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Latin Music NYC

Latin music in NYC is as diverse as we are. Mother Africa is our main taproot with Indigenous and European influences. Latin music is an expression of faith, community, love, and freedom. It is also our primary form of social organization. Most traditions, from Rumba to Reggaeton were suppressed at their beginning, so Latin music is a form of resistance.

Latin Music News

Oscar Hernandez and Alma Libre play Puerto Rican Jazz at Chelsea Table and Stage on Mon, Oct 18 at 7 & 9:30pm. From $35. 🇵🇷

Issac Delgado y La Novena play Cuban Timba at Birdland in Hell’s Kitchen Tue-Sat, Oct 19-23 at 7 & 9:30pm. From $30. 🇨🇺

Dayramir Gonzalez & Habana enTRANCé play Cuban Jazz at Flushing Town Hall in Flushing, Queens on Sat, Oct 23 at 7pm. $20. 🇨🇺

Cuban Nueva Trova legend Pablo Milanés brings his Dias de Luz Tour to The Town Hall in Midtown, Manhattan on Sat, Oct 23 at 8pm. From $45. 🇨🇺

Music Festivals

Coming Soon

Miguel Zenón joins Ches Smith and We All Break for their “Path of Seven Colors” record release show of Haitian Vodou music at Roulette Intermedium in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn on Tue, Oct 26 at 8pm. $20. 🇭🇹🇵🇷

Rosario Flores sings Flamenco Pop at The Town Hall in Midtown, Manhattan on Thu, Nov 4 at 8pm. From $79. 🇪🇸

Daymé Arocena (Pablo Dewin/World Music Institute)
Daymé Arocena (Pablo Dewin/World Music Institute)

Daymé Arocena sings Cuban Jazz for the World Music Institute Women’s Voices Series at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village on Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 8pm (7pm doors). From $25. worldmusicinstitute.org 🇨🇺

Quinteto Astor Piazzolla (Mauricio Velez/World Music Institute)
Quinteto Astor Piazzolla (Mauricio Velez/World Music Institute)

Quinteto Astor Piazzolla celebrates “100 Years of Astor Piazzolla,” for the World Music Institute at Peter Norton Symphony Space on Sun, Nov 14 at 7:30pm. (6:30pm doors). From $35. worldmusicinstitute.org 🇦🇷

Ongoing

The New York Philharmonic is at Lincoln Center to June 10, 2022. 🇫🇷🇻🇪🇺🇸

The Metropolitan Opera is at Lincoln Center to June 11, 2022.
🇦🇷🇨🇦🇫🇷🇮🇹🇲🇽🇪🇸🇵🇷🇺🇸

Valtinho Anastácio & Leandro Pellegrino play Brazilian Jazz outdoors at Zinc Bar in Greenwich Village, Sundays from 4-7pm. Donation. 🇧🇷

Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble play Cuban Jazz at Birdland in Hell’s Kitchen on Sundays at 7pm. From $20. 🇨🇺

Stephane Wrembel plays Django Reinhardt style Jazz Manouche at Barbés in Park Slope, Brooklyn on Sundays from 9-11:55pm. $20/person suggested 🇫🇷

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks play Hot Jazz for Swing dancing at Bond 45 Downstairs in the Times Square Theater District on Mondays and Tuesdays from 8-11pm. $25 + $25 minimum 🇮🇹

Music Archive

Latin Music Traditions

We are mixes of each other and today music is all mixed together. There is also some live music under Latin Dancing.

North America

Caribbean

South America

Europe

October Latin Music

Mambembe plays Samba/Reggae and Kikiriki Biguey plays Afro-Cuban Rumba at Drom in the East Village on Tue, Oct 26 at 8pm (7pm doors). $10. 🇧🇷🇯🇲🇨🇺

Pedrito Martinez plays Cuban Timba at Drom in the East Village on Thu, Oct 28 at 8pm (7pm doors). $30. 🇨🇺

Gilberto Santa Rosa sings Puerto Rican salsa romantica at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark, New Jersey on Fri, Oct 29. From $49 🇵🇷

November Latin Music

The Pedro Giraudo Tango Quartet plays LunÁtico in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn on Mon, Nov 1 at 8:30pm. $10. 🇦🇷

