Site icon New York Latin Culture Magazine®

Eddie Palmieri Plays a Spring Residency of Latin Jazz at the Blue Note New York

New York Latin Culture Magazine

Eddie Palmieri is a ten-Grammy winning New York Puerto Rican salsa and Latin jazz legend who is still going strong at 86-years young (November 2023).

Palmieri is around and plays regularly in New York City. He just keeps on going and is now one of the padrinos (godfathers) of Latin music. Over the years, Palmieri has launched many music careers, but he is now nurturing the next generation.

Eddie Palmieri in New York City

Eddie Palmieri (Erik Valind)

Puerto Rican NEA Jazz Master Eddie Palmieri, one of New York’s elder jazzmen, plays Latin jazz and salsa in his Spring Residency; at the Blue Note New York in Greenwich Village; Mondays, March 11 & 25, April 8 & 22, May 6 & 20, 2024 at 8pm & 10:30pm (6 & 10pm doors). From $35. bluenotejazz.com 🇵🇷

Eddie Palmieri

Johnny Pacheco, Larry Harlow, Papo Lucca and Nicky Marrero play one of Palmieri’s early hits

Eddie Palmieri was born in “El Barrio” East Harlem on December 15, 1936, and was raised in The Bronx. His parents were from Ponce, Puerto Rico. Many musicians come from Puerto Rico’s second city in the south.

The Palmieri family’s El Mambo bodega in The South Bronx was a hub for a bunch of kids who became famous Latin musicians, including his older brother Charlie Palmieri. Eddie listened to Cuban music on the radio and ran the juke box. He was a juke box DJ.

When he was 11, Eddie played a classical music recital at Carnegie Hall.

In 1961, Eddie changed Latin music by putting trombones on the front line of his band La Perfecta. In the 1970s, his Harlem River Drive was part of the Boogaloo music movement that remixed Black and Latin soul.

They Took Away the Drum, and We Got the Blues

We’ll never forget what Eddie Palmieri told the audience one night at the 92nd Street Y, just down the street from El Barrio. He said, “The Spaniard brought the African. The African put everyone to dance. In the States, they took away the drum, and we got the blues.”

The Spaniard brought the African.
The African put everyone to dance.
In the States, they took away the drum,
and we got the blues.”

Eddie Palmieri at the 92nd Street Y

That is how we got Latin music and the blues, which is the root of all American music of the United States. The root of it all is African, with some Indigenous too.

Eddie Palmieri is a Living Legend of Puerto Rican Salsa and Latin Jazz

Eddie Palmieri is a Latin jazz and salsa legend. He’s been at the center of Latin music since he was a kid playing records on the jukebox at his dad’s El Mambo candy store in The Bronx.

Palmieri is a ten Grammy-winning Latin Jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader who was recognized as an NEA Jazz Master in 2013. Eddie and his older brother Charlie Palmieri are two of the legends who developed Cuban dance music into what we have called “Salsa” since the 1970s. Palmieri connects the Palladium sound of the 1950s, with the Boogaloo of the 1960s, and the Salsa of the 1970s. He still performs several times a year around New York.

When Jazz artists start to study Latin, Palmieri is the reference that they start listening to. He is an elder statesman of Latin Jazz who has a lot of stories to tell.

Past New York Shows

Palmieri plays in New York City a lot.

Eddie Palmieri plays Puerto Rican Salsa at Lehman Center in Jerome Park, The Bronx on Saturday, September 17, 2022 at 8pm. 🇵🇷

SUMMER FOR THE CITY
Eddie Palmieri plays Salsa for dancing at The Oasis in Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center on Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 6pm. FREE.

Palmieri plays Kupferberg Center at Queens College in Flushing, Queens on Sat, Nov 20, 2021 at 7pm & 9pm. From $35. This show is rescheduled from the April 25, 2020 and May 8, 2021 shows cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Palmieri, Tito Nieves and Arturo O’Farrill play a “Salsa Meets Jazz” concert at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) on Sat, Sep 25 at 8pm. From $29 🇨🇺🇵🇷

Palmieri plays the Blue Note in Greenwich Village on Tuesday-Wednesday, August 31 – September 1, 2021 at 8pm (6pm doors). Seating first come, first seated from $30

December 19 & 26, 2020 ~ Palmieri celebrates his 84th birthday with a pair of special dinners at the Blue Note in Greenwich Village at 6pm and 8pm (Doors 4:30pm and 7:30pm).

The Blue Note (and other presenters) are getting around New York City’s ban on shows by calling it dinner with “incidental” background music. That’s some background music. Eddie’s shows sell out, so hurry!

