Their Latin funk is catchy, and catching on

Grupo Fantasma, based in Austin, Texas, is riding a wave of interest among stars such as Prince and Maceo Parker. (Daniel Perlaky)

Prince wants to party with them. Salsa legend Larry Harlow is itching to school them. And groove maestro Maceo Parker can't wait to blow with them again. Since roaring out of Austin, Texas, several years ago, the horn-laden combo Grupo Fantasma has become the nation's most visible purveyor of Latin funk, and everybody seems to want a piece of the action.

The 10-piece band, which performs at the Museum of Fine Arts tomorrow, is building on its triumphant 2007 run, which included a command London performance with Prince last August. Fantasma had already played a two-month run at Prince's Vegas club and entertained at his celebrity-filled, post-Golden Globe Awards party.

"He's helped us out a lot," says drummer Johnny Lopez, who like almost half the Fantasma crew hails from the border town of Laredo, Texas. "In London, we opened up for him and then the horns sat in with his band for a couple of tunes. The after-party was off the hook. He was playing guitar with us and Maceo was there, too, and it was more about the jams and improvising. At the end of the night, Prince said, 'When you come back to London, everybody will know who you are.' "

With the release of the band's fourth album, "Sonidos Gold" (Aire Sol/High Wire), Fantasma is finding new audiences ripe for conversion. They were a hit at Bonnaroo and follow tomorrow's gig with high-profile appearances at the Montreal Jazz Festival and the North Sea Jazz Festival.

Rather than laying down an old-school salsa sound, Fantasma is honing a decidedly 21st-century version of Latin groove. They lace clave, the fundamental pulse of Afro-Cuban music, with cumbia, reggae, Afrobeat, and psychedelic rock. The stripped-down horn arrangements leave room for the nimble guitar work of Beto Martinez and Adrian Quesada.

The ensemble formed in 2000 when Austin's teeming music scene brought together an avant-funk trio with a cumbia horn section. The band added a galvanizing dose of salsa with the addition of Nicaraguan-born vocalist and timbalero José Galeano. As the new ensemble's senior member, he brought decades of experience to the bandstand and a link to a Latin-rock icon through his uncle, José "Chepito" Areas, an essential early member of Santana.

With "Sonidos Gold," the band has forged ties with two towering innovators from its other foundational styles. Saxophonist Maceo Parker, a funk hero for his work with James Brown and George Clinton, contributes a torrid alto solo on the hard-rockin' "Gimme Some," while pianist-composer Larry Harlow, a Fania Records salsa pioneer, lays down some insistent montunos on two tracks.

The connection with Harlow - a founding member of the salsa supergroup Fania All-Stars, who helped shape Latin music in the 1960s and '70s through his work as a bandleader, producer, and arranger - feels particularly appropriate. After all, Harlow was born in Brooklyn as Ira Kahn and affectionately dubbed "El Judeo Maravilloso" (the marvelous Jew) by his Latin American compatriots. The Fantasma brass players moonlight as the JewMex Horns (they backed Prince at Coachella last month after a stint on the road last fall with indie-rock favorites Spoon).

Harlow joins the band in the fall for a week-long residency at the University of Texas at Austin, and he's looking to deepen the band's clave consciousness.

"They're learning," Harlow says. "They're coming from another musical world in south Texas, and they're opening up other venues to Latin music, going into these towns across the Southwest that aren't known for salsa."

While they revere and honor their elders, the musicians in Fantasma don't make any apologies for putting their own twist on the tradition. While they're still absorbing the deeper intricacies of Afro-Cuban music, they know they wouldn't be jamming with Prince if they weren't infusing the music with their own particular border perspective.

"When you approach Latin music in the real traditional way, it can go over people's heads," Lopez says. "But adding that funk element, with the two guitars taking the place of the piano montunos, people can relate to it more. It speaks to everybody. You don't have to be any nationality. When people ask me what we play, I say, 'It's like Led Zeppelin but with horns.' You can't go wrong."

Grupo Fantasma performs at the Museum of Fine Arts (465 Huntington Ave.) tomorrow night at 7:30. Tickets are $25; $20 for students, seniors, and MFA members, at 617-369-3306 or mfa.org/concerts.