The New York Times destaca al Torito

Crowd Joins In on Latin Traditions Old and New

Héctor Acosta, El Torrito, Brings Merengue and Bachata to SummerStage

By JON CARAMANICA

The story of Dominican music in this country has tilted heavily toward bachata in recent years, and within that, toward its modern, sensual variety. Once bachata was folk music; now it’s slick, urgent, rhythmic pop, a loverman’s paradise.

Héctor Acosta, the Dominican singer known as El Torito, singing at SummerStage in Central Park on Sunday.

Breaking news about the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia and more.

Go to Arts Beat »

A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.

Go to Event Listings »

What that’s meant for merengue, the original Dominican crossover folk music, has been a lower profile, as young singers tend to pass it by in favor of the sounds of the day.

Singers like Héctor Acosta are bridges: between merengue and bachata, between old and new. Nicknamed El Torito — the Little Bull — he’s been a style leader for more than two decades, long enough to achieve beloved-elder status.

That was clear during Mr. Acosta’s Sunday afternoon show at Central Park SummerStage, an emphatic hour of song whose power resided just as often in the crowd as onstage.

Backed by a large band all in turquoise shirts — guitar, keyboards, bass, saxophones, trumpets, bongos, tambora, guira — he held the stage easily, shuttling between speedy merengue numbers and more reflective bachata.

Mr. Acosta is a powerful, sometimes intimidating singer, but not here. This was a casual concert suited to the weather — powder blue sky shot through with blinding sun, following the briefest of black-cloud storms.

He was enrapturing the members of a crowd enthusiastic enough to wave their hands in the air whenever he urged them to but that was also relaxed enough to break off into couples and practice the close-huddle dancing, with elaborate hand movements, that typically accompanies bachata.

In recent years Mr. Acosta has emerged as a wise elder of sorts to the young generation of singers who have come to dominate bachata. He was trotted out by Romeo Santos, the genre’s biggest star, during that singer’s recent run of shows at Madison Square Garden.

Mr. Acosta has also collaborated with reggaetón stars and is the most visible link between bachata as pure folk music and bachata as the Dominican answer to R&B. His recent albums, “Obligame” and “Mitad/Mitad” (Vene/Machete), hold their own against releases by younger, more currently popular artists.

Onstage he wasn’t quite indefatigable, but he didn’t have to be. Plenty of times, he was cooing and grunting as the band vamped over a jumpy merengue arrangement. On “Mi Niña” he was a commanding presence, and on “Me Duele la Cabeza” he projected with almost operatic zeal. By contrast, on the bachata hit “Me Voy,” he was restrained, letting the members of the crowd do the heavy lifting.

It was their music too, he was keen to remind them. At the end of the show, he waved the flags of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic at the same time — again, building a bridge.