Los Hacheros play The Stage on Level 4 at Hudson Yards on Tue, Nov 2, 2021 from 6-8pm. FREE with registration. hudsonyardsnewyork.com 🇵🇷

Rata Blanca plays Argentine Rock at La Boom in Woodside, Queens on Fri, Nov 5 at 10pm (7pm doors). From $45. 🇦🇷

The Metropolitan Opera opens Puccini’s “La Bohème” at the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center on Tue, Nov 9, 2021 at 7pm. From $30 🇮🇹🇫🇷

NEA Jazz Master Eddie Palmieri plays Kupferberg Center at Queens College in Flushing, Queens on Sat, Nov 20 at 7pm & 9pm. From $35. 🇵🇷

Bárbara Martínez sings Spanish Flamenco for Alegrías at La Nacional in Chelsea on Sat, Nov 27 at 8pm. 🇪🇸🇻🇪🇦🇷

Los Hacheros play The Stage on Level 4 at Hudson Yards on Tue, Nov 30, 2021 from 6-8pm. FREE with registration. hudsonyardsnewyork.com 🇵🇷

Coming Soon

Andrea Bocelli brings his Believe World Tour to Madison Square Garden, Wed-Thu, Dec 15-16 at 7:30pm. From $86 🇮🇹

Latin Music is as Diverse as Latins

Like us, Latin music is a mix of African, Indigenous and European traditions, No matter who is playing, Mother Africa is often the main root.

Our music is a form of resistance. The universal story of Latin Music is that was all once prohibited, but survived in secret until it couldn’t be suppressed any more.

So Latin Music is about freedom. The forms we enjoy today, rose in the late 1800s after Emancipation.

Jazz is Caribbean music from New Orleans. Latin jazz, salsa and hip-hop were all Made in NYC. Reggaeton passed through on its way to becoming the global sound of youth.

Regional Mexican is the most popular Latin music in the United States.

Latin music is a mix of influences. The European Diaspora claimed everything as their own and continue to do so, but popular music’s deepest roots seem to always be African or Indigenous. European classical music has its own timeline, but the forms of popular Latin music we know today all developed as human slavery was outlawed in the Americas in the late 1800s.

During the colonial period, expressing your own culture could bring on sadistic punishments and even get you killed, so it was done in secret. The same was true during the Latin rock era in Argentina and Mexico. So Latin music is a form of resistance. It is always threatened, but always survives because it is a true expression of the people.

In the Latin world, music can be an expression of faith, family, friendship, community and love. The stage is one thing, but the natural habitat of Latin music is living rooms, patios, yards, playgrounds, parks and the street. Drumming, singing and dancing aren’t extraordinary. They are a natural and essential part of who we are. Everyone participates (that’s the great beauty of it) and music and dancing go together.

If you want to know the real history of a region and the real history of a community, you listen to the songs.”

Gianluca Tramontana (Rolling Stone, Radio Free Brooklyn) for “Changüí: The Sound of Guantánamo” on Petaluma Records in 2021

Swing (1935-1946), bebop modern jazz (1940s), Latin jazz (1943), disco (1970), salsa (1970s) and hip-hop (1970s) are musical forms of the City itself.

Jazz and reggaeton passed through and were forever changed by New York. House music (1980s) was started at the Warehouse Club in Chicago, but by New York DJ Frankie Knuckles.

The music publishers and Tin Pan Alley are New York. It all gets mixed up with Broadway too. As the world media capital, whatever happens in New York gets sent out into the world.

The Caribbean Roots of Hip-Hop

Latin Music NYC (Alessandro Flore/Dreamstime)
Latin Music NYC (Alessandro Flore/Dreamstime)

This is a Jamaican sound system. It’s for a party in the neighborhood. Nowadays there is sound system culture in Brazilian favelas, Colombian comunas, and in cars in New York City, but it’s originally a Jamaican thing.

DJ Cool Herc (Clive Campbell) threw the first hip-hop parties. It all started at “His Back to School Jam” at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in Morris Heights, The Bronx.

Herc did several hip-hop firsts, but he is remembered for his giant speakers, his “herculords.” Campbell is a New Yorker, but he was born in Kingston, Jamaica. So these are some of the Caribbean roots of hip-hop.

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