Los Pleneros de la 21

Los Planeros De La 21 keep Puerto Rican music and dance alive through their New York performances. Juan Gutierrez assembled the 12-piece ensemble in 1983, drawing together three generations of Puerto Rican musicians, dancers, and artisans. Intricate multi-part vocal harmonies ride the pulses of hand-held plena drums and barrel-shaped bomba drums as the group revives Puerto Rico’s African-rooted bomba and plena traditions. Billboard commended the band’s “exhilaratingly deep Latino explorations of Afro-Caribbean grooves,” while the New York Times observed, “the melodies are gorgeous and the tunes perfectly arranged, precise rhythms making way for singing or a drum section.”