Best Dealer-Sponsored CD 2000 | Con Alma y Vida | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami

Best Dealer-Sponsored CD

Con Alma y Vida

Gaby Gabriel is best known as the long-time leader of the house orchestra at the Fontainebleau Hilton's Club Tropigala on Miami Beach. The exuberant Cuba-born singer/percussionist has developed a musical repertoire to match the diversity of his audiences, which range from Latin-American tourists to sunbirds and celebrities. But Gabriel hasn't done much recording. Until last year, when Miami's powerhouse car dealer Gus Machado offered to sponsor sessions at Hialeah's Sound Booth Recording Studio. Gabriel gathered some of the best singers and players he knows, many recently arrived from Cuba. (He is constantly besieged with calls from musicians all over the world looking to break into Miami's music scene.) Con Alma y Vida was in production most of 1999 and released in January 2000. It sounds great, a mix of original and established songs and Puerto Rican and Cuban styles. Gabriel's duet with Cubana Ilumin de Leon on José Luis Perales's "Una Locura" is beautiful. The CD was a big hit on the Internet music site mp3.com; one cut, "Cafe con Leche," stayed on the Top 10 for weeks and now is in the Top 30. Makes us wonder why the local salsa stations won't play it.

Best Electronica Artist

Phoenecia

If ever an album title seemed appropriate, it's Ischemic Strokes, the moniker Phoenecia slapped on its most recent collection, which gathered up kindred souls recording for their own Schematic label and placed them alongside the duo's own skittering, frazzled creations. After all, an ischemic stroke -- a sudden, sharp cutoff of the blood supply to an internal organ -- aptly ascribes the flavor of the music Romulo Del Castillo and Josh Kay fashion as Phoenecia: beats that reject a metronome lockstep in favor of an epileptic fit; manic buzzes and frantic clicks that evoke a computer's motherboard melting down; and an overall aural quality akin to the sound of plugging one too many power cords into an electrical outlet. 2001's Hal would most definitely approve. Of course there are hundreds of budding mad scientists all tweaking dance music into strange new forms. What elevates Phoenecia is its uniquely visceral "machines come alive" vibe. The sounds may not always be pleasant, but like a highway car wreck, it's hard to resist slowing down for a gander.

Best Local Solo Musician

William "Max" Maxwell

Drawing from a stock of blues standards, William "Max" Maxwell lends Miami Beach's Lincoln Road a touch of cultural credibility. Many the fashion-savvy beachcomber ignores this "old school" busker while he haunts the stretch between Lenox Avenue and Alton Road. Sitting on a milk crate and thumping away on his electric guitar, it seems Max only gets his fair share of attention when the rare fan passes by. Those in the know recognize old gems penned by bluesmen Charles Brown and Big Bill Broonzy. Max plays on, living the blues. "You real pretty," he sings to the neon lights and the passersby, "but you gonna die some day."

Best Piano Man

Mike Gerber

Mike Gerber works the piano as if he had begun playing in the womb. Actually he took to the instrument when he was just two and a half years old. Nearly 50 years later, the keyboardist (blind since birth) never ceases to wow audiences when he attacks the ivories. After devoting his youth to performing classical music around his native St. Louis, Gerber discovered jazz in his late teens and developed a love for improvisation that flourishes today. A mainstay in the South Florida jazz community, where he's played on and off (but mostly on) since 1969, Gerber is admired for his dazzling, speedy bursts. Although a bout with hearing loss in the late Nineties slowed his career a bit, he is back on track working toward a master's degree in jazz studies at Florida International University. In addition to his schoolwork, Gerber keeps busy gigging in area clubs such as the Van Dyke Café and hitting the occasional concert or jazz festival across North America.

