El Vapor de Brooklyn is born out of the NYC DiaspoRican experience. From those who have been here for a month, to their whole lives. Continuing the tradition of the Afro-Puerto Rican expressions known as “plena” and “bomba”, VdB brings a contemporary twist telling stories of the lived experiences from those who (for better and for worse) left the Archipelago.
About the artist:
Víctor Pablo (García-Gaetán) is a Puerto Rican musician, composer, percussionist, drummer,producer, and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. With a wide gamma of sounds and languages from folklore to contemporary, VP’s been blessed to have music take him wondrous places with stellar artists such as Arturo O’Farrill, Miguel Zenón, Angélica Negrón, Conrad Tao, Imani Winds, St. Luke’s Orchestra, Pleneros de la 21, Broadway (currently percussionist for Alicia Keys’s Hell’s Kitchen), Fernando Garcia, Kali Rodriguez-Peña, Nestor Torres and many more. He also produces and composes music for theater, short films, chamber ensembles, strings, pop, salsa, and jazz. In 2018 he co-founded the NYC timba band People of Earth, for which he composes and plays drums. In 2024, VP organizes the collective Plena del Puente – an unplugged plena quartet to host Lunes de Plena in Brooklyn, mirroring in the Diaspora the iconic Lunes de Plena in Rio Piedras PR founded by master plenero and former LP21 member Hector “Tito” Matos. VP is honored and proud to bring his latest musical project El Vapor de Brooklyn to the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.
About the Jazz Is: Now Curatorial Fellowships
Since its founding, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem has provided young artists with opportunities to perform as well as curate concerts and events. NJMH Artistic Director Christian McBride started curating performances and presentations at the Museum in 2006, and Artistic Director Jon Batiste began in 2010 while a student at Juilliard. The excitement and energy those events brought to our community inform our current programming and creative vision. As Christian and Jon became globally recognized jazz ambassadors, the Museum continued to provide emerging artists with career-enhancing opportunities to curate events at the Museum. In 2022, we formalized this initiative as the Jazz Is: Now Curatorial Fellowships, with generous funding from the New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fellowship Program. Our third cohort of Jazz Is: Now Curatorial Fellows includes bassist Liany Mateo and pianist Luther Allison.
Liany and Luther will be performing and curating a variety of events at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem throughout 2024.
National Jazz Museum in Harlem
We are your go-to venue for off-site meetings, receptions, film screenings, workshops, networking events, socials and more. Located in the heart of Central Harlem’s thriving culinary and entertainment district, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is the perfect place to hold your next gathering.