Amy French, who works for the City of Palo Alto (COPA?) and was a year ahead of me at Gunn, told me that the band her husband was affiliated with, Pacific Mambo Orchestra, had won a Grammy recently, but I only got as far as typing his name, “gustavo cortez” into my stupid cell phone, when the lady from the City, another lady, wanted to interview me. So it took me awhile, and two posts to connect the dots, thanks to fellow wordpresser Eat Paint Dance.
edita: like most things,the story is more complicated than at first glance. Like, why is the Times article datelined “Oakland” rather than, por ejemplo, Redwood City?
It truly is a small world! In September I went to the local Salsa festival and happened upon an ad for the Pacific Mambo Orchestra. Looking at it I noticed that the band leader is Christian Tumalan. I recognize the name but I doubted that the guy I know by that name was the same guy. The Christian Tumalan I know is the father of my daughter’s friend. She is in the girl scout troop for whom I was the leader and he teaches piano. And, yes, the Christian Tumalan I know is the director of the Orchestra.
I missed the Pacific Mambo Orchestra’s show at the festival unfortunately, but I got invited to Club Cocomo the following Monday where PMO was playing. And this is a great band. It is a 20 piece band with a huge horn section. Generally when I see a big horn section walk on…
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Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 