Cabaret Diosa

Exotica

Ever wonder what happens when fashionista “swing” aficionados catch that Ricky Ricardo bug from old I Love Lucy episodes? This Boulder, Colo.-based nonet—which is to Mario Bauza what Royal Crown Revue is to Louis Jordan and his Tympani Five—is fixing to find out muy pronto. Voodoo Piñata, a big-bad-daddy mélange of Perez Prado, Martin Denny, Jimmy Buffett, Billy Strange, Carmen Miranda and madre del dios knows what else, is certainly well recorded; it’s good enough to pass muster in the San Francisco “let’s play dress-up” cocktail lounges frequented by fans of this sort of entertainment. The disc’s 12 cuts are varied and are well executed—much better than you’d expect from a combo hailing from JonBenet Ramsey’s hometown. Nevertheless, once you’ve heard the real stuff, played by real Cubans, it’s hard to get succinctly tumescent over ersatz Latin Americana such as this. Looks fun live, though.