Hacking through the dense jungle of his intercultural Puerto Rico to the woods of Massachusetts, Gomez founded the award-winning Boston-based Avant Salsa/Rock quintet Jayuya when he was 21. His artistic identity crisis/celebration goes one step further with post-salsa big band  Zemog, El Gallo Bueno. Gomez plays baritone guitar (tuned one fourth below regular guitar) and congas, and is lead singer. After Jayuya broke up, Gomez got a weekly gig playing at a Boston bar. When several guitarists failed to show up on the Afrobeat gigs, Gomez took out his baritone guitar—which allows him to simultaneously play a bass line and guitar part—and began to adapt the trio music he had performed at New York’s Knitting Factory. Several horn players and percussionists kept showing up and it grew into a tight eight-piece band. By the time the Sunday night residency came to an end, Zemog, El Gallo Bueno was born.

 Santiago Greco

A Berklee graduate and bass-player, whose Argentinean family escaped to Mexico when he was a child to avoid political persecution.

Giancarlo Buscaglia

Plays cuatro, guitar, and baritone guitar, and sings—heads up a premier roots salsa band called Balaton.

Timo Shanko

Gomez sold his baritone sax at a bargain price to Shanko—known for his genius upright bass playing with avant-garde band The Fully Celebrated Orchestra and the 38 volumes of John Coltrane solos he transcribed—on the condition that Shanko play in Zemog (a ploy that Gomez still can’t believe worked).

Taylor Ho-Bynum 

Also from The Fully Celebrated Orchestra this trumpet-player (of Welsh and Chinese origins) is a master of extended trumpet technique.

Jim Mesbauer

Too crazy for classical players and too straight for jazz players, this trombonist found a home in salsa and has become known as the best East Coast salsa trombonist outside of NYC. He arranges and composes for Latin experimental group, Brass Roots (two trombones and congas).

Luis Blanco

A drummer and a former punk rocker who is also in Balaton.

Jose Ayala