Colombian cumbia across generations comes to downtown San Diego Wednesday night, as Quartyard hosts Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, Fruko and Carmelo Torres alongside local favorites La Diabla and Reza. The lineup brings together a group that has shaped Colombian music since the mid-1950s with La Diabla, rooted in the San Diego–Tijuana borderlands, and San Diego brass-and-percussion project Reza.
According to Quartyard, the bill lists Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, Fruko, Carmelo Torres, La Diabla and Reza, and the event is scheduled for October 28, 2026 at 6 pm at Quartyard SD, located at 1301 Market Street, per KPBS. KPBS notes that the event is open to all ages.
A Collaboration Decades in the Making
The headlining trio performs together under the name Madre Cumbia, a collaboration between Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, Fruko and Carmelo Torres, as described by Ground Control Touring. The project folds in the ancestral sounds of gaitas and drums alongside the accordion of the sabanas and the electric bass, according to the same account. KPBS reports that Madre Cumbia celebrates the evolution of Colombian cumbia across generations, incorporating gaitas, drums, accordion and electric bass throughout the set.
A digital album under the Madre Cumbia name is set for release on December 10, 2026, per the project's Bandcamp page. That same source describes the artists as embodying nearly every chapter of cumbia's recorded history, from its ceremonial Afro-Indigenous origins and rural accordion traditions to its electrification and international expansion. Ground Control Touring echoes that framing, noting the record traces cumbia's development from Afro-Indigenous origins and rural accordion traditions through electrification and international expansion.
A Grammy-Winning Pedigree
Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto's résumé stretches back further than most touring acts can claim. The ensemble has been the most important gaita and traditional cumbia group in Colombia since the mid-1950s, according to the Los Angeles Philharmonic's artist database. In 1958, the group toured internationally to China and Japan, as well as Russia, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, and in 1968 it represented Colombia at the Cultural Olympic Expo in Mexico, the Phil's database states.
The accolades kept coming decades later: in 2007, Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto won the Latin Grammy for Best Traditional Album, per the same source. The group's Bandcamp page describes it as Latin Grammy Award-winning and representative of one of Colombia's oldest continuously performed musical traditions. The Phil's profile also frames the ensemble as a crucial link between traditional gaita and cumbia music and its contemporary renewal, crediting its role in composing new material and teaching younger musicians.
Local Acts Round Out the Bill
Joining the Colombian headliners are two acts rooted in San Diego's own cross-border music scene. La Diabla, according to KPBS, originates from the San Diego–Tijuana borderlands and combines Colombian, Mexican and Chicano influences with garage and punk. Quartyard's own event page for a separate 2022 show credited the band with creating an appetite for Colombian roots cumbia in Tijuana and its sister city of San Diego, noting that La Diabla stays true to traditional instruments such as the accordion, guacaracha and caja valleneta. That February 2022 Quartyard show reportedly sold out.
Reza, meanwhile, is described by KPBS as a San Diego brass-and-percussion project that combines Afro-Indigenous percussion, tropical brass, Colombian cumbia and porro rhythms with New Orleans street-band energy. KPBS lists Quartyard SD as the event supporter. Bad Vibes Good Friends, a promoter, has previously presented Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto alongside acts such as Son Rompe Pera, Earthless, Meridian Brothers, Sure Fire Soul Ensemble and Surfbort, according to its about page.
Part of a Growing Cumbia Scene
Part of a Growing Cumbia Scene
