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The Conga Room Review by Marla Friedler |
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Latin music finally has a place to call home. The Conga Room is the brainchild of local real estate developer Brad Gluckstein, who says he fell in love with the music, the dance and the culture. The club is also backed by a host of celebrities and industry insiders including actress Jennifer Lopez, Jimmy Smits from NYPD Blue, baseball star Bobby Bonilla, comedian Paul Rodriguez and singer Tito "I Like It Like That" Nieves. The project’s roster of investors also includes such Hollywood notables as booking agent/marketing director Martin Fleischmann who is well known for producing large scale concerts, including the Hollywood Salsa and Latin Jazz Festival, Latin music industry mogul Ralph Mercado of RMM Records, television producers Michael Jay Solomon and Nely Galán, L.A. Philharmonic Managing Director Ernest Fleischmann, Warner/Chappell Publishing Chairman/CEO Les Bider and President Rich Shoemaker, film producers Gary Foster and David Valdes and entertainment attorney Sandy Fox. Gluckstein is a man filled with passion for Latin culture. He has traveled all over Latin America "in pursuit of the rhythm." He’s even journeyed to Cuba for a month-long vigil to study the folkloric music and dance of the Caribbean. "I was obsessed. I had to learn how to dance - classes, lesson after lesson, learning to dance on cláve. I remember trying to clap the cláve out while I was dancing. It sounds easy now but when you’re a beginner it’s not. Dancing is a learning process. You have to pay your dues to learn how to dance but ultimately the breakthrough comes when you let go and stop trying to learn. It’s sort of a weird Catch-22. First you have to beat yourself up and learn it and get it into your memory and then there has to come a breakthrough where you just have fun with it and stop trying to learn, stop beating yourself up." Gluckstein’s love and knowledge of the dance and culture shine through in the design and layout of the Conga Room, a dancer’s dream. As I arrived at the Conga Room I felt as though I was entering The Promised Land. The sign out front is a big conga with two hands going up and down as though playing the conga. The hypnotic sound of congas permeates the entrance. Gluckstein states, "I want to get people in the right mood before they even get inside." Although the club is large (12,000 square feet), it is also quite intimate due to the separate rooms and lounges, each with its own unique flavor. Every room has a different sensibility in terms of what it means as a Latino image. Some rooms are for sitting, talking and eating. These rooms are soft and traditional while the pace increases in the rooms meant for drinking and dancing. The conga room, the club’s namesake, is a brightly colored lounge area just outside the main ballroom and is dominated by 8- foot congas on the walls and real congas with formica tops for tables. According to Gluckstein, "This is the heart, the epicenter of the club. I feel the same way about the music. The beat of the congas is the heart of the music." The patio connecting to the conga room is traditionally styled from the light fixtures to the way the doors open. Even the bathrooms have their own style, a cross between pre-Castro Havana and modern Miami. To go with the different themes of each room, there will be different rhythms heard. The entrance will be filled with percussion, the lounge area with an eclectic blend of anything from Luis Miguel to Cal Tjader to Sam Cooke and, of course, the ballroom will abound with salsa. This attention to detail is no accident. The club’s designer is Ron Meyers, well known for his flamboyant creations (Tryst on La Cienega, Atlas Bar & Grill and DC3 in Santa Monica). He, along with Gluckstein, have created a Latino fantasy island, richly defined by Latino culture. In one area, for example, what at first resembles typical Dutch paintings of fruit - on closer inspection reveals that all of the fruits are of Latin descent and were, in fact, hand painted by different Latin artists. The statues are traditional, yet elegant. All of the frames are finely crafted beautiful old frames. The son of the director of Like Water For Chocolate is working on a 3D torso which will be covered with Latino image tattoo art - from the cláve to religious orisha relics. The club took a lot of risks with the artwork. There are political and religious statements that some may find offensive but to Gluckstein, "For us it’s about the culture, not the politics." Gluckstein adds, "At first we were thinking about decorating the club with memorabilia like Jennifer’s dress from Selena but we decided that was too commercial so we’ll just let the fact that these people are investors speak for itself." You may see the celebrities entering the Conga Room through the VIP Entrance, a long corridor filled with black and white photographs of Cuba along the walls and the sound of Afro-Cuban percussion eminating from a separate sound system. Or you may find one of them in the VIP Room, which doubles as a cigar lounge. The VIP Room features lavish 18th century furniture and a television monitor so its inhabitants can see when the main act is on stage.
When asked how he got the idea of opening the Conga Room, Gluckstein replied, "I came up with the idea about 3 or 4 years ago. I felt that there was a tremendous audience beyond the local salsa crowd as we know it that would be very interested and would find the music and the culture very accessible if the concept was done right. When I say doing the concept right I mean making the place culturally intelligent and you know what I’m talking about because you’ve been there." I asked him how he went about getting the high-profile investors and if it was a long road to get the Conga Room open. "I think the concept is contagious. It wasn’t as if I was trying to sell something to these people. If you look at the celebrities and industry investors - Jennifer who is Nuyorican, Jimmy who also is Nuyorican, Paul who’s into the music, Nely Galán, Michael Solomon, your friend Ralphie Mercado - they all share the same spiritual attachment to the culture and to the music. "The key to the project was perseverance, relationships and capital. Number one, I’m probably the most dogged and persistent person I know. I don’t take no for an answer and I go after my dreams. Number two, I’ve made many connections over the years from my other business, which is real estate, and I’ve been able to access certain relationships based on that. Number three, it took the ability to sustain the project economically, which was handled soley by me for a long time before I brought all the investors in. That was a big, gigantic risk and not many people would have done that when the vision was so green and so raw." I asked him how he feels now, knowing that his dream is about to become realized. "Marla, it feels great and I’m happy for myself but I’m also happy for the city and the people who will enjoy it. I’m thrilled personally but I’m mostly thrilled for the community at large because the Conga Room will give people the opportunity to understand the Latino culture for the beauty and essence that it really is. I think the Conga Room will be the most famous west coast venue for Latin rhythms period. We will be the vortex for tours and all the major acts." And those acts will probably appreciate the huge stage in the ballroom while the dancers will appreciate the all-wooden floor, specially prepared for lots of salsa dancing. The fact that Gluckstein is a dancer himself is great for the rest of us who love to dance. The design of the club definitely has the dancer in mind. I asked Gluckstein how long he had been dancing and he said that although his parents danced to the rumba and mambo when he was a kid, he was basically a jock most of his life until he was 30 when "I hung up my high tops and put on my dance shoes." And now it’s about time for you to get your dance shoes out because opening night, February 20th, the Queen of Salsa - Celia Cruz - will be performing. Opening week also includes performances by Tito Nieves and Melcochita. The planned schedule is as follows:
There will also be a monthly Brazilian night. Dance lessons will be taught on Thursday and Friday by Alex DaSilva and on Saturday by Laura Canellius. Although you may dine upstairs in the club, there is also a stand alone restaurant downstairs. The cuisine is "Nuevo Latino," Cuban and South American basics with a touch of nouvelle. With its impressive mixture of both traditional and modern Latin culture and music, the Conga Room promises to be a very elegant and eclectic way to whirl away an evening. There are future plans of opening Conga Rooms in Miami, New York, London, Paris, Mexico City and Madrid, but for now you can catch all the action at 5364 Wilshire Blvd., just west of La Brea. For tickets and information, call 213.938.1696. Website: http://www.congaroom.com |