Drummer and educator Ignacio Berroa has spent more than 50 years exploring the fertile intersections of Afro-Cuban music and jazz. He studied at Cuba’s National School of Arts and National Conservatory and spent the 1970s performing and recording with popular Cuban nueva trova musicians, as well as noted bandleaders such as Paquito D’Rivera. He came to the United States in 1980 and started working with Dizzy Gillespie, the sophisticated bebop trumpeter who began mingling Afro-Latin American music with jazz in the 1940s. Berroa anchored Gillespie’s 1980s ensembles while playing and performing with Latin jazz titans, as well as jazz explorers like McCoy Tyner. He’s led master classes and clinics along the way, writing the instructional books Groovin’ In Clave and A New Way of Groovin and starring in the “Mastering the Art of Afro-Cuban Drumming” educational video. He comes to Baltimore this week with U.S. Army Blues, performing a free concert celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month as part of the Peabody Keystone Korner Guest Artist Series September 21.

The Peabody Keystone Korner Artist Series is a collaboration between the Peabody Jazz Department and one of the most important and vital jazz venues in the world, Keystone Korner Baltimore. In partnership with NEA Jazz Master and club owner Todd Barkan, the Jazz Department invites world-class jazz musicians to Peabody for masterclasses and student workshops. Students have the opportunity to see each Keystone Artist perform live at Baltimore’s venerable jazz club.