Article Contributed by jbleicher.com
Published on 2026-09-27
Buffalo, NY blues-rock guitarist, singer and songwriter Tommy Z has announced his new album, Tommy Z Is Live in Colombia, arriving October 23, 2026, via South Blossom Records. The 14-track set captures a charged performance at Teatro Santander in Bucaramanga during Tommy’s third tour of Colombia and is believed to be the first live blues album recorded in the country by an American artist.
Alongside the announcement, Tommy has released the album’s latest single, “Dónde Está La Fiesta,” a hard-driving blues rocker built around one of the most immediate exchanges of the night.
The song begins with a simple question: where is the party?
The answer comes roaring back from the audience.
Designed around a call-and-response section that changes from city to city, “Dónde Está La Fiesta” gives the crowd room to shout its location directly into the song. In Bucaramanga, hundreds of voices answer in unison, locking the city’s name into the groove. The audience erupts again midway through the track as Tommy launches into a guitar solo played behind his head.
“I love the energy and passion the Colombian people have for music, and you can really hear it on this song and throughout the album,” Tommy says. “From the first notes that night, the room was just lit all the way to the end.”
That electricity sits at the heart of Tommy Z Is Live in Colombia.
Tommy’s relationship with Colombia began years earlier after a friend working at the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá connected him with a local festival director. He was invited to tour the country as a cultural ambassador, teaching blues masterclasses during the day and performing at universities, theaters and festivals at night. He returned in 2019 and again in 2023, when the band arrived at Teatro Santander in Bucaramanga.
During soundcheck, Tommy asked the venue’s engineers if they could record the performance. He returned home with the audio, listened back and quickly realized the night had captured something worth preserving.
“You go over there to a place where the music still feels new to people and there’s this genuine appreciation and excitement,” he says. “People were jitterbugging in the aisles, and afterward the lobby was packed with people wanting photos. You can hear that connection on the recording.”
The album brings together songs from across Tommy’s catalog while leaving room for the spontaneity and risk of a live blues show. Previous singles include “The Blues Has Got to Come Home,” a driving shuffle with gospel undertones that Tommy originally wrote decades ago, and “Tommy Guns,” a muscular blues-funk rocker co-written with five-time GRAMMY-winning producer, songwriter and drummer Tom Hambridge and Richard Fleming.
“The Blues Has Got to Come Home” was originally conceived around the idea of the blues as a prodigal child that had wandered from its source. Years later, the song has taken on another layer for Tommy amid the rise of AI-generated music and increasingly polished digital production, becoming a reminder of the human feel, history and imperfection at the center of the music.
For Tommy, that relationship with the blues stretches back to his teenage years outside Buffalo. He first picked up the guitar seriously at 13, initially drawn to players including Eddie Van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen before a close friend introduced him to B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan. After seeing Vaughan and Double Trouble perform at Darien Lake, Tommy unexpectedly met Vaughan at a Burger King rest stop on the drive home, where the two spoke about guitars, pickups and the Tube Screamer. Tommy soon began tracing those influences backward through B.B. King, Albert King and Freddie King.
He would go on to tour with Muddy Waters pianist Pinetop Perkins, share stages with Buddy Guy, and work with Freddie King’s brother and bassist Benny Turner. He was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in 2007, while his albums Blizzard of Blues and Plug In and Play both reached the Top 10 of Billboard’s Blues Albums chart.
Between his work as an artist, Tommy also built an extensive career composing and producing music for film and television, developing the recording and production skills that later allowed him to mix Live in Colombia himself. Today, he continues to perform, teach guitar and operate WBLZ, Blizzard of Blues Radio, his 24/7 blues station.
Tommy Z Is Live in Colombia arrives October 23, 2026, via South Blossom Records.
Tommy Z Is Live in Colombia Tracklist
For more information, visit:
www.tommyzband.com
