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Puerto Rican band Plena Libre isn’t boricua, it’s barbicua. Contributions to the Afro-Rican plena music were made in part by Barbadian immigrants in the Nineteenth Century, but plena is the most organic of Puerto Rico’s sounds. What sets the gregarious down-home jam of a plena apart from other tropi-Latino styles is the way it interlocks rhythms with Spanish tambourinelike hand drums. That’s the Caribbean cultural collision the decade-old band will celebrate this Saturday in conjunction with Broward’s Puerto Rican Fiestas Patronales. Plena Libre will mix it up with Cuban violinist Alfredo De La Fe, bongocero Roberto Roena, pianist Luis Marin, trumpeter Charlie Sepulveda, and trombonist William Cepeda playing songs from their tenth and most recent album Estamos Gozando! (Loose translation: We’re Having a Blast!)
