Felix Contreras
Felix Contreras is co-creator and host of Alt.Latino, NPR's pioneering program about Latin Alternative music and Latino culture. It features music as well as interviews with many of the most well-known Latinx musicians, actors, filmmakers, and writers. He has hosted and produced Alt.Latino episodes from Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, and throughout the U.S. since the show started in 2010.
Previously, Contreras was a reporter and producer NPR's Arts Desk and, among other stories and projects, covered a series reported from Mexico on the musical movement called Latin Alternative; helped produce NPR's award-winning series 50 Great Voices; and reported a series of stories on the financial challenges aging jazz musicians face.
Contreras is a recovering television journalist who has worked for both NBC and Univision in Miami and California. He's a part-time musician who plays Afro-Cuban percussion with various jazz and Latin bands in the Washington, DC, area. He is also NPR Music's resident Deadhead.
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Santana's debut album was released on this day 50 years ago. NPR's Felix Contreras considers it a game-changing moment in the marriage of Afro-Caribbean rhythms and rock 'n' roll.
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Amid the most crucial political crisis to hit Puerto Rico in its modern history, Puerto Rican artists Residente, Bad Bunny and iLe respond with music in real time.
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The Brazilian singer and guitarist, who won wide acclaim for his abundant technical skill and minimalist style, was behind one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, 1964's Getz/Gilberto. -
There's a new box set of rare Cuban music recordings from the 1950s and 60s. The set is called The Complete Cuban Jam Sessions. Hear an interview with co-producer Judy Cantor-Navas on Alt. Latino.
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The patriarch helped take his legendary family from Gary, Ind., to global stardom, though the disciplinarian streak he used to get them there proved controversial later in life. -
Since the legendary singer began his career in the 1960s, he won Grammys in the jazz, pop and R&B categories. Just one clue that Jarreau, who died Sunday, was impossible to categorize. -
Alt.Latino goes mining for new sounds in the less prominent categories of this year's Latin Grammys. -
Alt.Latino host Felix Contreras teams up with NPR classical music maven Tom Huizenga to talk about composers from Mexico, Puerto Rico and Brazil, delighting host Linda Wertheimer.
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Outlaw, "Okie from Muskogee," poet of working-class values and a fixture in country music for 50 years, Merle Haggard died Wednesday, April 6, his 79th birthday. -
A member of the Count Basie and Duke Ellington Orchestras, Terry also enjoyed a long freelance career which included jazz education and a featured slot in NBC's Tonight Show band. He was 94.
