolores Park.

    "I've been playing (at La Pe�a) every year since they opened up in 1975," says Santos, who performs at San Francisco's Carnaval this weekend. "The atmosphere at La Pe�a hasn't changed -- it's always been receptive to the artists in the community doing what they want to do. Back in the day when we were experimenting with descargas and folkloric projects, they were very open to us doing that."

    The Future: In the past 10 years, the Internet has helped empower the Bay Area's Latin music scene, with Web sites and e-groups that stimulate attendance and participation. Salsa dancers may be the best connected, with two popular sites, salsasf. com and salsacrazy.com. Both feature extensive calendars of events and information. Also fun to browse is latinbayarea. com, which showcases the diversity of Latino youth, from car shows to concerts.

    Another good way to get a sense of what's blooming in our backyard is the "Latin Eyes" television show, which airs at 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings on KRON. With segments on local and touring musicians and bands, it gives English speakers a good overview.

    What's next for Latin music? Hard to say, but poet Denise Cook puts it nicely when she says, "I don't speak Spanish ... but I understand everything when I am dancing."

Where to hear, dance to and learn about Latin music:
LATINO ALTERNATIVE

Roccapulco (Thursdays), 3140 Mission St., San Francisco; (415) 648-6611, www.roccapulco.com.

Balazo Mission Badlands Gallery, 2811 Mission St., San Francisco; (415) 550-1108, www.balazogallery.com.


SALSA

El Rio, (Sundays, 3-8 p.m.), 3158 Mission St., San Francisco (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com.

Roccapulco, (Fridays and Saturdays), 3140 Mission St., San Francisco; (415) 648-6611; www.roccapulco.com.

Cafe Cocomo, (Fridays and Saturdays), 650 Indiana St., San Francisco; (415) 824-6910, www.cafecocomo.com.

Club Monteros, (Fridays and Saturdays), 1106 Solano Ave., Albany; (510) 524-1270, www.clubmonteros.com.

The Ramp, (4 p.m. Saturdays), 855 China Basin Way, San Francisco; (415) 621-2378.

Jelly's, (Sundays, 4:30-8:30 p.m.), Pier 50, San Francisco; (415) 495-3099.


BRAZILIAN

Elbo Room, (Tuesdays), 647 Valencia St., San Francisco; (415) 552-7788, www.elbo.com.


MEXICAN REGIONAL

El Toro Night Club, 2470 San Bruno Ave., San Francisco; (415) 468-0670.

El Reventon, 1408 Webster St., Oakland; (510) 835-1813.

Fandango Latino, 9829 San Leandro St., Oakland; (510) 638-7830.


CLASSES -- FOLK MUSIC & DANCE

Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission St., San Francisco; (415) 821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org.

La Pe�a Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley; (510) 849-2568, www.lapena.org.

Los Cenzontles Mexican Traditional Arts Center, 13108 San Pablo Ave., San Pablo; (510) 233-8015, www.loscenzontles.com.


LAS BANDAS
Here are five Bay Area bands and performers to watch for. All are regulars on the thriving Latin music club and festival scene.

O-MAYA: Describing their music as Afro-Latin hip-hop, this 10-piece East Bay ensemble features the powerful voice of Destani Wolf of SoVoSo fame. With its gospel bell-like resonance, it's the centerpiece of O-Maya's multilayered textures, complemented by rapper Rico Pabon and folk troubadour Jorge Martinez. The rhythm section drives the band with infectious grooves and seasoned cohesion. Last year O-Maya released a self-titled debut CD with 13 originals like "Nothing Less Than Freedom," "Beat Box" and "Lagrima De Risa." www.o-maya.com.

BAT MAKUMBA: The high-energy Brazilian rock band Bat Makumba (pronounced Booch-maa-coom-baa) has been going batty at the Elbo Room the first Tuesday of each month. Bat means "to beat," and that is what percussionist-singer Emiliano Benevides, a onetime member of Velha Guarda de Mangueira, one of the oldest samba schools in Brazil, brings to the table. Along with Alex Koberle (lead vocalist-guitarist), Carl Remde (bassist-vocalist), David Gibbs (reeds), Matt Swindells (drums) and Ben Tergis (keys-accordion), Bat Makumba creates mutable art forms blending funk and rock with Afro-Brazilian beats. www.batmakumba.com.

ORQUESTA D'SOUL: Trumpeter Marina Garza leads Orquesta D'Soul, which busted out last year with an album titled "Money, Money" (Neo Latin Records). With strong salsa and funk leanings, Garza shares lead vocals with Liza Jimenez and Nikki O'Shaughnessy. Whether it's Jimenez singing a beautiful Mexican ranchera with Garza's mariachi-style trumpet or a ska beat that spins into a Cuban timba vibe, a take on Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" or Roy Orbison's "Llorando/Crying," Orquesta D'Soul searches for new themes and ideas to spice up its high-energy presentation. www.odslive.com.

JESUS DIAZ Y SU QBA: Percussionist-bandleader Jesus Diaz leads the acclaimed group QBA, one of the few groups in the United States playing timba, a new-millennium musical idea from Cuba that fuses post-revolutionary innovations like songo with funk and jazz. It's a dance music that's more about a collective groove than coordinated steps. QBA is a distinct idea that cooks with an infectious feeling, and its latest album, "Jardinero" (Bombo Music), showcases Diaz's vocals and original songs to full advantage. www.bombomusic.com.

LICHI FUENTES: Like her idol Violetta Parra, singer-songwriter Lichi Fuentes possesses a voice that is simple and angelic. On her latest album -- "Quien Soy: Who I Am," Fuente ranges from traditional Andean sounds to New Song fusion, and sings a poetry dedicated to the many struggles and great beauty of humanity. The tenderness of Fuentes' voice is embodied on "La Voz del Canto" and complemented on "Soneto No. 100" by the violin of Anthony Blea. The Nueva Cancion (New Song) folk movement of Latin America is Lichi's musical foundation, but today she reframes once hum-and-strum tunes into exquisite vehicles of folklore. www.lichifuentes.com.

Chuy Varela is a freelance writer.
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Copyright 2004 SF Chronicle