La Gran Banda

Henry A. March, the leader of La Gran Banda, came to Miami as a professional musician. He is a saxophonist, clarinetist, and flutist, as well as a director, arranger, and composer of Afro-Caribbean dance music (salsa, merengue, cumbia) and jazz. Three of his four sons are also musicians.

Due to a large supply of vallenato ensembles in South Florda, March decided to occupy an unfilled niche and offer a novelty to Colombians in Miami: a papayera band. Thus, he founded La Gran Banda—Orquesta y Papayera. The papayera, a municipal-type brass band with added Afro-Colombian percussion instruments, is typical of the Atlantic coastal towns near March’s native city of Barranquilla. It is neither a marching nor a concert band; rather it plays Afro-Colombian dance rhythms of the Atlantic coast: porro, cumbia, fandango, paseo, and “any kind of dance music in a band style.”

In addition to Henry A. March, the members of La Gran Banda include Jorge Pérez, redoblante (snare drum); Henry J. March (March’s son), cymbals and guache (tube rattle); Iván de las Salas, bombo (bass drum); Gabriel Solís, trumpet and baritone horn; Arnoldo Llamas, trombone; Larry March (March’s brother), trombone and saxophone; Edgardo de la Rosa, electric bass; and Edwin Aragón, keyboard.

Henry A. March is also interested in the folk music of Colombia's Atlantic coastal region and has a collection of traditional instruments, such as the Amerindian gaita (long vertical flutes played in pairs) and the African-influenced llamador (a small cylindrical drum used for playing cumbias).

Photograph Gallery
At Home with La Gran Banda.
Photographs by Carl Juste.