After the FQXI's excellent conference on the Physics of Information in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and a wonderful day in San Juan and the El Yunque rainforest, being shown around by my wife's incredibly hospitable second cousin, we set off from the Howard Johnson's to check out the live music reputed to exist at the Isla Verde resorts.  It was early---just past 8 PM---and the music hadn't started in the huge, over-the-top (oval central bar overhung by enormous gilt-and-glass chandelier, dark wood panelling all round, several more bars on the sides) lobby of the El San Juan.  Something called, as best I can recall, "cuentas retrovistas" was to be on at 9... so we continued to the Ritz-Carlton.  There a perfectly nice-sounding but rather demure female vocalist held forth accompanied by an electronic keyboardist using both his own fingers and some latin-ish presets, and a rather sedate crowd listened sipping drinks in cushiony chairs.  We asked one of the doormen where we could find live music, and after clarifying that we didn't mean what was happening in the lobby bar, but rather a conjunto mas grande playing something like salsa, he directed us to the next hotel down the way, the Marriott Courtyard Isla Verde (actually in Carolina, the next municipality over from San Juan).  After we passed a few restaurants with a promisingly funky appearance (and promising music wafting from a private party above one of them), things seemed to peter out into a darkish road paralleling the freeway, but as it wasn't completely deserted we kept on and eventually arrived at the Marriott. The doorman at the Ritz had not steered us wrong... this turned out to be the place.

The Picante lobby lounge features a square bar with plenty of seating, in the middle of quite a large space with plenty of tables, many empty when we arrived but completely filling up over the next hour or so, open on three sides to a lobby (featuring a mini-casino) and the walkway to the beach, with a happening dance floor between the bar and the stage in one corner, where a no-nonsense, very solid band, La Sonora Sanjuanera, was pumping out straight-ahead salsa, merengue, rumbas, son and such:

Mixed-age crowd, casually well-dressed or better, lots of good dancers keeping the floor full, some of them executing some elegant moves.  Seemingly mostly local, friendly vibe.  Nice big bar, with good mojitos.  Easy to walk out on the beach and contemplate the floodlit surf.  The Sanjuanera is led by pianist and vocalist Victor Garcia Ruiz, and he does a great job in both areas.  To my ears their music skews towards the elemental and folkoric side of Afro-Caribbean Latin musics, especially toward the beginning of a piece when often only congas, or some other subset of the percussion, upright bass, a little piano, are backing the vocal.  As a piece goes on, more drumming comes in with more rhythm, locking in the clave, then the trumpet section riffs are laid on, and things just keep getting more and more complex, the polyrhythmic call-and-response more and more compelling.  Then the latin-jazz side of things hits hard as the pianist solos---he likes to play around with all kinds of dramatic set pieces in his solos---chromatic stuff, playing lines in octaves, interjecting a well-known latin riff or two for a while---inbetween dispensing classic bop-influenced lines, and he likes to hit the dominant seventh sharp elevenths and such hard---fun stuff.  Always in touch with the latin rhythms though. There's nothing quite like getting to listen to some pungent bebop harmonies and licks while dancing to an implacable Latin beat.  Trumpet solos, while shorter, also bring in the bebop sensibiity but fused with a brassier, more Spanish-tinged sound than usual in jazz.  There's enough variation in tempos, rhythms, styles too keep from getting bored in a couple or more hours of dancing.  And the band takes enough time from numbers to give people a little rest... probably strategically timed to last just long enough to get some people off the floor and up to the bar. Some of the tunes were presumably covers of well-known hits---the ones that had a fair number of people at the bar and on the floor singing along.

We left as the second band, La Mulenze, was arriving---probably a mistake on our part but we did not want to get too exhausted.   We walked past a long line of cars filling the left-turn lane coming into the Marriott., suggesting the Mulenze might be the main draw.  (From the schedule at the Marriott's website, the Sanjuanera seems to play there quite a lot, the Mulenze probably being a rarer attraction.)

We stopped by the El San Juan on the way back, where the band was finally on.  The vast lobby with its multiple bars and armchairs was now full, with a crowd that seemed a little drunker, more international and probably noticeably more touristy, the band was playing something funk/soul/pop-ish, then something classic-rockish.  An interlude of salsa was done pretty well, motivating some dancing, but then it was back to classic rock.  Even Springsteen's "Hold On (To What You Got)" seemed somehow heavy and downbeat and the dance moves it inspired crude compared to the ebullience of the Sanjuanera and the elegance of the good salsa dancing there, so we moved on down the beach and after a short while under the portal of another beachfront hotel sheltering from a brief rain squall (excellent salsa from a private function sounding from the top floor club), back to our hotel to snooze.

As far as I know, the Sanjuanera has made two CDs, the newest of which is from 2011, P'al bailador que guapea!.  A few cuts from Youtube to whet your appetite:

Yembe Iaroco a Cuban rumba written by Rafael Blanco Suazo best known, I guess, in a 1951 recording by Celia Cruz and La Sonora Matancera) has a strong Afro-Caribbean feel, possibly Iaroco refers to the Mexican coastal area of Veracruz:

Oye el consejo is another hard-hitting rumba:

For some variety, Quiéreme is basically salsified doo-wop: