Baile an Salsa bring earthy approach to fusion music

Mixing trad with salsa sounds like a peculiar fusion, but Baile An Salsa pull it off with aplomb. The ten-piece band  play Monroe’s Live on Saturday,  December 6.

Baile An Salsa is made up of lead singer Andres Martorell, Alan Preims (congas), Antonio Aguilar (bass), Michael Chang (fiddle), Frailan Moran (Bata/percussion), Peter Brazier (mandolin/guitar), Ger Chambers (accordion), Brid Dunne (piano) Rags Ferguson (timbales/bodhrán) and Gabriel G. Diges (flute and bouzouki).

Baile An Salsa is the brainchild of Uruguay native Andres Martorell. The singer recalls how the notion came about.

“I had the idea five or six years ago,” he says “We used to play salsa in Massimo’s, and we used to go to The Crane for a pint on our break.”

“I told Alan and he said it was a good idea, and the two of us started to pick up people from different places. He contacted Mike, and then we called Antonio and different people and we put it together like that.”

The band have since gone to play The Late Late Show, where they went down a storm. They’ve also gone to number two in the Colombian charts after a Galway musician friend gave their EP to a well-known DJ in that country who became a fan and played them regularly

■ Doors for their Monroe’s show are 9pm, admission €10.