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This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on July 1, 2025.
In 2015, photographer and videographer Piero F. Giunti had a dream about Art Kane’s iconic “A Great Day in Harlem” photograph featuring 57 jazz musicians — including Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie — on the steps of a Harlem brownstone.
Originally shot in 1958 for Esquire magazine, the photo followed Giunti for weeks, popping up in conversations and on social media. When a musician friend mentioned the photograph at a Boyle Heights recording studio, he knew he had to honor Eastside musicians in the same spirit.
“When Black and Brown people weren’t allowed to play the Sunset Strip and the clubs downtown, East L.A. always had its doors open,” said Giunti, who was born and raised in L.A. to a Mexican mother and Italian father. “There was Lalo’s Nightclub, The Paramount ballroom, Catholic Youth Organization (C.Y.O.), which became Self Help Graphics. East L.A. has always been a safe haven for every genre.”
Giunti teamed up with musician and historian Mark Guerrero, whose father, Lalo Guerrero, is considered the “Father of Chicano Music.” Together with UC Riverside Chicanx history professor Jorge Leal and LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes senior curator Karen Crews Hendon, they co-curated “A Great Day in East L.A.: Celebrando the Eastside Sound,” the largest exhibit of its kind, which opened Saturday at LA Plaza.
Co-curators of “A Great Day in East L.A.” exhibit at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes. From left: Piero F. Giunti, Esperanza Sanchez, Karen Crews Hendon, Mark Guerrero and Jorge Leal.
Giunti shot 170 black and white portraits of 450 artists, including East L.A. DIY jarocho punk band ¡Aparato! and Indigenous Chicano rap-rock band Aztlan Underground standing proudly in full performance attire. The portraits form the visual centerpiece of the exhibition.
“I’ve been a part of the East L.A. music scene since 1963. I know everybody, played with everybody, worked with everybody,” said Guerrero, 76, who as a teenager sang in the popular band Mark & the Escorts, playing at dances with Thee Midniters and The Premiers. In 1972, he released the socially-conscious hit protest song “I’m Brown” on Capitol Records. “The interviews we conducted are basically conversations with my peers.”
In 1998, Guerrero started chronicling Chicano and East L.A. musicians who, like himself, are often ignored by mainstream media. His website is an encyclopedia of untold Eastside music stories that helped inform the exhibit, which spans 75 years–from the 1950s to the present–and features 500 artifacts, including rare photographs, clothing, instruments, concert tickets and posters of over 450 artists who are from, inspired by or are beloved on the Eastside.
A woman plays an instrument during the opening of “A Great Day in East L.A.: Celebrando the Eastside Sound,” on June 28, 2025.
Scribbled Los Lobos song lyrics, a sleeveless polyester pantsuit worn by tribal electronica duo Mezklah, soul singer Brenton Wood’s very own grey wool zoot suit and the dress that Martha Gonzalez of Quetzal wore to the Grammy Awards are on display for the first time. Band merch like bright cotton T-shirts, CDs and stickers, nostalgic flyers, records and out-of-print magazines fill El Rockero Store, one of six themed galleries that include The Venue, The Garage, Radio Rebelde, From East Los to the World and Los Lobos’ very own Come On, Let’s Go!
“The biggest fear of a project like this is people passing away,” said Giunti, citing Wood, who died January 3, and Rudy Salas of Tierra, who died in 2020. “It made it even more important to capture as many artists as possible. No artist was left behind.”
The project, which took 10 years to compile interviews, shoot photos and gather paraphernalia from community donors and the curators’ and artists’ own collections, drew hundreds of musicians and music aficionados to the opening.
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“We would crash weddings to hear Thee Midniters,” Olivia Rodriguez, 82, who grew up in East L.A. and attended the opening with friends, said with a laugh. “One night we saw them open for The Temptations at Union Hall. They didn’t charge much. It was like $2. Shows were jam-packed with wall-to-wall people. Sometimes you couldn’t even dance, but they sounded fantastic. We cheered them on and they played for hours.”
The exhibition opened amid ICE raids and uprisings — a resonance not lost on those involved. The Eastside sound has long intersected with social justice movements: bands like Tierra and Los Illegals provided the soundtrack to a generation asserting cultural pride in a post-Moratorium era. Later generations, including Quetzal and Las Cafeteras, developed their sound alongside immigrant rights advocacy.
At LA Plaza, local artist collectives Ni Santas and Art Space HP hosted anti-ICE-fueled art-making workshops as KCRW Summer Nights headliner The Altons conducted sound checks for an eager audience. Across the way on Olvera Street, labor and immigrant rights groups continued their 30-day “Summer of Resistance” activation, with lucha libre-masked cumbia group El Conjunto Nueva Ola performing “El Jom Dipo (Pa’ la People)” to a crowd protesting ICE raids.
“A Great Day in East L.A. is born out of resistance,” said Giunti, who’s working on a Los Lobos documentary. “Resistance to systematic oppression, cultural erasure, elitist gatekeeping of our stories by institutions, academics, authors and museums that continue to revise, distort or ignore our truths. This project stands in solidarity with the immigrant community.”
KCRW Summer Night with The Altons during “A Great Day in East L.A.: Celebrando the Eastside Sound” Opening Day Celebration on June 28, 2025.
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Photo courtesy of LA Plaza
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East L.A. was a high-energy tour stop for bands like Slayer, Metallica, Bad Religion and the Dead Kennedys and artists like Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder. In 1981, Paul Ruben released “The Pee‑Wee Herman Show,” an original cast recording from a live performance at the Roxy Theatre on Fatima Recordz, the first independent punk music label in East L.A., co-founded by Yolanda Comparan Ferrer, Tito Larriva of The Plugz and printmaker Richard Duardo, who also signed East L.A. punk band The Brat.
“I was a part of this Eastside music world,” said Leal, 48, who was born in Guadalajara and raised in Glassell Park. “I never played an instrument, but I went to shows in East L.A.
It was three bucks and a kegger. You paid and stayed until the cops showed up.”
As The Altons took the stage at Saturday’s opening, Chicana singer-songwriter Irene Diaz watched from the back with bandmate and partner Carolyn Cardoza.
“I never imagined something like this,” said Diaz, whose silk slip dress and portraits are a prominent part of the exhibit. “I started my career in 2010 and to be able to see myself in an exhibit where I’m still alive is pretty amazing.”
“A Great Day in East L.A.: Celebrando the Eastside Sound” exhibition runs at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes from June 28, 2025, through August 23, 2026.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Louis Armstrong was in the “A Great Day in Harlem” photograph. It also misspelled Piero F. Giunti’s last name. The story has been updated.