The theme of the evening was celebration — celebration of the music, celebration of Lula Lounge’s fifth birthday and well, just plain celebration; like Barretto’s music, a celebration of life.

Fittingly, timbales player Ralph Irizarry was invited up from New York City to play with Moda Eterna in this tribute to the godfather of salsa. Having played Lula’s first anniversary and every year since, Irizarry is referred to as the godfather of Lula. We wondered about rehearsal time as Irizarry had arrived only the previous night but vocalist Juan Carlos Cardenas laughed. Oh yes, he said, we rehearsed before today and then we did rehearse with Ralph but he’s amazing and he recorded half of these songs with Barretto, he doesn’t really need to rehearse.

This eleven-piece band hooked the audience from the very first song with its rich percussion and full complement of horns, the rich vocals of Luis Orbegoso and the harmonies of vocalists Juan Carlos Cardenas and Yani Borrell. The excitement was already palpable and would only build.

The percussion on the second song was absolutely hypnotic, impossibly rich and impossible to escape, seemingly bubbling up from the ground like oil. Alexander Brown’s trumpet floated hauntingly over the layers, uncharacteristically Miles-ian, lending great atmosphere to the jazz-Latin mélange that may have been Barretto’s “Acid”. The general pace of the music on this night was blistering but at one point Sean Bellaviti, who helped Luis Orbegoso put this show together, replaced Roberto Linares Brown at the piano for a beautiful bolero.