By Jon Pareles
The 25th annual Latin Grammy Awards, broadcast live on Univision from the Kaseya Center in Miami last Thursday night, consciously looked backward. Frequent winners collected more top awards. Clips from past shows bracketed live shots. There were fervent tributes to departed superstars and nods to musical dynasties.
In an era when many Latin musicians are experimenting and gleefully warping genre boundaries, the Latin Grammys flaunted the familiar. Perhaps that’s inevitable for an institution marking a milestone. But that earnestness cut back on the old Latin Grammy carnival spirit. The show still had some visual flair — particularly in the surreal, asymmetrical dresses worn by women who appeared as presenters and attendees. But its music held back.
Dominican songwriter Juan Luis Guerra and his group 4.40 won awards for album of the year for “Radio Güira,” a six-song EP, and record of the year for the single “Mambo 23.” “Radio Güira” also won the award for bachata/merengue album and “Mambo 23” for tropical song. Guerra has won 28 Latin Grammys, dating to two at the first event in 2000.
Uruguayan songwriter Jorge Drexler’s “Derrumbe” (“Collapse”) — a brief, poetic ballad with turbulent studio undercurrents — was named song of the year. It also tied with Kany García’s “García” for cantautor (singer-songwriter) song. Drexler now has 15 Latin Grammys.
The Latin Grammy broadcast, like the Grammy Awards show, focuses on performances, not presentations. Only nine of the 58 Latin Grammy categories received awards on the broadcast; the others were presented earlier Thursday afternoon on a webcast. Edgar Barrera was named both songwriter and producer of the year, and Argentine songwriter Nathy Peluso won three awards. The Portuguese-language categories included two awards for Brazilian songwriter Jota.Pê and a third for the engineers of his album “Se o Meu Peito Fosse o Mundo” (“If My Chest Were the World”).
On the live broadcast, the performances were oddly proportioned. Too many songs were crammed into medleys. Carlos Vives, who has channeled rural Colombian styles like vallenato into pop hits, was named person of the year — a kind of lifetime achievement award — by the Latin Grammys; he opened the show with snippets of six hits in a six-minute segment. Luis Fonsi, who won an award for pop vocal album, got four minutes for bits of three songs including his groundbreaking crossover hit, “Despacito.”
But Miami-based rapper and producer Pitbull got ample time to perform his new single, “Now or Never” — an electronic dance music update of the Bon Jovi hit “It’s My Life” — with Jon Bon Jovi himself singing alongside Pitbull’s boasts.
Less established performers ended up sharing brief segments, though a few managed to make an impact. Latin trap singer Eladio Carrión had a gospelly choir backing him in his filial “Mama’s Boy,” before he made his way into the audience to embrace his mother as it ended.
Wiser performers, or better connected ones, got to create the storytelling dynamics of full-length songs. “Mambo 23,” Guerra’s hit, seesaws between relaxed bachata and upbeat merengue, and he took the time to let both play out. Carín León, who connects the galvanizing dynamics of Mexican singing to American styles, performed an extended version — pushing toward a power ballad — of just one of his songs, “Despídase Bien” (“Say Goodbye Well”) from “Boca Chueca Vol. 1,” named best contemporary Mexican music album. And Ela Taubert, a straightforward pop-rock songwriter from Colombia, belted her breakup song, “Cómo Pasó?” (“How Did It Happen?”), as a duet with English verses from Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers. She won the new artist award.
Anitta, a multilingual Brazilian pop star, seized a quiet moment to make an elegant statement of her connection to Brazil’s past. Backed by Brazilian songwriter Tiago Iorc on acoustic guitar, she turned her come-on “Mil Veces” into an urbane bossa nova, then honored Sergio Mendes, the Brazilian fusion hitmaker who died this year, by singing his career-making hit (written by Jorge Ben Jor), “Mas Que Nada.”
Marc Anthony, who has a supple, sinewy, once-in-a-generation voice, assembled a tribute to salsa that culminated in him duetting with singer La India for the first time in 29 years. It was a duel of breath control and pitch control; he won, but La India was formidable. A mariachi tribute to three titans of Mexican music — Juan Gabriel, José José and Vicente Fernández — gave multiple singers a chance to unleash their melismas and wide vibratos, culminating in a commanding appearance by Alejandro Fernández, Vicente’s son.
In Latin music, nuances matter, not just hooks. The Latin Grammys could represent one of music’s most fertile, unruly, rigorous but open-eared frontiers. Maybe next year’s awards can celebrate the music’s future as much as its past.
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