Los Hacheros is a New York salsa band that switches between the traditional flute and violin charanga style of the early 1940s, and the later conjunto with a fat bottom trombone sound that developed into hard salsa dura.
Lead singer Jeremy Bosch is originally from Ponce, Puerto Rico (like El Cantante, Héctor Lavoe). He plays with many NYC bands. We know him best from his excellent work with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra.
Original coverage of Los Hacheros was sponsored by Carnegie Hall. Thank you!
Los Hacheros
This is a really fun band. Los Hacheros (the axemen) channel Changó/Santa Barbara, the saint of drumming and dancing.
They play old school charanga, the sweet violin and flute salsa of way back, before salsa actually. This is Caribbean Creole music.
Then they whip out a trombone and jump into the big-bottomed classic salsa sound of Eddie Palmieri, Willie Colón and FANIA of 1970s New York City.
- Eddie Venegas, violin 🇻🇪
- Itai Kriss, flute, campana and guiro
- Jeremy Bosch, lead vocals 🇵🇷
- William Ash, tumbaos and bass
- Jacob Plasse, tres
Los Hacheros in New York City
Los Hacheros with Jeremy Bosch play Puerto Rican salsa at The Django in Tribeca on Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 10:30pm. 🇵🇷
Los Hacheros play Salsa music for dancing hosted by Talia Castro-Pozo at Summer for the City at Lincoln Center on Saturday, July 2, 2022 at 6:30pm. Free. 🇨🇺🇵🇷
Los Hacheros play Salsa Dura at SOB’s in Hudson Square, Manhattan on Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 6pm. 🇵🇷
Los Hacheros play The Stage on Level 4 at Hudson Yards on Tue, Nov 30, 2021 from 6-8pm. FREE with registration. 🇵🇷
Los Hacheros play Wild Birds in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Thu, Oct 7 at 9pm. wildbirdsbk.com
Los Hacheros play Salsa for dancing at Latin Mondays at Taj in the Flatiron District on Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 7pm (5pm doors). From $10. 🇵🇪+🇵🇷
Thursday, April 2, 2020 ~ Los Hacheros play salsa for dancing at Gonzalez y Gonzalez in Greenwich Village from 9:30pm to 1:30am. $10 cover
Thursday, March 12, 2020 ~ Los Hacheros play Ginny’s at the Red Rooster in Harlem. $15
Sundays ~ Los Hacheros play Sundays at Verlaine in NYC’s Lower East Side from 9pm to midnight until March 2020.
Los Hacheros play 1970s New York salsa for Carnegie Hall Citywide at the Brooklyn Museum First Saturdays on December 7, 2019 at 5pm. FREE
It’s a Brooklyn Museum First Saturdays party with a little Carnegie Hall Citywide. Take your dance shoes because Los Hacheros won’t let you sit still.
The Power of Salsa
In its broadest sense, many people think all Latin music is salsa. Actually salsa is a blend of Caribbean traditions that climaxed in New York City in the 1970s and spread worldwide.
It was Cuban dance music, played mostly by Puerto Ricans in East Harlem and The Bronx.
FANIA music director Johnny Pacheco (who is Dominican) is generally credited with coming up with the name “Salsa” to describe the melange of musics. FANIA was the Latin Motown. Tito Puente (Puerto Rican) was recording for his Tico Records. Celia Cruz (Cuban) was a force all her own.
In the 1970s, salsa went global out of New York City and gave birth to regional variations. Cali, Colombia is the “capital of the salsa, but it is Colombian salsa which has less clave and a related tradition of stage salsa dancing.
Salsa absorbs regional traditions. Compare early Celia Cruz with La Sonora Matancera in Cuba to late Celia Cruz with Fania in New York. In New York her sound has swing and Broadway in it.
Old Cuban salsa has rumba and son in it. Puerto Rican salsa has bomba and plena in it. Colombian salsa has cumbia in it. New York salsa has swing in it.
Cuban music continued evolving into Timba. The Cuban reaction to salsa is that it is old-fashioned music from the 1950s. It is exactly that. Puerto Ricans brought it to New York City with The Great Migration of the 1950s.
The “hard” salsa of the 1970s led to the romantic salsa of the 1980s. It was a wild time in New York City. The bottom was 1977. It was hard times but it was a great time too. Salsa, disco, hip-hop and punk all came up out of New York City then.
So this is the energy of Los Hacheros, “the axemen.”