From this space, every day we are much more aware of the unusual wealth of Latin talent that makes up the New York’s music scene, which continues to show many artists and orchestras that do not surrender to high competition and give their best to earn their place and stand out from the rest.
This is the case of Ray Rodríguez & Swing Sabroso, whose current leader, Eddie Muñiz, gives us a broader picture of the way any artist should go to keep his name alive in public taste and avoid getting lost in the large artistic catalog where there is a lot of content to choose from.
Talented musician Eddie Muñiz’s beginnings in the world of music
Eddie, who was born in Brooklyn, USA, but communicates in excellent Spanish, had his first approaches to music in elementary school at the age of 13, when he played in several classical music and jazz groups to keep improving in these arts and find his style until he had his big break.
This opportunity came when the young man turned 17 years old, at which point he had his professional career in music with a group of friends, with whom he stayed for two or three years. After that, his next group was called ”Herencia Latina” whose director was the talented Ray Rodriguez and would become the starting point of his current orchestra Swing Sabroso.
After leaving Herencia Latina, he joined Ismael’s conjunto for four years and subsequently played with Conjunto Clasico, Ray de La Paz, La Sonora Matancera, Tony Vega and many more.
About eight years later, the group did not go ahead and Ray moved to New Jersey, but as it happens, Eddie had to do the same for work reasons. Back then, Ray started a group he called Ray Rodriguez y Swing Sabroso, which invited Eddie to join the orchestra in 2000. 24 years later, it is he himself who moved such an ambitious project forward after Ray’s sad loss from the cancer on April 17, 2016.
Swing Sabroso
By the time Ray was in good health, the orchestra released two albums, one in 2005 and another in 2015. When the bandleader began to sicken, he knew he could not give the group the attention it required, so he asked Eddie to take the helm of the ship in his place as long as the group was only called Swing Sabroso, nothing else.
At that time, the group only had two trumpets and a trombone, but Eddie was gradually enlarging it and adding more instruments to make the sound fuller. Being in total control of the orchestra, the artist released the album ”Swing Sabroso, Mejor Que Nunca” in the year 2022, when they played everything that the three albums included.
Currently, Eddie is the oldest of all the Swing Sabrso members, but not for that things are always done his way. In fact, the artist assures that the younger musicians are frequently those who teach him what to do in certain cases.
Far more than a salsa orchestra, Eddie considers that ”Swing Sabroso” is also a family of musicians in which they support each other, despite the regrettable absence of its main founder, the great Ray Rodriguez. Even so many years later, Rodriguez remains the biggest influence on everyone working with Swing Sabroso.
Read also: Dominican trumpeter Wilson Portuondo talks about La Sonora Nuyorkina
