Like Ozomatli, San Diego’s B-Side Players observe the fateful September 11th release of their latest album, which in this case is a full-length debut for a septet that has been moving booties since 1993. Given the group’s new-school, pan-Latino-groove similarities to los Ozos from L.A., the disc’s title seems to describe a cultural phenomenon rather than political program.


The influential Chicano Movement of the ’60s and ’70s that inspired such funky Cali groups as Malo and Tierra is abridged here, and the “movement” now stands for a trans-nationalist, anti-machismo (though largely male), socially conscious junta of artists whose lyrical messages and musical mezclas are more spiritual than militant, more culturally inclusive than centric.
Not afraid to take a peyote vision-quest, B-Side Players also have no problem reaching beyond the borders of Aztlán (Southwestern territory claimed by the Chicano Movement) to savor East Coast confluences of Nuyorican/African boogaloo and salsa. But B-Side Players come together more out of energy — or “Puro Feeling,” as they put it — than musical virtuosity. Their use of horns, woodwinds, keys, turntables, Afro-Latin percussion, and rock instrumentation is not as seamless as Ozomatli’s, nor is it as masterful in its grasp of sources, execution, or overt political articulation. More pages are borrowed from pop reggae and alt-rock genera than the old masters, but as the B-Sides put it on the opening cut, “Souldier,” which features a sizzling timbale-versus-turntable descarga, “you’re fighting to keep your soul alive.” Bottom line: They succeed.
December 2001, Illinois Entertainer

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