Little Johnny Rivero & His Giants

Overview

Join us for an afternoon of fiery Latin entertainment when conguero great Little Johnny Rivero performs with a band made up of some of the best musicians the world of salsa and Latin jazz has to offer!

Legendary conguero, percussionist, producer, composer, bandleader Little Johnny was born in New York City to Puerto Rican parents. As a child, he was drawn to the rhythms of the rumberos who played at Jefferson and Randall's Island parks.

At age fourteen Little Johnny joined Orquesta Colón, the youngest Latin band in New York City at the time, with them he recorded two albums. Johnny then moved to Puerto Rico with his parents where he joined La Sonora Ponceña.

After playing bongos with the band for a year and a half he switched to congas, which rekindled the love affair he had begun with this instrument as a small child.

During the sixteen years Little Johnny played with La Sonora Ponceña he recorded eighteen highly respected albums with them.

Currently, Lil’ Johnny is touring extensively all over the world with the winner of nine Grammy awards, Eddie Palmieri. In addition, Johnny continues to work at studio sessions and perform with many of the biggest and most respected acts in latin music including his own band.

Rivero’s second solo effort, “Music In Me,” delivers a Latin-Jazz groove with underpinnings of traditional Afro-Cuban percussion and rhythms. From the relentless, driving bata voicing in “Alambique,” to the haunting background tribal chants that color “Africa My Land,” to the staccato horn runs peppered throughout the album’s title track “Music In Me” delivers a unified theme of jazzy improvisation with percussive color. “Music in Me” is available now.