New York Latin Culture Magazine®

World-class Indigenous, European & African Culture since 2012

Latin Jazz

Latin jazz is a New York native. It has long roots, but “cubop” was defined in “El Barrio” East Harlem by Mario Bauzá, music director for Machito and His Afro-Cubans, in 1943.

Jazz and classical are two sides of the same coin.

A lot of Latin music is in conversation with jazz.

Thanks to our recent Latin jazz sponsors: 
Carnegie Hall
Harlem Stage
Hostos Center 
Robert Browning Associates

Latin Jazz NYC

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

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
🇺🇸

Continue Reading Louis Hayes, a Chief Architect of Modern Jazz Drumming, Celebrates His NEA Jazz Master Award & New Album

Los Aurora

Sunday, March 29, 2020
WORLD MUSIC INSTITUTE
LE POISSON ROUGE
Greenwich Village, NYC
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An entertaining blend of flamenco, jazz and rock that is part of the Nuevo Flamenco movement out of Barcelona, Spain.
–
Sponsored by
World Music Institute

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Brian Lynch

Sunday, January 26, 2020
62nd GRAMMY AWARDS
Los Angeles, California
The Grammy-winning trumpeter’s “Crucible for Crisis” was nominated for Best Instrumental Composition and “The Omni-American Book Club” won Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album

Continue Reading Brian Lynch

Elio Villafranca

BELMONT, THE BRONX, Sun, Jan 27, 2019 ~ The jazz composer of the African diaspora joins Mary Ann Sweeney & Bronx Arts Ensemble to play one of the jazz greats, Charles Mingus. African Cuban jazz live music. FREE

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Dorantes

Thursday-Saturday, March 22-24, 2018
FLAMENCO FESTIVAL
DIZZY’S CLUB
JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER
Columbus Circle, NYC
One of the great flamenco pianists plays a concert of “Flamenco Meets Jazz.”
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Sponsored by
¡Jazz at Lincoln Center!

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New York Jazz Clubs

Jazz at Lincoln Center is the world’s leading jazz organization.

Terraza 7 is New York’s most Latin jazz club.

Birdland and the Blue Note are legendary jazz clubs.

Minton’s is the room where bebop was born.

The Village Vanguard is New York’s oldest continually operating jazz club.

Drom is a world music club that hosts a lot of latin jazz.

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.

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.