{"id":185471,"date":"2026-04-04T14:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T14:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/185471\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T14:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T14:19:10","slug":"bronx-based-musician-bobby-sanabria-to-release-album-celebrating-legacy-of-arsenio-rodriguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/185471\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronx-based musician Bobby Sanabria to release album celebrating legacy of Arsenio Rodriguez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Bobby\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Bobby Sanabria\u2019s new album honors Arsenio Rodriguez<\/p>\n

Photos courtesy of Bobby Sanabria<\/p>\n

A Bronx-based musician is bringing the work of Arsenio Rodriguez to life through a new live album.\n<\/p>\n

Bobby Sanabria has been into music for as long as he can remember. Growing up as a Nuyorican in the South Bronx, Sanabria said that music was deeply ingrained in the world he grew up in; he told amNewYork that his father had an eclectic taste in music, and Sanabria would often stay up late sneakily watching programs like \u201cThe Ed Sullivan Show\u201d and \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d to catch jazz acts.<\/p>\n

Sanabria said that where he grew up in the Melrose projects, he would hear the adults listening to jazz quite regularly, inspiring him to take up the drums.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey listen to jazz and when they saw a kid with an instrument who is African American or Puerto Rican like myself, they would be like nodding their heads and yeah, go on, you know, maybe you\u2019ll be the next Miles Davis or the next Max Roach or the next Tito Puente,\u201d recalled Sanabria. \u201cDespite the chaos of that was happening at the time period that I grew up in, the music really kept us alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanabria has certainly made a name for himself in the music space. After graduating from the Berklee College of Music, Sanabria worked over several years to become a seven-time-Grammy winner and has recorded ten albums. He has performed and recorded with legends such as Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, and Mongo Santamaria.<\/p>\n

This month, Sanabria will be releasing a new live album, \u201cArsenio and Beyond: Live at the Bronx Music Hall.\u201d As the name suggests, the album, performed live at Bronx Music Hall, is a tribute to the late Cuban musician and composer Arsenio Rodr\u00edguez.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife Elena Martinez, who\u2019s a well-known folklorist and also a documentary filmmaker, it was her idea. She came up with the idea for the album. She said, \u2018Hey, we have a grant for you to do a concert at the hall. Why don\u2019t you record it, but do it in honor of Arsenio Rodriguez?\u201d said Sanabria.<\/p>\n

\"Bobby<\/a>Bobby Sanabria performing.Photo courtesy of Bobby Sanabria<\/p>\n

Sanabria told amNewYork that the choice to make it a live album definitely adds pressure to make it great, considering you don\u2019t get a chance to redo a track if you mess up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a dangerous proposition because you have to have really great musicians. In a recording studio, if you make a mistake, you can stop or you can replace something. But live, it is what it is, what you hear is what you get,\u201d said Sanabria. \u201cSo I\u2019m very lucky that I live in New York and I have access to not only the best musicians in the world, but the most versatile in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanabria said that while he was a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, the Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, which he led, had previously done a concert to honor Arsenio Rodriguez. They updated the music and added a few extras to make this performance unique, with the album featuring nine tracks embodying Rodriguez\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI picked songs that I related to from my youth, that are instantly recognizable to Arsenio and we included two compositions by people that were influenced by it, three compositions by people that were influenced by Arsenio. That\u2019s the beyond part,\u201d said Sanabria.<\/p>\n

And since Rodriguez had previously lived in the South Bronx for a period of time, Sanabria felt he was the perfect subject for the album.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a ubiquitous presence, plus it\u2019ll be in the new Bronx Music Hall, so it\u2019s the converging of all of these related things coming together and the result is this fantastic album for the dedicated to this band that, without him, there\u2019s no salsa really today,\u201d said Sanabria.<\/p>\n

\u201cArsenio and Beyond: Live at the Bronx Music Hall\u201d will be released on April 10. For more information about Sanabria, visit bobbysanabria.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bobby Sanabria\u2019s new album honors Arsenio Rodriguez Photos courtesy of Bobby Sanabria A Bronx-based musician is bringing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[74585,74586,74587,128,6160,2538,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-185471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-arsenio-rodriguez","9":"tag-big-band","10":"tag-bobby-sanabria","11":"tag-bronx","12":"tag-jazz","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-the-bronx","18":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","19":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}