Felix Contreras

The Grateful Dead's song "Dark Star" was something of a holy grail for Deadheads attending either their first or 200th show. I once had an iPod playlist that had over seven hours of the legendary jam. So you can imagine my joy when someone turned me on to ...

It's hard to imagine a musical career that included musicians as varied as Charlie Parker, Peggy Lee, George Shearing and Carlos Santana. But such was hand percussionist Armando Peraza's resumé after almost 70 years making music.

A boyhood friend of Mongo Santamaria, Peraza was part of the first wave of ...

The music of Pacifika draws you in almost immediately: The Vancouver trio's musicianship is superb, buoyed by a voice that stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it. Pacifika's sound has been labeled as world fusion, but that label is more of a restriction than a description. ...

The Offense of the Drum is one of those moments when the course of music with a long tradition is altered slightly — when music moves forward in a subtle and graceful way that's likely to have a lasting impact.

Arturo O'Farrill has had to fill big shoes: His ...

There is no music in this week's episode of Alt.Latino. Instead, we do one of our occasional "deep dives" into a subject to pursue insights and perspectives that help us think about more than music. This time around, the subject is Cesar Chavez, the recent biopic about the civil-rights activist ...

Argentine singer-songwriter Federico Aubele uses his dark, husky voice to produce a specific effect in the three songs he performs at this Tiny Desk Concert: Together, they jell into one impressionistic midtempo ballad.

A voice like Aubele's could be restrictive: His lower register seems to always reflect something dark ...

Traditional flamenco is a singer's art, born in the cradle of Roma culture in Spain. De Lucia was neither a singer nor Roma, which makes his accomplishments all the more extraordinary.

A drum from the Argentine Pampas fuels the music of Sofia Rei in this video: The way Franco Pinna has it incorporated into a traditional drum set serves as a musical metaphor for the music Rei performs alongside Pinna and guitarist/bassist JC Maillard.

Rei carries the accent and spirit of ...

Editor's note: It is February and that can mean only one thing. It is time for Black, Latino And Proud: Black History Month With Alt.Latino hosted by our friends and colleagues Felix Contreras and Jasmine Garsd. We pass the mic to Felix to hear what they will be featuring ...

Gina Chavez's voice stops you in your tracks the first time you hear it. At least that's how it worked for me when I came upon her performance during South by Southwest a few years ago. She was playing a semi-acoustic set on a sunlit patio above a busy sports ...

Martirio owes an artistic debt to both a dictator and jazz.

She is a living, breathing and performing example of the artistic explosion that greeted the death of Francisco Franco, the despot who ruled Spain from 1939 through 1975. After decades of severely limited creative expression, Martirio and other ...

La Santa Cecilia spreads joy every time its members plug in to do a show. They do it one dance step at a time, with cumbias, corridos, elegant mambos and plain old rock 'n' roll.

I first saw La Santa Cecilia perform in an Austin, Texas, parking lot about ...

Concha Buika's voice doesn't come from inside her petite body: It comes from Africa, and from the past. There are obvious traces of flamenco, itself a historical mash-up of the Moors and various transitory cultures in southern Spain and north Africa.

During her flights of improvisation, we also hear ...

A while back, I found myself weary of hearing music played in 4/4 time, with the snare hitting on the 2 and 4. For relief, I dug deeper into an existing passion for Afro-Cuban music — and, during that journey, discovered the Argentine trio Tremor.

Tremor creates a mash-up of ...

Marian McPartland, who gave the world an intimate, insider's perspective on one of the most elusive topics in music — jazz improvisation — died of natural causes Tuesday night at her home in Long Island, N.Y. She was 95.

For more than 40 years, she hosted Marian McPartland's ...

It's already August 8, which means you've got maybe three or four weeks left to complain about preseason football, inadequately shield yourself from the scorching heat of the sun, and communicate with your kids about something other than why they haven't done their homework. So why not get cracking on ...

It's possible to chart the development of Latin Alternative music by following the career of Andrea Echeverri.

In 1992, Echeverri and Hector Buitrago formed Aterciopelados in Bogota, Colombia, during a time of great innovation in rock en Español. Bands from all over Latin America were experimenting with indigenous ...

It is not easy to play both jazz drum set and Afro-Caribbean percussion. Lots of drummers do it, but few have mastered it in a way that makes their sound in either style unmistakable from the first beat.

The music community lost one of those true innovators Wednesday with the ...

Jazz fans will get the reference in the name of Chucho Valdés' quintet, The Afro-Cuban Messengers. Just as drummer Art Blakey did with various versions of his Jazz Messengers, Valdés is nurturing future generations of Afro-Cuban jazz musicians while also spreading the gospel of the music ...

Ever since her self-titled debut in 2005, Spanish singer Concha Buika has mesmerized fans with her dark, husky voice, which mixes the Moorish roots of flamenco with the dexterity of great jazz singers. Buika, part of a long line of captivating female vocalists from Spain, has progressed from her ...