Ozomatli: The party politicians

Ozomatli are one of the world's best live bands, and one of the most political. Tim Cumming travels with them

It's hard to imagine two more contrasting gigs in one day for the Afro-Latin hip-hop band Ozomatli to have chalked up in their tour diary. The first is before a smattering of local youths in a temporary community centre, a cavernous white canvas bubble on a piece of wasteland in Grove Hall, a district of Roxbury, south-east of Boston. The second is an exclusive invitation-only charity bash at the Roxy, one of Boston's premiere music venues.

It's a fair distance from Roxbury to the Roxy, with more than just heavy traffic between them. Grove Hall has never fully recovered from riots in the late Sixties that saw 15 blocks go up in flames. High rates of crime, poverty, unemployment, and drug abuse predominate; only a few days before, a junkie's body was recovered from behind the hall. It's an area of decaying wooden tenements, utilitarian public housing, and hard-scrabble businesses, and the dome that once housed an "enchanted village" in Boston's City Plaza is now staffed by armed police and a team of street workers.

It caters as a refuge from local gangs for kids from surrounding schools, for whom there are few other outlets for legal recreation. "It's the only place where kids can learn to socialise," says street worker Warn Williams, "The only place where they can find a community outside the gangs."

Seven of the ten-piece band roll up in the van that afternoon, spilling out into the hall to set up their equipment. There's a brutal wind picking up speed outside, and inside the sound is a muddy, echoing boom that is difficult to control. When the soundcheck is over, the sax player and vocalist Ulises Bella talks about their shared enthusiasm for the likes of Tinariwen and Rachid Taha, and the band's incorporation of North African sounds into their music, most prominently on 2004's excellent album, Street Signs.

"Everybody had been fans of the music," he says, "turning up with the coolest, rarest North African music we could find. And after 9/11, it was really important to incorporate that sound, especially in America, because there was a big backlash, with the system trying to paint a villain. And we're definitely a band of inclusion, and as a band we wanted to give cultural and artistic backing to that part of the world."

They begin their set as the skies open, the pounding of the rain providing an unexpected new layer of percussion. Some way into the fourth number, a couple of girls from the neighbourhood step up to work the turntables with DJ "Spinobi" Dominguez. Warn Williams follows them to launch head-first into an impassioned rap that sounds like he's waited a lifetime to deliver.

Behind him, the band's bassist, Wil-Dog Abers, slows the band's Latinate beat with a fat, hip-hop bassline, punctuated by bursts of brass and searing, pedal-fuelled guitar. The band's organic unity is remarkable in such impromptu circumstances, pulling off an inspired improvisation reminiscent of the explorations of the Miles Davis band in the mid-Seventies.

Ozomatli have come here at the behest of Stop Handgun Violence, an organisation that has worked hard to re-brand the debate over gun ownership in an America dominated by the National Rifle Association mindset. The state has the toughest gun laws in the Union. "Welcome to Massachusetts," reads a billboard behind the Red Soxx ground, "You're more likely to live here."

It is for Stop Handgun Violence that Ozomatli play that night; a $250-a-head fundraiser with the city's great and good feasting on oysters, rare sirloin, artichoke hearts, and free liquor.

Asdrubal Sierra, trumpeter and lead vocalist, takes stock from behind the lavishly-stocked main bar, feeling freaked out in the presence of so much wealth gathered together. He fears it could be a tough audience.

He need not be worried. They kick-start some street-life into the corporate crowd by marching through the audience from the back of the club, beating up a riotous carnival samba on hand drums and brass before taking the stage to deliver a blistering set that barely pauses for breath.

Ozomatli's mix of Hispanic, black, white and Asian band members reflects both where they came from - "downtown LA; around the La Brea Tar Pits," says Wil-Dog - and the broad boundaries of their music. Salsa, hip-hop, psychedelic rock, Mexican songs, snatches of ska and rai, all make up an unlikely but unified and powerful mix. "When people first came in, it was like, 'What do you know?'" says Wil-Dog. "'Well, I know a Mexican folk tune.' 'OK, give us the chords.' And that's how it developed; whatever people could do and were good at."

The catalyst that brought them together was a strike and sit-in in a building run by the LA Conservation Corp. "We ended up getting the rights to the building we worked in and started a cultural centre for youth, and called it the Peace and Justice centre," remembers Raul Pacheco, the band's guitarist.

They began playing benefit concerts to keep the centre open. "And that's the sole reason we got together," says Wil-Dog. "People started asking, 'will you play here next week?' It was like, sure, okay."

They have come a long way since those first youth centre gigs, what with two Grammy awards and three acclaimed albums under their belt, and this week sees the launch of a superb live audio and DVD set from the Fillmore West, one of their favourite venues. "It's not too big, you can communicate with the people, and the sound is great," says Raul.

Seeing Ozomatli in action it is easy to see why they have been dubbed "the world's best live band". They are also one of the few to successfully combine a party atmosphere with political intent without the one counting the other out. "It's part of who we are as people," says Wil-Dog. "We're also a bunch of jokers, and there's a lot of both in the band. I mean, you can't be serious and dogmatic all the time. It's boring."

'Ozomatli: Live at the Fillmore' is out now on Concord Records