El Barrio: mi casaEast Harlem, aah! El Barrio, it’s something else. Since the first time I set foot on this neighborhood 27 years ago, it has been a main source of inspiration, learning, and sí, wisdom. I could be anywhere in the city but it is in El Barrio where I feel the music in the air, and see it everywhere, record shops, and guys jammin’ in the park, play yard, block parties, rehearsing for a gig at Boys’ Harbor or just doing it at Old Timer’s day while the couples are kicking butt with their suave moves!  I feel the music by just seeing and talking to people and friends, my people, I do taste it in the aroma and sweet smell of the comida criolla and frituras taking shape in store fronts and homes as I walk around.I have never lived in El barrio though; always wanted, I guess I don’t have to, ‘cause it’s home, it feels like it.  I work here, I study here, I hang out here, my favorite joints are here too, my friends are here, and my music is here.  When I’m not here, I come with my family to visit, to eat and play.    And then the memories, the parties, the places and street corners where I’ve been, where I have learned, where I have met so many great people, Marcial Reyes, Victor Montañes, Gallito, Beny Ayala, Ismael Rivera, Joe Cuba, La Calandria, Jaime Flores, Rafael Tufiño, Manny Vega, Tito Cepeda, Sammy Tanco, Frankie Malabé, great masters of our music, from la Jibara to Jazz, some of them gone, however ever-present within. It is definitely my home, where I jammed and learned with the old time pleneros and bomberos, where Los Pleneros de la 21 band was brought as a baby from La Casita and learned to walk in Gallo’s Place and at the Young Devil’s Club.

  Now at Los Pleneros’ home at Julia de Burgos Center is our time to pay back to the people and to the younger generation who hopefully will look up to us the same way I looked up to the great artists I met.  Now I jam, I play and yes, I do learn from the young cats.  !Que viva El Barrio y su gente!