After witnessing the Bolsheviks' brutal consolidation of power in Russia first hand, Emma Goldman famously rejected the puritanical party, declaring, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."

The old anarchist would feel right at home on Saturday night at La Pe�a Cultural Center, where a genial salsera revolution is taking place on the bandstand, and the dancing is red hot. Showcasing some of the many fine female instrumentalists in a field that has long been a male preserve, the fifth annual Women in Salsa concert features two leading Bay Area Latin dance bands, Orquesta D'Soul and Montuno Groove. Veteran saxophonist Donna Viscuso hosts a conversation with the artists at 8:30 p.m.

Oakland-based trumpeter, singer and songwriter Marina Garza, the leader of Orquesta D'Soul, launched the Women in Salsa event in 2001 in an effort to raise public awareness of the rising number of women involved in the music.

"I had started performing on the Bay Area salsa scene in the late '90s and I was working with an all-women band," said Garza, referring to the now- defunct Dulce Mambo. "I realized that there were so many women in the scene, and I thought we should have our own celebration. With the exception of vocalists, salsa and Latin music is pretty male-dominated.

"In the past, it's been very difficult for women performers who play trumpet, trombone or saxophone to really become successful in the business, because it's such a close-knit society of men," she said. "They have their own friends and people they call for gigs, so it's very hard to break in."

The Women in Salsa show is the first of three events focusing on jazz and Latin music in La Pe�a's year-long "Mujeres" concert series.

A July 9 performance pairs vocalist Rhiannon and pianist Susan Muscarella, both respected musicians and educators, with a student ensemble from Muscarella's Jazzschool in Berkeley. And a July 23 concert features the world jazz ensemble Wild Mango, a band that has included some of the region's most creative musicians, with past members and other special guests.

Given the relatively confined nature of the Bay Area music scene, it's not at all surprising that two of the Wild Mangos, lead vocalist Gloria Amaral and ace percussionist Michaelle Goerltiz, also perform with Montuno Groove.

Where the long-running Wild Mango blends jazz with various world music styles, Amaral and trumpeter Tami Ellis created the 11-piece Montuno Groove four years ago when they realized they wanted to develop a sound that combined salsa with African American soul music. Montuno refers to the concluding call and response vocals in rumba, son, or other forms of Afro-Cuban derived dance music.

"We looked for a name that brought together salsa and R&B," Amaral said. "We don't do R&B per se, but the vocals aren't straight salsa singing. They have the embellishment, harmonies and flair of R&B. We're all born here, and the music has a San Francisco feel."

Garza was looking for a similar musical blend when she created Orquesta D'Soul. Opening for the hard-grooving B-Side Players at a Great American Music Hall concert several years ago, she had an epiphany when she realized that she needed to bring together her passion for salsa, funk and hip hop. While Montuno Groove mostly plays cover tunes, Garza has developed a repertoire of original songs in both English and Spanish for Orquesta D'Soul, which features vocalists Liza Jimenez and Nikki O'Shaughnessy, saxophonist Lori Ponton Rodriguez, keyboardist Kymry Esainko, and drummers Jason Gianni and Brian Andres.

Both Garza and Amaral were born into Mexican American families, so their cultural connections to salsa, which grew out of the fusion of Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians in New York City, is tangential.

"My father's from Guadalajara and my mom was raised in Mexicali, but they met in Oakland," said Amaral, who grew up in Albany. "My father loves Brazilian music and we listened to a lot of R&B and James Brown. My older brothers and sisters would go out clubbing all the time, and I got exposed to a lot of salsa."

Amaral first started performing widely with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, and made a name for herself in Latin music circles with Orquesta Radiante and Edgardo Cambon y su Candela. She decided to create the all-women salsa band Dulce Mambo when she realized that there were few opportunities for women to work together.

"I'd been in the scene for a couple of years, and whether I was playing or dancing there were never any women on stage," Amaral said. "What's wrong with this picture? It was an epiphany. Why can't it be all women? I got a lot of great musicians in Dulce Mambo, like Tami Ellis, Sara Cline and Cathy Ramos."

It was while she was subbing in Dulce Mambo that Garza first developed an interest in salsa. Born and raised in San Antonio, she studied European classical music and jazz in college, while listening to funk and hip-hop for pleasure. She moved to the Bay Area in the late 1990s, and quickly hooked up with the Montclair Women's Big Band, a formidable East Bay jazz ensemble created by trumpeter Ellen Seeling to facilitate connections between female players.

Garza has released two albums with Orquesta D'Soul, most recently the critically praised "Money Money" (Neo-Latin Records). The revolution she helped highlight with the Women in Salsa shows seems to be spreading. Since the first performance in 2001, the concerts have spread to Redwood City, where several concerts have been held at the Little Fox Theatre. Most importantly, the gigs have helped foster ties between the salseras.

"We help each other out along the way," Garza said. "When we have gigs and need to fill them, we call each other up. We're a little female network of Latin musicians." Live

Women in Salsa, 9:30 p.m. Saturday, La Pe�a Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. $12-$14. (510) 849-2568; www.lapena.org.

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