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You know, for a gal who serves as an entertainment reporter here in our little corner of the world, I find I spend a rather inordinate amount of time pondering the bigger picture.

I mean, sure, I love great music, and one of my favorite things about it is the way it can catch hold of your soul and make every other everyday concerns fall away. But I also love the way music can open up your world, broaden your horizons, step outside your comfort zone.

One of the reasons I love my semiannual music festivals is for the sheer variety of musical genres they offer: bluegrass, rock, blues, Cajun, zydeco, funk, folk — you name it. A lot of these are styles I’d never dabbled in before I started going to the festivals — believe it or not, the only bluegrass I knew before O Brother Where Art Thou was the Dueling Banjos number from Deliverance. (I’m not proud of that, but there it is.)

So imagine my glee when I got word last week that the all-original Latin band Caramelo Station, currently based out of Miami, would be coming back to Naples (where they got their start) to play regular gigs Saturday night at Café Ibo in East Naples, in the Village Falls Plaza just east of Rattlesnake Hammock Road.

I couldn’t help myself: I had to sneak off-island yet again for the tuneage. (Two weeks ago it was Donna’s Silver Dollar on the East Trail, where their brand new Saturday night bluegrass extravaganza kicked off. Leading me to wonder if, in fact, East Naples is becoming the new music capital of Southwest Florida. How deliciously unexpected.)

Caramelo Station at its core is made up of composer/lead singer/guitarist Havy Rodriguez, guitarist Harold Ramos, and drummer Herbie Pimental. When they play locally, they’re joined by Larry Block on cajon, a boxlike hand drum; in Miami they often add a horn section.

There’s not a single tune you will recognize on your first trip up to the Nigerian-themed Café Ibo: Every one is original, written by the Cuban-born Rodriguez. Nor will you have much luck singing along, probably — they’re almost all in Spanish. But if those facts are scaring you off, don’t let them. Caramelo Station is just good music, no matter what your tastes.

Rodriguez is a talented writer, his tunes intriguing and catchy, the rhythms contagious. His voice is solid and sure, and it doesn’t hurt one bit that the man is just fun to look at, what percussionist Block terms “a better version of Lenny Kravits.” (Oh, come on, folks — you know I am chiefly there for the music, but the Island Hopper is, after all, a woman — and not a blind one.)

On drums, Pimental sits behind a full drum set, as well as bongos and congas, with what sounds suspiciously like a clave and a cowbell somewhere behind his setup. And he can play, pounding out a backbeat for the band that has most of their audience taking to the dance floor. And most notable of all, “the kid,” as Pimental is known to his bandmates, is 17 years old. When he’s not playing with Caramelo Station, the talented boy is attending high school. (This fact made me feel about 70 wizened years old!)

Harold Ramos — who doesn’t look much past his teens himself, but has in fact achieved legal drinking age — is one of the most riveting guitarists I’ve seen lately. On his solos I couldn’t help leaning forward, my eyes fixed on his flying fingers as he coaxed a range of sound from his guitar that set the tone for the band’s unique blend of salsa, merengue, cha cha, Latin, funk, reggae, and samba.

Physically, Block looks like the odd man out — the only one past his 20s, the only non-Latino. It’s tempting to dismiss his contribution on cajon, but the man’s got rhythm, and his instrument provides a pleasing bass sound to their percussion.

The band has clearly built up a following at their Saturday-night gigs, as people poured in faster and faster as the hour grew later. Nor were they shy about dancing, making me itch to get my own happy feet on the floor and sway my hips to the infectious beat.

Besides the Ibo shows — Saturdays from 9 p.m. (or thereabouts, with true Latin inexactitude of time) until around midnight — Caramelo Station recently got added to the regular roster for Naples’s Thursday Evenings on Fifth, as well as the Thursdays on Third along Third Street South. The rest of the time you can find them at various clubs in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, or check out their Web site at www.myspace.com/havymusic.

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And check me out, my darling readers, at tiffanythescribe@msn.com. Come on, don’t be shy! I don’t bite (unless you want me to).