Felix Contreras

I wish we'd put a camera in the Alt.Latino studio to capture Jasmine Garsd's face as she listened to my picks for the first time. It would have captured the way she stared into space as the sounds came through her headphones and made their way into her musical consciousness; ...

I was in high school, playing drums in a band with some pals in the mid-'70s, when I got a call from my uncle: Would I like to play a couple of dates with his norteño band over the summer?

While my drumming skills were decidedly high-school-level in terms of ...

You don't really listen to an Omar Sosa concert so much as experience it. The Cuban-born pianist's overall demeanor exudes a sense of calm and deep reflection, while a spiritual connection to music and his ancestors comes through in his piano playing.

You can hear Sosa draw on more ...

The percussionist and bandleader Tito Puente would have celebrated his 90th birthday this weekend on April 20. And the recently released box set Quatro: The Definitive Collection is a great place to start celebrating the once and forever King of Latin Music. It captures the driving sound of ...

When California Gov. Jerry Brown named Juan Felipe Herrera to the honorary post of poet laureate, he was tapping into a slice of Chicano history.

Herrera came of age during the late 1960s and early '70s, when politics, culture and social change influenced what became known as the Chicano Movement.

This week, Alt.Latino takes a look at five people who've been affected by U.S. immigration or immigration law. As you might expect, we take a musical approach, as we ask each subject to bring along a song that depicts his or her situation or status. The playlist is thought-provoking, and ...

With eight accomplished musicians from Argentina and Uruguay, and a sound rooted in tango traditions, Bajofondo lays out a visual and aural feast. Led by Oscar and Grammy winner Gustavo Santaolalla, the group mashes up traditional candombe sounds and other forms with electronica to produce a mix that's hypnotic ...

Politics and rock en Español go hand in hand, and Mexico City's Molotov is a flag-waver for that combination. The band formed in 1995 during an era in which seismic political changes transformed Mexican society; from the start, Molotov's music pointed fingers at economic and political institutions — and even ...