My website Jazz en Dominicana was born on October 23, 2006. It was originally a blog,
intended to inform about the jazz that was presented in the Dominican Republic by local and international musicians, as well as about what Dominican jazz musicians were doing on other beaches, globally. To date, it has posted nearly 2,800 pieces: concerts and festival reviews, articles, interviews, biographies, photographs and more.
Before the website completed its first year, in September 2007, the first live jazz venue for weekly performances in DR was born – Jazz Dominicana at Casa de Teatro in Santo Domingo. It had grown out of The Santo Domingo Jazz Festival, which has been staging its 27th annual series (June 4 through July 23) with artists from Cuba, France and Spain besides from DR itself. [Ed. note: The author is involved in all these projects].
This fest began and continues with the mission to spread jazz, diversifying the public that enters the world of jazz, increasing the venues for live jazz, supporting emerging talents, positioning and promoting jazz inside and outside of the country. The past two decades have witnessed more than 1,550 weekly live jazz events, with enriching moments of instrumental and vocal jazz, presentations of more than 250 musicians and vocalists from all corners of the Caribbean nation, as well as guest artists from the United States and Canada, Central and South America, Europe and Russia.
In addition, Fiesta Sunset Jazz, held every Friday on the eighth floor of the Dominican Fiesta Hotel,
will celebrate its 750th event this coming December. In the 2019 All About Jazz Readers Poll this showcase was rated as No. 21 jazz venue in the world!
Jazz en Dominicana – The Interviews 2025, Jazz en Dominicana´s eighth book (seventh in an interview series) was published last February (2026). These volumes open a window to various actors who have been, are and will be part of the jazz scene in my country.
To date, the books comprise interviews with 62 musicians and 11 educators, producers of radio programs, concerts and festivals, and notably 50 women who have contributed enormously — and continue to –in all styles and periods of the history of jazz here.
The special and different thing about these books is that not only are they written in Spanish and English, but they are integrated with Augmented Reality. To make these readings interactive and didactic, we have supported the texts with inclusion of a QR (Quick Response) Code. Scan it and listen instantly through a mobile phone or other technological device to samples of the work of the musicians in this publication, a resource for connecting the readers and the interviewees.
Further highlights so far in 2026: For the 15th consecutive year, Jazz en Dominicana hosted multiple events to celebrate International Jazz Day and, for the fifth time, was co-host in the virtual programming of the New Orleans Jazz Museum’s IJD. Also – I continue my monthly column ¨Hablemos de Jazz (Let´s talk about Jazz) in the renown Dominican Republic publication Ritmo Social, while contributing regularly to Latin Jazz Network (Toronto, Canada).
Grateful to so many… Jazz en Dominicana hollers out a big THANK YOU! and firmly states and confirms that we shall keep contributing to the culture of music, especially jazz, in the Dominican Republic. And, on October 24th, Year 21 shall begin!!
