New York Latin Culture Magazine™

World-class Indigenous, European, African, Asian & Oceanian Culture since 2012

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Latin Music NYC

Latin music in NYC is as diverse as we are. Latin music and dance are an expression of family, faith, community, love, and freedom; and a primary form of social organization across the Latin world.

Mother Africa is our main taproot with European, Indigenous, and Asian influences. Most traditions, from Rumba to Rock to Reggaeton were forbidden at first, so Latin music is a form of resistance.

Are you looking for music festivals or music for dancing?

Latin Music News

Cuban Chinese cellist Sophia Bacelar plays a Ruiz Memorial Recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall on Wed, Dec 8 at 7:30pm. 🇨🇺

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 10:30pm. From $20. 🇨🇺

Stephane Wrembel plays Django Reinhardt style Jazz Manouche at Barbés in Park Slope, Brooklyn on Sundays from 10pm – 1am. $20. 🇫🇷

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks play Hot Jazz for Swing dancing at Bond 45 Downstairs in the Times Square Theater District, most 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

Coming Soon

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

The Cumbia River Band plays Colombian Cumbia at Symphony Space in the Upper West Side on Fri, Jan 21 at 7:30pm. $30. 🇨🇴

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.

Culture

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