Hugo Pérez y sus Quisqueyanos Modernos was a Dominican merengue orchestra based in New York, active from at least 1962, whose catalogue was built largely out of merengue arrangements of hits from outside the genre, recorded for small Latin labels serving the city’s Dominican and wider Latino audience.

Small labels, a New York catalogue

Their earliest documented album, «El Rey del Merengue», appeared in 1962; later releases included «Acelerando», produced by Bobby Marin — a fixture of New York’s Latin soul and boogaloo scene — and «Algo Diferente», both issued on Mary Lou Records, alongside further singles pressed on 45 rpm for the same label and for Palma Records.

Covers turned merengue

The group’s signature move was reworking songs from outside the tradition into merengue arrangements: «El Último Beso», on «Algo Diferente», is a Spanish-language merengue version of the American pop song «Oh Where Can My Baby Be». Their records mixed merengue with cumbia, guaracha and salsa arrangements, of a piece with the pan-Latin dance-orchestra circuit that served New York’s Latino nightlife through the 1960s and 1970s.

Legacy

Little else is documented today about the group or about Hugo Pérez himself; their records survive mainly in the hands of collectors of vintage New York Latin music.