Percussion queen Sheila E. seeks solace from LA fires in Tucson show

There’s one thing legendary percussionist Sheila Escovedo has learned in her illustrious career: Music can bring people together, especially in times of tragedy.

“It can be healing for your spirit, for your soul, you know, takes your mind off of things,” said the artist best known by her stage name Sheila E.

That statement rings truer now than it ever has for the 67-year-old California native and Los Angeles resident, who for weeks watched wildfires swallow neighboring communities since the first blazes sparked Jan. 7.

Her home has thus far been spared, she said last week, 10 days after she evacuated as a precaution when she could see from her backyard the red embers glowing in the distance. She is staying with family out of the fire’s range, but last Thursday she got a chance to go back home and survey the situation.

“It’s clear, but the smoke smell is very bad so I probably wouldn’t be able to stay there,” she said during a phone call 30 minutes later. “This is going to take a long time. This is not an overnight fix at all.”

Escovedo said the situation at home will surely be on her mind when she and The E-Train band take the Fox Tucson Theatre stage on Saturday, Jan. 25, to close out the 11th annual HSL Properties Tucson Jazz Festival.

Tucson will be her second concert of the new year and comes just days before the 67th Annual Grammy Awards ceremonies on Feb. 2; Escovedo is up for two trophies — Best Tropical Latin Album for “Bailar” and Best Global Music Performance for “Bemba Colorá.”

“Bailar,” released last April, is Escovedo’s first salsa album in a career that has been deeply seeped in Latin music alongside jazz, R&B and pop since the late 1970s.

“It was an amazing project, I think, one of my favorite projects that I’ve done lately, and something that I’ve always wanted to do,” she said, adding that she had flirted with the idea for five years before finally doing it last year.

“Bailar” pays tribute to the legendary Fania All-Stars, comprised of salsa and Latin artists, including Rubén Blades, Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Ricardo Ray and Bobby Cruz. The All-Stars members all recorded on the seminal New York-based Fania Records, a major force over the past 60 years in driving salsa music to a global arena.

Escovedo’s record covers several Fania All-Stars songs, including “Anacaona,” featuring Blades; “El Rey del Timbal,” with Gilberto Santa Rosa; and “Descarga,” featuring José “El Canario” Alberto and Sheila E.’s father, drummer Pete Escovedo.

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But one of the album’s biggest highlights for Escovedo was paying tribute to Celia Cruz with a cover of her 1966 hit “Bemba Colorá.”

“It was a song that I’ve always loved. And to be able, when I was younger, to meet Celia and then actually play with her and Tito together, that was just a crazy moment,” Escovedo said. “Celia was someone who I really admired.”

Escovedo brought in superstar Gloria Estefan and vocalist Mimy Succar, whose son Tony Succar co-produced “Bailar,” to sing on the song.

“Doing a Ceila Cruz song, there’s only one person you can call and that’s glorious Gloria,” Escovedo said. “I sent her a text and ... I told her I was doing ‘Bemba Colorá’ and she would be the one to sing it, and I might have a few other people singing as well. And she heard the arrangement, she goes, ‘Oh my god, this is amazing. Yes, yes, yes.’”

Unfortunately, her Tucson Jazz Festival audience on Saturday might only hear one or two tracks from the album; The E-Train band doesn’t have enough players to pull off the musical might needed for salsa. But they will hear three or four cuts off her year-old Sheila E. and the E-Train record “Hella Fonk E,” which some critics have praised as her best release in decades.

“And everyone knows that I’m going to play ‘Glamorous Life’ and ‘Love Bizarre,’” she said of the two songs that came from her early 1980s collaborations with Prince.

Saturday’s concert at the Fox, 17 W. Congress St., starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20-$119.50 through foxtucson.com.

Also on this final Tucson Jazz Festival weekend at the Fox:

• Legendary jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd Ocean Trio featuring Gerald Clayton and Anthony Wilson are on stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 24; $20-$74.50.
• Swedish multi-instrumentalist Gunhild Carling teams up with the University of Arizona Studio Jazz Ensemble and Canadian jazz vocalist Caity Gyorgy for a 2 p.m. matinee show on Saturday, Jan. 25 at the Fox; $42.50- $52.50 through foxtucson.com.

Other events this weekend:

• On Friday and Saturday, Casey’s Cabaret Cats will transform The Lounge at ATC (Temple of Music and Art), 330 S. Scott Ave., into a burlesque/jazz club circa 1920s with “Hot Tucson Night, Live Jazz Burlesque” beginning at 8 p.m. each day. Tickets are $25-$40 through tucsonjazzfestival.org.
• Tucson’s own Arthur Vint Quintet headlines Late Night Jazz as the final show of the festival on Sunday at The Century Room, 311 E. Congress St. in Hotel Congress. They go on stage at 10:30 p.m. and tickets are $10-$20 through tucsonjazzfestival.org.