Soñando: American Dream Band
by Peter Aaron

Its name is the Spanish word for “dreaming,” but when the seven-to-eight-piece orchestra called Soñando is in the house it’s no dream—it’s one big, caliente party. Blasting horns stab the air in unison. Sparkling piano and lithe, sinewy tres dart in and out of busy syncopation, while relentlessly driving percussion pushes a floor packed with sweaty, ecstatic dancers to the very edge of euphoria and over. It’s not at all surprising that the group, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this month, is regularly cited as the Hudson Valley’s leading Latin band. But despite the welcome accolades, that’s not quite how bandleader, conguero, and vocalist Ruben Quintero sees it.

“We’re an American band,” says Quintero, who co- founded the outfit in 1997 with trumpeter Phil DiMier and timbalero Eric Wilson. “Yeah, we play music that’s a blend of lots of different Latin styles—salsa, merengue, plenas, son, Afro-Cuban jazz—but like America itself, it’s a melting pot, really. A mix of lots and lots of different influences that couldn’t really come together anywhere else. And not all of the members are of Latin or Hispanic heritage, a lot of the cats who have been in this band over the years have been white or black dudes who didn’t necessarily grow up with this music.”

In addition to mainstays Quintero, DiMier, and Wilson, the cats in Soñando’s current lineup are bassist Harry Justiniano, former Celia Cruz side man Antonio Velez on traditional Cuban tres, pianist Jeremy Baum (when he’s not on the road with blues diva Shemekia Copeland), saxophonist Shane Kirsch (Perfect Thyroid, George Clinton), and the tireless, multi-talented Dean Jones (Dog on Fleas, Uncle Buckle) on trombone.“(Soñando) is a dream band, especially for a horn player,” says Jones, who joined the group in 2003. “The music is really complex and interesting, but there’s still a lot of room to stretch out and try different stuff every night. And most people just really can’t help but dance to it.”

“We get people from all walks of life dancing like crazy at the gigs,” says Quintero, who was born in the U.S. but immigrated to his family’s native Colombia when he was a young boy, only to return to the States as a teenager. “Little kids, teenagers, people my age who remember the Fania All-Stars and the great salsa scene in New York during the 70s, they love it. Sometimes we even get elderly people dancing who tell us we take them back to when they went to the Palladium in the 1950s to hear Machito, Tito Rodriguez, or Tito Puente. That’s just unbelievable to hear.”

Recently the band has cut back on club gigs, concentrating more on better-paying private functions—without sacrificing its tradition of playing worthy benefits whenever possible. So while the audience is busy working up a sweat, it’s often doing so with a warm conscience. “We’ve done shows for AIDS and breast cancer awareness, political fundraisers, schools, multi-cultural and heritage festivals; we’ve done a dance benefit and art and craft sale event for Haitian children for the last nine years,” says Quintero, who works as a crisis intervention counselor at the Ulster Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) by day. “We have to put a cap on those types of shows because we also have to make some money ourselves, but we do feel it’s very important to do something to help the community whenever we can. It makes us feel really good to do that.”

With a live repertoire of standards and originals, Soñando has so far released one CD of band compositions, 2002’s dynamic Sueño del Valle (Dream of the Valley) on the group’s own Soñando Records. “We’d love to record again, but it’s hard to say how soon that will happen,” says Quintero, his baseball glove-sized hands absentmindedly playing the kitchen table. “Eric Wilson lives in Rhode Island now and commutes back here for gigs, and trying to organize sessions around the schedules of seven or eight guys can drive you crazy sometimes.”

So in the meantime, fans will have to content themselves with spinning Sueño del Valle and adjusting their own schedules to catch the band whenever they can. But you’re not likely to hear much complaining from Soñando’s followers—they’ll be far too busy dancing.

Soñando will play a special 10th anniversary performance at Mariner’s Harbor in Kingston on November 10. The band will also headline the Baile de la Hermandad Latino America organization’s annual Sister City Dance at the Church of the Messiah Hall in Rhinebeck to benefit the village of Larrynaga, Nicaragua, on November 17.
www.sonando.net