National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Plena Libre burst onto the musical scene in Puerto Rico in 1994, with a musical offering that was different, fresh, danceable, and experimental, but rooted in the traditional 100-years-old genre: the Puerto Rican plena. At the time, the Latin commercial music scene was mostly centered on salsa and ballads, but founder and bandleader Gary Nuñez formed the group with a mission in mind: To reinvent and update the genre and take it from its folkloric pigeonhole and into the modern dancefloor, much like Cortijo and Ismael Rivera did in the '50s and Mon Rivera in the '60s. "We are not a straight plena group, but we reflect our generation and the way it sees the world," said Nuñez. "Ultimately we want to make plena as popular as any other music in the world."

Bass player, composer and arranger Nuñez's love affair with Puerto Rico's native music began much before Plena Libre. In 1975, while the Latin world was tuned to salsa, he began to study Puerto Rico's music traditions, learned to play the cuatro and formed a group that developed moliendo vidrio, Puerto Rico's version of the Latin American nueva cancion music movement. Nuñez later created Caribe Jazz, a project that fused jazz idioms with Afro-Rican rhythms, and in 1994 he formed Plena Libre. The group made an immediate splash on the music scene in Puerto Rico. Plena Libre's first recording, Juntos y Revueltos, was the first plena record to be played on commercial airwaves in many years, and its hit song "Mañana por la Mañana" captured the imagination of youth and veteran Puerto Ricans alike. In the years since, the group recorded 10 more albums and proceeded to become Puerto Rico's ambassadors of the new style abroad as well. The band's fiery performances often feature the panderos making their way through the audience playing the drums as they head to join the other band members onstage.

The core of the band's repertoire remains the plena and the bomba, and its recordings contain new compositions and as well as material written by some of the great bomba and plena composers. But the distinctive sound of Plena Libre is born of the mix of old and new. To the basic plena ensemble featuring the panderos, Nuñez added bass, keyboards, timbales, congas, four trombones and, on Evolucion (2005), a baritone sax. The style draws on both the traditional and the modern, and the arrangements mix in other Caribbean rhythms, such as the merengue, comparsa, samba and güagüanco. The rhythm section of "Evolución", for example, infuses plena and bomba with a variety of rhythms and styles, including the Brazilian samba, the complicated 6/8ths and African touches of the bata drums and the descarga (jam) style of a Latin-jazz tune. Add to that jazz idioms, powerful horn charts and upbeat dance-floor tempos and you have the sound of Plena Libre. The recordings often feature guest instruments such as cuatro, flute, accordion or electric guitar, and this open approach is a Plena Libre hallmark.

Plena Libre was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2001 as best traditional tropical album for Mas Libre, for the ACE Awards in 2002 as best tropical traditional group and, in 2003, nominated for the general Grammys for best traditional tropical album for Mi Ritmo. Recognitions of Plena Libre as a cultural and musical force in Puerto Rico are also abound: The band was honored with a dedication at the Fiesta de la Calle San Sebastian—the largest carnival production honoring Puerto Rican culture—and received numerous awards, from the Rafael Cepeda Foundation, the city of Loiza and from the House of Representatives, among others. —Nili Belkind