June 7, 2011. One-hundred-two degrees, 60 percent humidity, steam heat hissing from the pavement outside the Driftwood Char Bar in south Minneapolis. The sun is finally, mercifully, going down.

Inside, boisterous Spanish and English harmonize as one Spanglish din. Sundresses, shorts, sandals and straw Cuban fedoras are the order of the night, and when the six members of Malamanya swing into their first song, you'd swear you were Woody Allen-Ernest Hemingway in "Midnight in Havana."

In fact, it's just another Tuesday night at the Driftwood, which has been resurrected as a viable live music venue. Blues and jam-band staples make up the calendar, but the sexiest is the fast-growing Tuesday residency by Malamanya.

"This band is a gem, the best-kept secret in town," says one Burroughs Elementary School teacher to another teacher. "It won't be like this," he says, nodding at the crowd of about 150, "for long."

Drawing on Cuban son and other traditional folk music, Malamanya -- singer Adriana Rimpel, bassist Tony Schriner, trumpet player Jason Marks, percussionists Jesse Marks and Luis Ortega and guitarist Trevor May -- has fashioned an acoustic sound that creates a timeless connection and joyous blues that's as old as the working class itself.

"I think there's a sincerity with the music," says Rimpel. "Even though the music is new and really happy and people dance, the lyrics are talking about things that are deep-seated. We do a song that's a tribute to Che Guevara, and a song made famous by the Buena Vista Social Club that talks about your homeland and kind of going back to simpler things. I feel like we're trying to share the experience with all the people in the room with us."

Rimpel, a beautiful 27-year-old thrush, is as great a singer as the Minnesota music factory has ever produced; she's Billie Holiday reincarnated as a late bloomer with Mexican and Minnesotan roots. "She's the least jaded, most pure person I know," says Schriner. "People are drawn to her. When I heard her sing the very first time, I was like, 'Thank you! Thank you!' She's gold. Gold."

To be sure, there is an old-school stillness and stateliness to Rimpel. She drips with confidence and power, and dances with the same in-the-pocket spontaneity as the band, trilling and improvising as couples and singles fill the dance floor. When the musicians take a break, Rimpel walks around talking to relatives and friends, like a hostess making the rounds at a church potluck.

"My whole thing with this group was you start with a bunch of old beautiful wooden instruments and you put them together and right away you've got an old, rootsy thing," says Schriner. "The reason the music is so infectious is because it grabs hold of something inside of everybody, and returns you to this lost time and simpler things. Nowadays everything has gotten so complicated, and you're bombarded with [stimuli], and roots are getting smaller and smaller."

Joseph Berns stands on the sidelines. "What's the name of this band?" he asks a stranger. Faced with "Malamanya," he asks, "Is that the name of the band or style of music?" and bolts for the dance floor.

Rimpel explained: "'Malamanya' means 'bad habit' in Spanish. It comes from a song done by [the Buena Vista Social Club's] Ibrahim Ferrer. It's about a woman who has a bad habit of going to bed with strangers."

She laughs. "I want people who listen to our music to feel so full of passion that they have to share that with someone else -- either someone in the room with them, or find someone else later."