Critic's Choice

Not so much a jam band as a pulsating mass of sexy Latin-flavored beats, the San Diego-based B-Side Players embrace a multi-culti groove and make it theirs, urging you with horns and congas to dance, damn it, dance! Reggae it ain't, and you shouldn't buy your ticket expecting to hear the Buena Vista Social Club, but don't be surprised if you hear those influences creeping in throughout the course of the band's show on Sunday, January 27, at the Fox Theatre, with Slightly Stoopid. The group's size waxes and wanes, but the core of seven members, led by Karlos Paez, blends jazz, funk and various world beats into the mix, streamlining each evening's program to suit the tastes of the audience. As a result, a B-Side show in Boulder could be very different from one in Detroit or Mexico City. The Players are touring in support of their latest release, Movement, which resists comparison to any particular style but the band's own.