WAITING FOR GODOY

The challenge for Luis Mejia Godoy and Grupo Mancotal has always been reviving a Nicaraguan popular music choked by the dual decadence of Mexican country music and bad copies of American rock. Saturday night, the nine-member group gave its impassioned answer.

After a puzzling delay caused by a last-minute move from East Los Angeles College to the downtown Variety Arts Center, Mancotal opened with “Poema”--a searing cycle of jazz, salsa and rhythm and blues variations on a Nicaraguan folk tune.

Not surprisingly, Mancotal and lead singer Godoy’s message was clearly directed against the U.S.-financed war against Sandinista Nicaragua. Most of the time it was inspired. So was the group’s clear-sighted recognition of the nation’s Afro-Caribbean musical roots in its irresistible salsa-flavored calypsos from the English-speaking Atlantic Coast.