What shelf does Raul Malo belong on? Doesn't matter -- Just listen

Raul Malo has always been difficult to categorize, dating to his days fronting The Mavericks, but at least back then we all sort of agreed the band was country -- alt-country, sure, or country-Americana, but definitely country.

So, what to make of Malo's solo career, including his latest, "Sinners & Saints," which Malo says he spotted recently in a listing of new jazz releases? Certainly, there is jazz on the album. But there are also Latin rhythms, California surf guitar and straightforward rock 'n' roll. Above all, perhaps, it's notable as a near-return to the country roots he left behind when he broke from The Mavericks nearly a decade ago.

The album, released in October, presents a taxonomical quandary if you're a programming director or a record store owner (or a music writer): What do you call it? Well, that doesn't much matter to the guy making the music. Despite the commercial pitfalls of music with no clear genre, and notwithstanding our collective frustration in describing it succinctly, Malo is understandably proud of being difficult to categorize.

"It works for me," he says in a phone interview this week. "I think part of what I've been able to carve out for myself in the last eight or nine years is a pretty eclectic body of work, where I don't have to adhere to any self-imposed restrictions or restraints of being genre-specific."

Malo, who plays The Seasons Performance Hall in Yakima tonight, comes by that sound honestly. Raised in Miami, the son of Cuban immigrants, he grew up listening not only to the sounds popular in his neighborhood but to his parents' extensive and varied record collection. That is to say, he loved Celia Cruz, just like the rest of the Cuban community in South Florida, but he also grew up listening to Buck Owens, James Brown and Pavarotti.

"All that was part of the language, part of the vocabulary," he says. "I didn't think anything of it."

Years later, when it came to making his own music, that odd, genre-bending sensibility couldn't help but shine through -- even on the records with The Mavericks, who were, remember, ostensibly a country band. Some Mavericks tunes had a distinctive Latin sound, others sounded more like rock or Texas swing. It's not that Malo, who wrote most of the group's songs, set out to combine those elements; that's just how he processes music.

"Most of the time, if not all of the time, they're really just beautiful accidents," he says of the stylistic mashups. "It just happens."

The title track of "Sinners & Saints," for example, began with Malo re-immersing himself in the flamenco guitar sounds he grew up with in Miami. From there, he crafted what he called a "bastardized version of that" on an acoustic guitar, which he then transferred to electric guitar.

"Eventually it started to sound like a song," he says.

Indeed, it's among the most interesting and best songs on the album. The combination of the flamenco electric guitar with Latin-inflected horns and Malo's famously sonorous voice evokes the Miami of his youth, full of sweat, smoke and sex. It's a fantastic song.

It's followed, unsurprisingly, by something completely different, a socially damning critique of American excess called "Living for Today" that musically sounds like a fairly straightforward country track. Then there's the upbeat Latin-country dance number "San Antonio Baby." Three songs, three completely different styles. And it goes on like that, an album full of numbers connected by little more than their uniformly compelling nature and Malo's distinctive vocals.

So, again, what do you call an album like that? What shelf does it belong on?

"My favorite record store in Austin (Texas), Waterloo Records, they don't have categories," Malo says. "All their records are by alphabetical order. ... I kind of wish we could live in that world."

* Pat Muir can be reached at 509-577-7693 or pmuir@yakimaherald.com.

If you go

WHAT: Raul Malo.

WHERE: The Seasons Performance Hall, 101 N. Naches Ave.

WHEN: 7:30 tonight.

TICKETS: $20, available at 509-453-1888 or www.theseasonsyakima.com.