In Spanish Harlem more than half a century ago, a young Puerto Rican boy named Ernest Anthony Puente tapped rhythms on his windowsill on East 110th Street. He grew up to be Tito Puente, the acclaimed bandleader who put mambo on the world’s musical map and made New York the center of yet another lively sound.
Ricky Martin, who was honored by the Latin Recording Academy last night, said yesterday that living in New York at 18 was a turning point in his career. He arrived with Marc Anthony and his wife, Jennifer Lopez.
Tonight when the Latin Grammy Awards make their New York debut in a glitzy production at Madison Square Garden, it will be a fitting homecoming for the Latin music industry. Latin music can trace many of its roots back to New York, not only through Mr. Puente but through the singer Celia Cruz, and other musicians who fused their famous sounds in the city, including Mario Bauzá and Mongo Santamaria.
Given this rich history, the fact that the Latin Grammys have never before been held in New York is somewhat surprising — especially because one of the awards shows to beat them here were last year’s Country Music Awards.
“Symbolically, I think it has great significance,” said Leila Cobo, the Latin bureau chief for Billboard magazine. “When Latin music was happening in the ’40s and ’50s, this is where it was happening — salsa, merengue, cha cha cha.”
New York has since become known for inspiring other music genres, such as rap and hip-hop, and the Latin music industry is now firmly entrenched in Miami.
Still, for some, the best part about the Latin Grammys finally arriving in New York is not the sentimental link to the past, but the prospect of matching one of the most diverse awards shows — which includes categories for Mexican regional music styles alongside salsa, merengue, pop and rock — with one of the most diverse Latino populations in the country.
Puerto Ricans have long made up New York’s largest Latino group, but they are joined now by large numbers of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and Mexico, to name a few countries. The Latin Grammys have 47 categories, everything from tejano to reggaetón, and performers must sing in Spanish or Portuguese.
Then there is the opportunity for Latin performers to plug in to New York’s vast musical universe, especially those who want to cross over to English audiences.
“There is no doubt that New York makes the platform higher and wider,” said Gabriel Abaroa, the president of the Latin Recording Academy, which sponsors the awards.
“It’s like all of the sudden you are playing in the big leagues,” Mr. Abaroa added, describing the age-old experience of every aspiring nobody who tried to make it in New York. “When you have that, you challenge yourself to make sure you deliver to the standards of this city.”
Sometimes, the big, anonymous city delivers something back. Ricky Martin, who accepted the academy’s Person of the Year Award at a banquet last night, recalled the eight months in 1990 when he lived in Long Island City after five hectic years in the boy band Menudo.
“I was 18 and I wanted to know what I wanted with life,” Mr. Martin said yesterday. “I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be back in the business. And to live anonymously and to be able to sit on a park bench and think, it was an interesting moment.”
The awards, first held in 2000, have been staged in Los Angeles and Miami. Latin music is the only music category that has registered growth in national sales in the past two years, according to Ms. Cobo. In heavily Mexican parts of the city, like Elmhurst and Corona, Queens, where iPods are a rare sight, Latin music stores are thriving, even as other music stores go out of business.
While the city’s Economic Development Corporation estimates that the show, which will be broadcast on the Univision television network, will generate $30 million for New York businesses, some hope all the attention will eventually give the city something else: a new movement in Latin music to call its own.
Perhaps, Ms. Cobo mused, there is a musical sound percolating among the city’s new Latin immigrants that has yet to be discovered.
Elena Martinez, a New York folklorist, had a more modest aim for the Latin Grammys. “I hope it does bring recognition for the younger generation who has grown up on Shakira,” she said. “I don’t know if they’re aware of the history or the roots and a lot of those roots are here in New York City.”
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