Behind every great album by the Venezuelan singer Jose Luis Rodriguez, there's always a great concept. In the late '90s, El Puma (as he is affectionately known among his fans) scored big with a revival of the tender bolero music by the trio Los Panchos. In 1999, he returned to more festive terrain with a bubbly record of non-stop party music. Although recorded in the studio, the album has the spontaneous, almost reckless feeling of a concert performance. It is the spirit of the South American carnival that El Puma has in mind in bouncy ditties like "Ave Maria" and "La Parranda," the time of the year when people of all origins and social classes gather in the streets for a few nights of flirting, singing, and dancing. But Rodriguez is not the kind of performer who faces traditions with an eye on the past. His take on the carnival is definitely a postmodern one, enhancing the tropical rhythms of the congas and timbales with fat beats generated by drum machines. The result (a combination of the old and the new, the sophisticated and the approachable) is bound to delight fans of dance-friendly pop.

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Behind every great album by the Venezuelan singer Jose Luis Rodriguez, there's always a great concept. In the late '90s, El Puma (as he is affectionately known among his fans) scored big with a revival of the tender bolero music by the trio Los Panchos. In 1999, he returned to more festive terrain with a bubbly record of non-stop party music. Although recorded in the studio, the album has the spontaneous, almost reckless feeling of a concert performance. It is the spirit of the South American carnival that El Puma has in mind in bouncy ditties like "Ave Maria" and "La Parranda," the time of the year when people of all origins and social classes gather in the streets for a few nights of flirting, singing, and dancing. But Rodriguez is not the kind of performer who faces traditions with an eye on the past. His take on the carnival is definitely a postmodern one, enhancing the tropical rhythms of the congas and timbales with fat beats generated by drum machines. The result (a combination of the old and the new, the sophisticated and the approachable) is bound to delight fans of dance-friendly pop.