Bassist Saul Sierra hones potent sound from mix of Latin flavors

It is a truth universally acknowledged among musicians that an unattached bass player in possession of considerable talent will not long be in want of a gig.

Born and raised in Mexico City and trained at Berklee College of Music in Boston on an academic scholarship, Saúl Sierra moved out to the Bay Area in 1999 and within weeks he’d connected with many of the top artists in Latin jazz, salsa, and Brazilian music.

For the next two decades the Palo Alto bassist became a steady collaborator with percussionist John Santos, Dr. Loco’s Rocking Jalapeño Band, violinist Anthony Blea and his Charanga, Cuban conguero Jesus Diaz and his QBA, the song-centric Cascada de Flores, San Jose Jazz’s SJZ Collective, and Venezuelan four-master Jackeline Rago’s Snake Trio and Venezuelan Music Project, to name a handful.

But in the pressure cooker of the first years of the pandemic Sierra decided the time was ripe to showcase his own compositions and arrangements. With the support of a grant from InterMusic SF he released his first album under his own name, 2024’s pan-American jazz suite “Caminos.”

He’s already developed another album’s worth of material, establishing his own musical identity by embracing the many Latin American idioms he loves.

“I’ve been playing this music for a long time,” he said. “Some 20 years ago I  learned about Venezuelan music from Jackeline Rago. I used to play more Peruvian music, which I miss. I learned about Uruguayan music from Edgardo Cambon. That’s what I had in mind when I wrote ‘Caminos,’ drawing on music I’ve been playing and styles I love.”

He brings his quartet to the SJZ Break Room on Friday, Jan.30 as part of San Jose Jazz’s winter concert series, featuring pianist and trumpeter Marco Diaz and percussionist Julio Pérez, who have performed widely with Sierra as El Tren Trío. They’re joined by rising Nicaraguan-American percussionist Ahkeel Mestayer, “a young lion of percussion who’s studied with everyone,” Sierra said.

“He knows the folkloric Cuban side and he’s got a PhD in ethnomusicology from Cal. He’s dedicated to the art, and grew up listening to all of us. Sometimes I think of him as a young John Santos.”

Sierra presents a very different set of music at Oakland’s Sound Room on Saturday, Feb. 14 with Diaz, Pérez, drummer/percussionist Emilio Davalos, vocalist Laura Bravo, and guitarist Jorge Liceaga and vocalist Arwen Lawrence (who perform and record as Cascada de Flores).

“That’s a different show, with music for Valentine’s Day,” Sierra said. “We’ll be playing romantic songs with all kinds of rhythms, Afro-Peruvian lando, salsa, bolero, all the themes.”

Sierra traces his expansive ear back to his upbringing in Mexico City. When he started working professionally in his late teens he often played five-hour gigs on the party circuit, “45 minutes on, 15 minutes off, and you play every style you can imagine,” he recalled. “Not folkloric stuff, but all this different dance music.”

Duly impressed by his rhythmic prowess, John Santos met Sierra in his first week in the Bay Area and quickly hired him as a sub in his Machete Ensemble. When he disbanded the 10-piece group in 2006 to create a more economically viable combo, Sierra took over the bass chair in Santos’s quintet or sextet. He’s held it down ever since, while also contributing many arrangements to the band’s book.

Whether he’s playing double bass, electric bass or baby bass, “his playing is very percussive,” Santos said, “I see that largely as a result of traditional Mexican music and the guitarrón, the big bass guitar. His approach is super rhythmic, really striking the strings, almost playing conga. I don’t see anybody else like that.”

They’ve also bonded over their love of danzón, the elegant Cuban dance style dating back to the 19th century. “Mexico is the only country outside of Cuba that adopted danzón and made it their own,” Santos said. “They feel it’s theirs, and Saúl has written several beautiful danzónes.”

He’ll be handling bass duties at the Freight in Berkeley March 1 when the John Santos Sextet presents The African Roots of Jazz Latino with Congolese-American percussionist Kiazi Malonga, Guinean percussionist Bongo Sidibé, African-American percussionist Baba Moshé Milon, and educator Lakiba Pittman making a rare appearance as a vocalist.

It’s another case of Sierra spreading his creative wings, while preparing to make his next statement as a bandleader. “The title is Pan-American Point of View,” he said. “It’s not just Caribbean, Puerto Rico and Cuba. I like music from all over the Americas, and of course from Mexico.”

Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.

SAÚL SIERRA QUARTET

When & where: 8 p.m. Jan.30 at San Jose Jazz’s Break Room, San Jose; $27; sanjosejazz.org; 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14 at the Sound Room, Oakland; $35-$40; www.soundroom.org