These shows were cancelled when the city shut down indoor dining for COVID.

Saturday, September 21, 2019 ~ Palmieri and Dominican jazz pianist Michel Camilo play a double header at Lehman Center in Jerome Park, The Bronx at 8pm. From $45

Sunday, August 11, 2019 ~ Eddie Palmieri plays a free SummerStage concert in the East River Park Amphitheater in Manhattan’s Lower East Side at 6pm. FREE

The East River Park Amphitheater is sacred ground for Hip-Hop. ¡WEPA!

Palmieri reopens El Museo’s beautiful theater, El Teatro at El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem, Manhattan on Saturday, February 23, 2019 at 7:30pm. From $45

Palmieri celebrates the release of his latest album Mi Luz Mayor at the Blue Note Jazz Club in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, Tuesday-Sunday, January 15-20, 2019.

Palmieri & Lalo Rodriguez tribute Charlie Palmieri at Lehman Center in Jerome Park, The Bronx on Saturday, November 10, 2018 at 8 pm. $55 – $100

Palmieri is a special guest with the Christian McBride Big Band at the  New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey on Friday, November 9, 2018 at 8 pm. From $25

Palmieri tributes McCoy Tyner at the Blue Note in Greenwich Village, Manhattan on Monday, August 27, 2018 at 8 pm & 10:30 pm. From $30

Palmieri plays Central Park SummerStage on Sunday, August 26, 2018 from 6 – 10 pm. Doors at 5 pm. FREE

The Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra plays the Blue Note Jazz Festival at Sony Hall in Midtown, Manhattan on June 14, 2018 at 8 pm. $45 – $79.50

Palmieri plays B.B. King Blues Club’s closing week with El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico on Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 7:30 pm.

Palmieri plays Salsa and Latin Jazz at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center on Friday, March 16, 2018 at 7:30 pm. Free

Palmieri plays the New York Salsa Festival at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on June 10, 2017.

Palmieri celebrates the April 21st release of his latest album Sabiduría by playing a stretch of Monday nights at Subrosa in the Meatpacking District, April 17 – May 29, 2017 with shows at 8 & 10pm.

Eddie Palmieri. Courtesy Frank Stewart / Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Palmieri and his Salsa Orchestra play Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater Friday and Saturday March 3-4, 2017.

Palmieri celebrates his 80th birthday with his Afro-Caribbean Jazz Octet at the 92nd Street Y,  December 15, 2016 at 7:30pm.

El Mambo Candy Store

Eduardo “Eddie” Palmieri was born in El Barrio on December 15, 1936. He grew up in a musical New York Puerto Rican family in the South Bronx. Eddie’s older brother was Latin piano legend Charlie Palmieri.

In the 1940s, their father owned a candy store. It was called “El Mambo.” The neighborhood kids would play stickball all day, then hang out at El Mambo to listen and dance to the jukebox. Eddie ran that jukebox. A lot of those kids grew up to become the musicians who created what we now call Salsa. They were the artists who took the music coming out of Cuba and jazzed it up with what was going on around them in New York City.

By the 1950s, what was going on was Machito, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Dizzy Gillespie and all the legendary Jazz being created in Harlem, the Jazz clubs on 52nd Street, and at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village. Eddie grew up right in the middle of this. He played in the Tito Rodriguez Orchestra from 1958-1960.

When Eddie set off on his own in 1961’s conjunto (small band) La Perfecta with singer Ismael Quintana, he replaced the traditional violins with trombones. That gave him a fatter sound and foretold Willie Colón’s trombone heavy FANIA sound of the 1970s.

In 1970 Palmieri began exploring a mix of Latin and Funk with Harlem River Drive. The sound is all Bronx ~ Black and Latin.

Palmieri became the first Latin artist to win a Grammy for “Best Latin Recording” for Sun of Latin Music (1976). He won the next year too with Unfinished Masterpiece (1977).

In 1992, Palmieri introduced singer La India to the Salsa world with Llego la India via Eddie Palmieri (The India has arrived via Eddie Palmieri).

Eddie’s most recent Grammy came from The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project: Simpático which won “Best Latin Jazz Recording” in 2007.

In 2013, Palmieri was recognized as an NEA Jazz Master.

Today Eddie Palmieri is one of the artists Jazz musicians listen to when they begin to explore Latin.

Eddie Palmieri Discography

These are Palmieri’s latest albums.

Many of these records are no longer available. However, a lot of the music has been released on new compilation albums.

For more information and tour dates, visit palmierimusic.com

Exit mobile version