Three Generations Later, the Mike Torres Band is still a Family Affair

By Rhashad Pittman
(STOCKTON ) -- When Mike Torres Jr. would perform as a boy alongside his brother and sister as part of the Mike Torres Band, his father and founder of the band, Mike Torres Sr., would look on with pride and just smile.
Now, a generation later, Mike junior is doing the same as he watches his own son and nephew continue what has become a family tradition for three generations.
“I’m back there playing my keyboard and my son’s singing, and I’m like man, that’s my boy,” said Mike junior in a recent interview “It’s a beautiful thing.”
The Mike Torres Band (MTB) has been performing throughout the Stockton area and across the country in English and Spanish for nearly four decades. Based in Lathrop, the group has developed a reputation for producing “Music for All Tastes,” including cumbias, salsa, meringue, top 40, old school, country, jazz, big band and classic rock.
The nine-piece band is considered one of the premiere Latino musical acts in California. Over the years the group has opened for a variety of popular acts, including War, Pete Escobedo, the Gap Band, Teena Marie, and hip-hop artists Kid Frost and Mellow Man Ace.
Mike Torres Sr., 72, started the band in 1970 after growing up singing and playing guitar and later performing at local nightclubs with a small band. The family has gone from performing at weddings and private parties on the weekends to making the internationally broadcast television program the Johnny Canales Show.
Mike junior (Keyboards, Bass, Accordion, Vocals, Guitar, Percussion, Musical Director/Arranger), Marty (Drums/Business Manger), youngest daughter Christina (Timbales, Keyboards, Vocals, MTB Promotions) and nephew and former member Joey Torres joined the band as children as young as six years old. It was a way of bringing the family closer together, Mike senior said.
“Music is just part of our lives and will be in our families forever,” Mike junior said.
Today, the band’s family tradition continues with Mike Torres III (Trumpet, Guitar, Vocals), the 19-year-old grandson of Mike Torres Sr., and Stephen Torres-Esquer (Saxophone, Vocals), who is also 19 and the grandson of the elder Mike. The other band members include Neil Sanchez (Bass), Richard Juarez (Congas), Steve Russo (Alternate Trumpet) and Tony Marvelli (AlternateTrumpet).
Behind the scenes, Mike McKiever serves as the band’s sound engineer while seventeen-year-old Angelo Torres-Esquer, another grandson of Mike senior, handles the band’s lighting during performances.
So far the group has released five CDs: Only the Beginning, Vamonos Recio, A La Brava, Entre Familia and Cumbias Calientes, Vol. I. Mike junior said the band has two more unreleased albums that are being shopped around to record companies. The band also has a MySpace page and Web site (miketorresband.com).
Mike III, who started playing in the band when he was 11, said the family has been performing together nearly every weekend since he joined the group eight years ago.
“To look to your side and see your grandpa and your father and your aunt” while performing, he said, “there’s no feeling like it.”