Best Local Latin Band

Los Mora Arraiga

Face it, this is a recording-company town. When bands sit down to play, they're more likely to be laying tracks for a CD or mugging for a television camera than working a late-night crowd. Live music is less likely to waft through smoke-filled rooms in Miami than it is to bounce off scorching pavement at festivals designed for labels to show off artists to massive crowds of Latin-music consumers. Lucky for us this live-music-limbo has one very audible benefit: the mariachis, Los Mora Arraiga. Four brothers and four sisters between the ages of 21 and 35, the youthful mariachis from Monterrey have offered an updated take on the traditional Mexican sound for the past twelve years. The family has recorded with heavyweights such as opera singer Placido Domingo and singer-songwriter Shakira; shared the stage with acts as diverse as salsa legend Celia Cruz and Mexican experimental rockers Café Tacuba; and have been featured on television shows from Sabado Gigante to Sesame Street. All this fame and fortune does not keep Los Mora Arraiga out of earshot for the humble folk, however. The siblings regale the locals at festivals, theme parks, Native American reservations, resorts, condominium associations, and cruise ships. Suited up in leopard print sombreros, tight psychedelic shirts, or sophisticated white suits, Levi, David, Tete, Judith, Al, Edith, Pepe, and Meredith each play at least seven instruments, sing, tap dance, and deliver what they call an "audiovisual extravaganza" you don't want to miss.

Best Band To Break Up, Recombine, And Multiply In The Past Twelve Months

Grupo Nostalgia

Get ready for a little Cuban chemistry with Grupo Nostalgia. The Latin jam ensemble that won New Times's award for Best Latin Band in 1996 and 1998 has completely transformed itself. The nucleus remains bassist and band director Omar Hernandez. Circling around him for the past few years have been conguero Eduardo Rodriguez, guitarist and singer-songwriter Heriberto Rey, and dazzling pianist Michel Diaz. Long-time frontman and scalawag Luis Bofil split from the group, as did portly percussionist Eddy "Conga" Jimenez. Despite these losses the effervescent crew doubled in size. Café Nostalgia owner Pepe Horta's swell new digs on Miami Beach served as a catalyst to permanently bind the band with old friends who sat in frequently during the Little Havana days. Mellow bassist Mandy Gonzalez, reedlike flautist Mercedes Aval, and vibrant vocalist Viviana Pintado, all of whom used to drop in after gigs with Albita, are now fixtures on the more expansive stage. Saxophonist Juan "Petaca" Silveira and vocalist-percussionist Angel Arce, one of the "Patuti Twins," defected to the group from Manolín's outfit on the Cuban salsero's first trip to Miami. The biggest change of all was brought about by the two new singers. Dashing Nelson Trebejo, formerly with Orchestra Reve, whips the crowd into a frenzy while the sweet-faced newcomer Monica Sierra croons ballads full of soul. Grupo Nostalgia proves the rule: The more dramatic the chemical transformation, the hotter the reaction.

Best Musical Marathon

The Last Damn Parade: Jeff's Parade of Stars 3, December 30, 1999

One by one 50 musical acts -- that's right, more than 4 dozen -- alighted Tobacco Road's upstairs stage from 9:30 p.m. until past 3:30 a.m. for this starry-eyed, six-hour extravaganza. The show's loving creator was Jeff Rollason, musical son of former Miami City Manager Frank Rollason. Once known as the Space Cowboy, Rollason shines on with a simpler moniker: Jeff. His three parades in 1999 will go down in Miami's local rock history, perhaps, as a trio of shooting asteroids near the end of the first millennium. With a cosmic magnetism few possess, Jeff attracted almost everyone in town who fancies himself or herself a rocker. Not only did he convince them to show up, but to limit themselves to just one song (with a few exceptions). Onetime Holy Terror frontman Rob Elba, perhaps conscientiously, preferred to fill most of his precious moments yappin' between the clappin', reinforcing the notion that although rock and roll will never die, it is tough for even the most persistent souls to make a living at it. Happy to see so many old friends in the room, Elba nevertheless lamented, "How many of us have really made serious money doing this? I mean serious money?" No one listening above the din offered any names. "Either we all really suck," Elba continued, "or life is not fair." One comrade in guitars yelled, "Those two possibilities are not mutually exclusive!" In sum 'twas a memorable night in a roomful of wistful, whimsical musicians, without whom the live rock scene in Miami would fade to dark like a white dwarf burning out over the dark side of the moon.

