Latin Jazz in NYC is native. It has long roots, but was defined here by Mario Bauzá, music director for Machito and His Afro-Cubans in Spanish Harlem in 1943.
Thanks to our recent Latin jazz sponsors: Carnegie Hall, Harlem Stage, Hostos Center and Robert Browning Associates.
Jazz at Lincoln Center is the world’s premiere jazz institution. Birdland and the Blue Note are legends. Minton’s is where bebop was born. The Village Vanguard is New York’s oldest continuously operating jazz club.
Hostos Center has the Northeast’s most adventurous Latin jazz programming. Harlem Stage hosts legends and is an incubator for artists who become legends. The 92nd Street Y has a strong jazz program. Drom is a world music club that hosts a lot of latin jazz. Terraza 7 is New York’s most Latin jazz club.
If you love jazz, you love New York.
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Blue Note Jazz Festival 2023 Brings Latin Jazz Legends to NYC
A jazz festival with everything from the blues to Latin to hip-hop.
Hammerstein Ballroom, The Town Hall, Sony Hall, Blue Note NYC
May 31 – July 2, 2023
Grace Jones 🇯🇲
Chucho Valdés & Paquito D’Rivera 🇨🇺
Omara Portuondo 🇨🇺
Sergio Mendes 🇧🇷
Julius Rodriguez 🇺🇸
Continue Reading Blue Note Jazz Festival 2023 Brings Latin Jazz Legends to NYC
Yasser Tejeda Grows Fun, Danceable Latin Alternative From Dominican Folk Roots
His brilliant fusion of Afro-Dominican flavors make you want to dance.
HARLEM STAGE
Manhattanville, West Harlem
Thursday, June 8, 2023
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Continue Reading Yasser Tejeda Grows Fun, Danceable Latin Alternative From Dominican Folk Roots
ACO SONiC Festival with Miguel Zenón and Angélica Negrón Creates Avant-Garde Puerto Rican Classical Music at Hostos
A primer on some of the young Latin artists who are doing incredible work stretching the jazz and classical music canon in New York City.
HOSTOS CENTER
Mott Haven, The Bronx
Sunday, June 4, 2023
🇵🇷 🇨🇴 🇮🇱 🇺🇸
Miguel Zenón Curates the American Composers Orchestra SONiC Festival
A primer on some of the young Latin artists who are doing incredible work stretching the jazz and classical music canon in New York City.
HOSTOS CENTER
Mott Haven, The Bronx
Sunday, June 4, 2023
🇵🇷 🇨🇴 🇮🇱 🇺🇸
Continue Reading Miguel Zenón Curates the American Composers Orchestra SONiC Festival
Hostos Center is One of Leading Latin Performing Arts Centers in the Northeast
One of New York’s most adventurous Latin presenters.
MOTT HAVEN, THE BRONX
Merengueras Dominicanas
Friday, June 2, 2023
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Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band
Sunday, June 4, 2023
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Miguel Zenón & Angélica Negrón with American Composers Orchestra, Music of Puerto Rico
Sunday, June 4, 2023
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WORLD PREMIERE
Anton: Una Ópera Boricua
Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band
Wednesday, June 7, 2023
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Continue Reading Hostos Center is One of Leading Latin Performing Arts Centers in the Northeast
Dance Parade NYC 2023 DanceFest Gets over 10,000 New Yorkers Dancing in the Streets
DANCE PARADE
Chelsea, Greenwich Village, East Village
African, Afrobeat, Afro-Cuban, Bhangra, Bollywood, Bomba, Break Dancing, Caporales, Carnival, Dancehall, Flamenco, Folkloric, Hip-Hop, House, Jazz, Latin, Majorette, Mexican, Moko Jumbies, Reggae, Salay, Salsa, Samba, Soca, Street, Tammurriata, Tap, Tarrantella, Tinkus, and more. 🇧🇴 🇧🇷 🇨🇺 🇨🇴 🇩🇴 🇮🇹 🇯🇲 🇲🇽 🇳🇬 🇵🇪 🇵🇷 🇪🇸 🇹🇹
DANCEFEST Tompkins Square Park
🇧🇴 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷 🇪🇸
Saturday, May 20, 2023
Continue Reading Dance Parade NYC 2023 DanceFest Gets over 10,000 New Yorkers Dancing in the Streets
Nation Beat Plays Brazilian Maracatu Forró Funk Jazz Fusion at Flushing Town Hall
This New York Brazilian maracatu, forró, funk jazz band is fun!
FLUSHING TOWN HALL
Flushing, Queens
Saturday, May 13, 2023
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Continue Reading Nation Beat Plays Brazilian Maracatu Forró Funk Jazz Fusion at Flushing Town Hall
Banda Iroko Will Make You Want to Dance Like You’re Madly in Love
Banda Iroko is Israeli bassist Avishai Cohen and Nuyorican conguero-vocalist Abraham Rodriguez Jr’s Nuyorican jazz project.
It’s the perfect blend of singing bass and singing drum.
BLUE NOTE
Greenwich Village
Tuesday-Sunday, April 25-30, 2023
🇮🇱 🇵🇷
Continue Reading Banda Iroko Will Make You Want to Dance Like You’re Madly in Love
Carnegie Hall is One of the World’s Great Concert Halls and Citywide
Classical, jazz and pop music in Midtown, and all kinds of music citywide.
