Latin Notes: Romantic salsa on tap

New York Times music contributor Jon Carmanica described Manuelle like this: “This onetime salsa upstart has already become a genre elder thanks to unabashedly romantic songs, skipping some of salsa's traditional toughness for tenderness.”

The Latin Grammy-nominated artist often called El Sonero de la Juventud for his improvised solos that appeal to young audiences performs a late-night concert at Club Rio Friday night. Tickets cost $30; $60 VIP. He's promoting his latest album, the personal, self-produced “Yo Mismo,” which delivered the bubbly hit “Mirame,” No. 4 on Billboard's Tropical Songs chart.

“I'm quite certain it lives up to expectations,” Manuelle, 39, told El Sentinel, a Spanish-language newspaper in Orlando, Fla. “It's a record very focused on what is tropical (music), the sound that gave me hits so many years ago.”

He has recorded 13 albums but is best known for his run of hits in the mid-'90s. He rivals Marc Anthony for sex appeal and trumped him when he snagged the honor (and bragging rights) of singing “La Vida Es Un Carnaval” a cappella at Celia Cruz's funeral at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 2003.

Last summer, he played an all-star concert at Madison Square Garden for Polito Vega, the legendary DJ and proponent of Caribbean music. He was also the king of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York, one of the city's largest festivals.

The New York Daily News captured the excitement of both milestones.

“This event fills us with a lot of pride because it represents what our homeland is,” Manuelle said at a press conference. “It allows us, once a year, here in New York, to let the world know and us scream it out loud: ‘We are Boricuas' (Puerto Ricans).”

Last May, he released his first collection of ballads, “Muy Personal.” They reflected a new phase of his life, he said.

What can salsa fans expect Friday night? The New York Times' Caramanica offers the best clues.

“A supremely controlled performer, (Manuelle) will never have the lurid appeal of a Hector Lavoe — the 1970s salsa star who helped cement the reputation of New York's Fania Records — instead preferring the restraint of Gilberto Santa Rosa, his mentor,” Caramanica wrote after Manuelle's triumphant 2008 Central Park concert.

“Mr. Manuelle showed that it's possible to be mature without being dull.”