Best Jazz Radio Program

The Modern School of Modern Jazz and More

Musicians around town often complain that Miami's reputation as little more than an international playground makes it difficult for them to play styles that depart from the tourist-oriented mainstream. It's certainly true in the local jazz scene, a genre that has a tough time, commercially speaking, almost anywhere in America. All of which makes Steve Malagodi's long-running The Modern School of Modern Jazz and More such a treasure. This two-hour smorgasbord of avant-garde artists following their muses (wherever they may take them) isn't just a great radio show by Miami standards; it's a great radio show, period. In fact you'll be hard-pressed to find many of the jazz staples regularly programmed here -- from seminal Art Ensemble of Chicago cuts to the latest from Ken Vandermark -- on the FM dial anywhere else in the nation. Sure the witching-hour time slot (Saturdays from midnight to 2:00 a.m.) isn't always convenient, but it does foster the illusion that you've stumbled across some wonderful radio secret, perhaps being broadcast from an offshore ship straight into your living room.

Best Reggae Radio Program

Sounds of the Caribbean

With WDNA-FM's Steve Radzi laying his Reggae Beat to rest after nearly twenty years, the Caribbean radio crown safely belongs to Clint O'Neil, who has provided the tropical soundtrack of choice for night owls since 1979. Aside from those gravel-voiced Bob Marley-show IDs (recorded back in the late Seventies, when Marley frequently dropped by the studio for some hangtime with O'Neil), what raises this program above the Jamaican-centered competition on several local pirate stations is its unabashed variety. Tuesday through Friday from 1:00 to 5:00 a.m., and Saturday from 1:00 to 7:00 a.m., you'll hear the latest dancehall out of Kingston, but O'Neil is just as likely to launch into a set of vintage roots reggae -- not to mention soca, calypso, or any of the other island music that gives this late-night treasure its apt name.

Best Latin Singer

Delia Diaz de Villegas

Delia's arrival in Miami one year ago is the stuff of fairy tales. Once upon a time on a tropical island, there was a lovely young woman with a voice like a precious instrument. She sang so beautifully that in 1991 she won the prestigious OTI prize for Latin music, awarded by Ibero-American Television. But the island's evil dictator did not like her winning song, "Si Todos Saben de Ti," about a man whose bad deeds everyone knows. After barring her from radio and television, the dictator banished her to Belize. Like magic, a cousin from Florida found her there, singing and tending bar in an obscure hotel. Being a kind man with a considerable fortune made in construction, he brought Delia, her family, and her band to Miami. He bought a nightclub on Miami Beach, so the group would have a place to play. Now Delia's versatile voice enchants audiences in venues all over town. She belts out salsa and Cuban country at her cousin's club, the Mojito Room. She gives thanks to her saint, Babalu Aye, at the Fontainebleau's Club Tropigala. And she serenades quiet romantics with trova and feeling at the Coral Way club Radical. Her technical virtuosity and easygoing stage manner ensure her listeners get an earful of happily ever after.

Best Dealer-Sponsored CD

Best Electronica Artist

Best Local Solo Musician

Best Piano Man

Best Local Latin Band

Best Band To Break Up, Recombine, And Multiply In The Past Twelve Months

Best Musical Marathon

Best Jazz Radio Program

Best Reggae Radio Program

Best Latin Singer

Best Of Miami®

Arts & Entertainment

Best Rock Vocalist (Female)

Gigi DeNisco

Best Rock Vocalist (Male)

Gil Bitton (Endo)

Best Venue For Live Music

The Wallflower Gallery

Best Local Rock Band

The Holy Rollin' Hellfires

Best Concert Series

Barnacle Under Moonlight

Best Movie Theater

Regal South Beach Cinema

Best Latin Radio Program

Invasión Latina

Best New Rap Artist

Lee Williams

Best Local Album Of The Past Twelve Months

Pass Out