Jazzdelapena

Jazzdelapena Bilingual Journalist, Cultural Historian: thomaspena.substack.com Peña is also the Founder of The Puerto Rico Project.

“A graduate of Empire State College with a dual major in journalism and Latin American studies, Tomas Peña has spent years applying his knowledge and writing skills to the promotion of great musicians. A specialist in the crossroads between jazz and Afro-Caribbean music, Peña has written extensively on the subject. His writing has appeared throughout the internet while he worked as a contributing

writer for The Latin Jazz Corner, All About Jazz, Jazz.com, Chamber Music America magazine, Latin Jazz Network. Peña has conducted numerous interviews with artists, building connections and getting the scoop on the music. He worked in radio as the host of Under the Radar on WFDU 89.1 FM and infused his local community with musical knowledge as a member of The New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Advisory Board.

06/02/2026

📖 They treated Latin rhythm like novelty; Tito made it law.

In the mambo years at the Palladium Ballroom, Tito Puente stood behind the timbales with drumsticks in hand and conducted the room like a man who knew exactly what a beat could do to a body. Brass flashed, dancers spun across the waxed floor, and every crack of the cowbell sounded less like accompaniment than command. He was not there to decorate somebody else’s music. He was there to lead it.

That matters because people talk about Latin music as if it simply arrived one day, fully welcomed, fully understood. It did not. Tito Puente, a Puerto Rican kid from Spanish Harlem, built authority note by note, arrangement by arrangement, proving that percussion was not background, that mambo was not a side attraction, that a Nuyorican musician could stand at the center of an American sound and make the whole room move on his terms. Even “Oye Como Va,” which the world later repeated so easily, began as part of that larger insistence: our rhythm already knows where it is going.

The honest thing is this: he did not just entertain people. He changed what they had to respect.

What gift of your own have you been treating like decoration when it was meant to lead?

06/01/2026

In Part I of this series I’ve surveyed the career of the great Latin jazz drummer, percussionist, impresario and scholar Bobby Sanabria, whose depth of … Read More "Before & After, Part II: Bobby Sanabria on the Infinite Lessons of Latin Jazz"

06/01/2026

Together disponible en todas las plataformas digitalesCHARLIE SEPÚLVEDAAgradecimientos especialesAquí Se Pued...

https://afrolatinofestnyc.com
05/30/2026

https://afrolatinofestnyc.com

Five days of Afro-Latin music, AfrolatinTalks panels, the Consider Culture Music Market and a free SummerStage finale across NYC.

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