Lineup:
Pete Rodriguez - Trumpet
Jon Beshay - Tenor saxophone
Esteban Castro - Piano
Dave Baron - Bass
Rudy Royston - Drums
Robert Quintero - Percussion

Trumpeter, vocalist, and percussionist Pete Rodríguez carries the bloodline of Nuyorican salsa as he takes his unique brand of jazz to exciting new places. Son of salsa singer Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez and godson of Fania Records bandleader Johnny Pacheco, Rodríguez cut his teeth playing with some of the greatest names in Latin music. By age 19, he was musical director of his father’s band. As a vocalist, he sang on Tito Puente's Grammy-award winning Mambo Birdland. As an instrumentalist, he's appeared with legends including Celia Cruz, Chico O'Farrill, Bebo Valdez and Eddie Palmieri, including performing on the Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project’s Grammy-winning release, Simpatico. As a bandleader, Rodriguez has drawn on his diverse upbringing—including living through the birth of Hip Hop in the Bronx and becoming an accomplished classical trumpeter during his adolescence in Puerto Rico—to create his own brand of jazz that defies categorization. The result is music that has been described as “not only instrumentally ferocious, but texturally rich and at times, profoundly intimate.” (Downbeat). His music demonstrates his aptitude for hard-driving, modern post-bop jazz, as much as melodic Latin variants and R&B-tinged grooves. Rodriguez has recorded six acclaimed albums as a bandleader, and his latest recording, "I’m Pete Rodriguez, Vol. 1" (Sunnyside Records) was released in late 2024 and named one of the Best of 2024 by the NYC Jazz Record.

“As a bandleader he’s working on a clean, complex and flexible model of modern Latin jazz … his compositions change shape and character, according to the free flow of the arrangements, among art song and swing and clave. Draped over all of it is Mr. Rodriguez’s powerful playing, soft-toned but battling.” – - The New York Times