Indian global in Brooklyn 🇮🇳
Saturday, May 6, 2023
South African jazz in Brooklyn 🇿🇦
Sunday, May 21, 2023
Colombian cumbia & vallenato in Times Square 🇨🇴
Friday, June 9, 2023
Mexican children’s music at Carnegie Hall 🇲🇽
Sunday, June 11, 2023
Son Cubano in West Harlem
Saturday, June 17, 2023 🇨🇺
Juneteenth Celebration 🇺🇸
Monday, June 19, 2023
Continue Reading Carnegie Hall is One of the World’s Great Concert Halls and Citywide
Louis Hayes, a Chief Architect of Modern Jazz Drumming, Celebrates His NEA Jazz Master Award & New Album
Mentored by Papa Jo Jones of the Count Basie Orchestra, Hayes came up in Detroit with Yusef Lateef and Kenny Burrell. In New York Hayes made his name with Horace Silver, Cannonball Adderley and Oscar Peterson. Now he’s a legend himself.
HARLEM STAGE
Manhattanville, West Harlem
Friday, April 21, 2023
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Omar Sosa and Seckou Keita with Gustavo Ovalles Revisit “Suba” and the Connections Between Cuba and Mother Africa
Thursday, May 4, 2023
ROULETTE INTERMEDIUM
Boerum Hill (Downtown), Brooklyn
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Xiomara Fortuna, the Queen of Afro-Caribbean Fusion, Plays Hostos Center
Saturday, April 1, 2023
HOSTOS CENTER
Mott Haven, The Bronx
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Continue Reading Xiomara Fortuna, the Queen of Afro-Caribbean Fusion, Plays Hostos Center
Villalobos Brothers Play Their Unique Blend of Mexican Folk, Jazz, Classical at Pregones/PRTT
Saturday, March 25, 2023
PREGONES/PRTT
Concourse, The Bronx 🇲🇽
Annette A. Aguilar & StringBeans Bring the Women in Latin Jazz Festival to Hostos Center
Saturday, March 25, 2023
HOSTOS CENTER
Mott Haven, The Bronx
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Remember Astor Piazzolla and Nuevo Tango Jazz
March 11, 1921
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina 🇦🇷
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Robert Browning Associates is a Pioneering Global Music Producer
Arab, Spanish, Malian, Cuban, Senegalese, Venezuelan, MUSIC, flamenco, afrobeats, jazz
Continue Reading Robert Browning Associates is a Pioneering Global Music Producer
Bárbara Martínez Flamenco is at Sala Astoria
Tuesdays
Astoria, Queens
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Continue Reading Bárbara Martínez Flamenco is at Sala Astoria
Fleur Seule Plays Latin Jazz at the Hard Rock Hotel
Tuesday, February 18, 2023
Times Square Theater District
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Continue Reading Fleur Seule Plays Latin Jazz at the Hard Rock Hotel
Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks Play Hot Jazz in the Birdland Theater
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
BIRDLAND THEATER
Hell’s Kitchen, NYC
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Pedro Giraudo Plays Argentine Tango on Valentines Day at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Valentine’s Day
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Central Park, New York City
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Happy Birthday Lady Gaga!
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
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Paquito D’Rivera Joins the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for Elio Villafranca’s “Tres Aguas” & Edmar Castaneda’s “Music & Colombia”
Friday, April 14, 2023
JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER
Colombus Circle, NYC
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Tito Puente is Still “The King of Latin Music”
Thursday, April 20, 2023
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Continue Reading Tito Puente is Still “The King of Latin Music”
Gregorio Uribe Celebrates His “Hombre Absurdo” Album Release at Lincoln Center
Thursday, January 19, 2023
DAVID RUBENSTEIN ATRIUM
Lincoln Center
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Latin Jazz is From New York
Latin Jazz in NYC is native. It was a long time coming, and we think jazz was Latin from birth, but latin jazz (cubop) was created by Mario Bauzá, music director for Machito and his Afro-Cubans, at the Park Avenue Ballroom on the intersection of Harlem and “El Barrio” East Harlem on May 29, 1943.
That night Bauzá composed “Tanga,” the first song that fully expressed the latin jazz form. It was the first true blending of New Orleans and Cuban jazz traditions. Listen to it on YouTube.
So bebop (modern jazz) and cubop (latin jazz) were created Uptown in Harlem and East Harlem by people who were playing together. Dizzy Gillespie completed the reunion when he later asked Bauzá for a conga player. His collaboration with conguero Chano Pozo led to jazz classics “Manteca” and “Tin tin deo.”
The Caribbean hero twins, separated at birth by colonial divisions in New Orleans and Ayití (Hispaniola), were reunited. It sounds like magical realism, but it’s real.
Don’t think badly of us for pointing this out, but “tanga” means cannabis in one of the African languages, and g-string in Spanish. Those two go together like jazz and latin jazz. It takes us back to the beginning of jass in Storyville, New Orleans.
Turns out Bauzá also played sax on “El manisero,” the first global Latin hit recorded by RCA Victor in 1930 New York. You can’t make this up.