100 / 116
6:30 PM FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2018
PAVILION
OZOMATLI
†
–Intermission–
LOS LONELY BOYS
–Intermission–
LOS LOBOS
†
Ravinia debut
LOS LOBOS
When Los Lobos first formed in 1973, they were
just a couple friends from high school who had
played in local rock bands, bonding over their
eclectic tastes. But when they began experi-
menting with the Mexican folk songs they grew
up with to play at parties around their Southern
California home, they realized the music was a
challenging new sound. Their first album was
released in 1978 (under the longer, short-lived
name Los Lobos del Este—a nod to the popular
norteño band Los Tigres del Norte), and within
a couple years Los Lobos had won a substantial
following and a record deal, releasing the EP
…And a Time to Dance
in 1983 and the criti-
cally acclaimed LP
How Will the Wolf Survive?
the next year. Around the time their second
album,
By the Light of the Moon
, was released
in 1987, Los Lobos were approached to record
some covers of Ritchie Valens’s music for the
biopic
La Bamba
, including the title track that
for them became an international number-one
hit. Los Lobos returned to traditional acoustic
Mexican music on the following year’s
La pisto-
la y el corazón
. Beginning with 1992’s
Kiko
, they
began to assemble their myriad influences into
broad experimental albums under the guidance
of producer Mitchell Froom, a collaboration
that continued with
Colossal Head
(1996) and
later informed
Good Morning Aztlán
(2002) and
The Town and the City
(2006). Even though the
members of Los Lobos maintain occasional side
projects and have recently contributed to sev-
eral tribute/cover compilations, they continue
to create imaginative new material, from the
bluesy
Tin Can Trust
(2010) to the acoustic
Dis-
connected in New York City
(2013) to their most
recent,
Gates of Gold
(2015), which coincided
with the publication of the group biography
Los
Lobos: Dream in Blue
. Los Lobos made their first
appearance at Ravinia in 1993 and return tonight
for their ninth season.
OZOMATLI
Borrowing the name of an Aztec god of dance,
Ozomatli entered the Los Angeles music scene
in the mid-’90s with an eclectic and electrifying
mix of tropical and middle-American sounds—
from cumbia to norteño to reggae. Steadily
growing in popularity in the club scene, the
band put its original music to disc in 1998 and
quickly found a broader fan base with the epon-
ymous top-10 Latin album. Its impact earned
Ozomatli a spot on Carlos Santana’s tour for the
megahit
Supernatural
, which also featured the
record-setting Mexican rock band Mana. Eyes
and ears focused even more keenly on the band
with the release of
Embrace the Chaos
—which
featured guest rapping from Common on the ti-
tle track—in 2001, earning Ozomatli the Gram-
my for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album, an
award the group would reclaim three years later
with the follow-up
Street Signs
. The latter disc
was also awarded the Latin Grammy for Best
Alternative Music Album, and a live album,
recorded at San Francisco’s historic Fillmore,
was soon released in 2005. The following year,
Ozomatli was invited by the US State Depart-
ment to become Cultural Ambassadors, giving
the band a significant platform from which to
give voice to Latino culture, as well as to its
stances on social justice issues: giving opportu-
nities to children, fighting for workers’ rights,
and promoting global unity and peace among
people, cultures, and nations. Ozomatli subse-
quently became the first musical group to pres-
ent at a TED conference in San Francisco, and
in 2012 the band turned its passion for music
that spans and brings together generations into
a disc of original children’s songs,
Ozomatli Pres-
ents OzoKidz
. Ozomatli’s most recent disc,
Non-
stop Mexico to Jamaica
, pays homage to the band
members’ Latin roots and their youth, person-
alizing such traditional classics as “Sabor a Mi”
and “Bésame Mucho,” as well as contemporary
favorites from Café Tacuba, Mana, and Selena.
Ozomatli is making its Ravinia debut.
RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JUNE 1 – JUNE 10, 2018
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