Calor Urbano were a Dominican band from Santo Domingo, working from late 2002 until 2010. Vicente García sang, Adolfo Guerrero was the MC, Joel Berrido played bass and Carlos Chapuseaux guitars.

What they were making

They pulled soul, funk, disco, hip hop, neo-soul and nu-jazz together with light Caribbean touches — a combination with no Dominican precedent and no obvious audience, in a country whose radio ran on merengue and bachata.

The first single, Calor Urbano, went out to Dominican radio in 2003, produced and engineered by Mike Rodríguez and José A. Bordas, and it charted immediately in its format. Vértigo followed the same year and To Soul at the end of 2004, and by then Teleantillas had nominated them best pop-rock band at its Premio del Pueblo.

Transmisión Groove

The album was cut in Miami and Santo Domingo and mastered at Fuller Sound. Carlo Magno Araya, who plays percussion for Rubén Blades, and the Dominican saxophonist Sandy Gabriel both appear on it.

The engineering list explains the ambition better than the credits do. Allan Leschorn, who had worked with Juan Luis Guerra 4.40 and Chichi Peralta; Mario García Haya and Bolívar Gómez, both Grammy winners; and Juan Cristóbal Losada, who had engineered Gilberto Santa Rosa, David Bisbal and Carlos Santana. A Dominican alternative band was buying the same room the region’s biggest records were made in.

Pa’ Que No Pienses came out of it in 2006 and reached number one in its format inside two weeks. Tabaré Blanchard directed the video, and its editing and effects were unlike anything Dominican music video had produced.

The rooms they filled

They launched the album at the Hard Rock Café in Santo Domingo and set the venue’s attendance record, then filled it again the following year with people left outside. Presidente and Brugal put them on their campaigns. They played Cabarete beach with Cultura Profética.

Two Casandra nominations came in 2007, for group of the year and for the video, and they won the pop-rock award in 2008. They opened for Ricky Martin on his Blanco y Negro tour, and in September 2007 they opened for Juan Luis Guerra at the Feria Internacional de Barquisimeto in Venezuela.

From July 2008 they toured as Guerra’s opening act, and he was producing their next record.

The end of it

In August 2010 Vicente García left to work alone, and signed with Capitol. The band stopped there.

What it left behind is the harder thing to measure. Dominican alternative music had no industry, and Calor Urbano proved a band could sell out rooms and reach a Casandra without playing merengue — and it produced a singer who has since become one of the most important artists the country has.