Biography

      Armando Vergara is a Cuban/Puerto Rican-American Trombonist, Composer, Arranger, and Educator from South Florida currently based in New York City. He has performed alongside many world renowned musicians, those of which include Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Sean Jones, Paquito D'Rivera, Jon Faddis, Candido Camero, Randy Brecker, and Maria Schnieder. He is also a member of the Grammy nominated Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band, and recorded on Sanabria's latest album release, "West Side Story: Reimagined" in November of 2017 which won the Jazz Journalists Association 'Record of The Year' Award.

     Armando is a graduate of The Manhattan School of Music in New York City where he received his Bachelor of Music degree in 2019. Here He studied with Trombonist Luis Bonilla, Steve Turree, and Marshall Gilkes.

        In 2016, and then again in '17 and '18, Armando toured across Europe with

the JM Jazz World Orchestra, which included performances at the 2016 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, Brussels' "Sazz and Jazz", The UniCredit Pavillon in Milan, Italy with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, The 2017 Lake Bled Summer Festival in Bled, Slovenia,  and The 2018 'A to JazZ' Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria. 

    Armando frequently performs at NYC Venues such as Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, Birdland, The Cotton Club (with the Cotton Club All-Stars), The Django, Harlem Stage,  (Le) Poisson Rouge, DROM,  and ShapeShifter Lab to name a few. He has also performed at the World Famous Carnegie Hall with Terrence Blanchard in 2019, as well the legendary Apollo Theater, David Geffen Hall, and The Appel Room. 

      In 2018, Armando was chosen to participate in Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead, an international jazz residency, performance, and composition project discovering and presenting the next generation of jazz greats, directed by world renowned pianist Jason Moran. Through this program, Armando was able to premiere and perform one of his original compositions at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts while being mentored for two weeks by artists such as Drummer Ralph Peterson, Vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, Bassist Ruben Rodgers, Saxophonist Mark Shim, and Guitarist Mark Whitfield. 

     Armando is the founder/creator of 'Mestizos'. Mestizos (literally meaning 'mixed') is a group that exudes the melodic and rhythmic expression of the afro-latin sound through original composition and honoring traditional forms of the music. Armando's goal as a musician and artist is to share the music of his culture as well as the cultures of his bandmates and peers to bring together, inspire, educate and share the gift of music to any audience, regardless of classification.