- (narrator): The streets of Spanish Harlem come alive when Alvin Suarez and his band play their festive music.

- We love being the voices of positivity and celebration of life.

- And in Catalonia, drummer David Viñolas excels at multiple genres.

- (dubbed): I'm blind.

I have two options, either I cry about it and stay home, or I go out and jump into the water.

- They're two warm-hearted guys whose deepest friendships are rooted in music.

Blind or partially-sighted, the musicians featured in this series are living out their musical dreams.

Their stories are examples of hard work, dedication and passion that let us all share in th wonder of truly seeing music.

Close your eyes, and you might think that you were in Bogota, Santiago or Montevideo.

Apart from the sound of the cars typical in every major city, you'll catch snippets of conversation in Spanish and a soundtrack of Latin American music that makes you want to shake your hips.

And yet, we are right in the heart of Manhattan, just north of 96th Street, i the neighborhood of East Harlem.

We find ourselves at a local studio, where we meet Alvin Suarrez, a friendly fellow who is one of the founders of the band Los Ciegos del Barrio, which translates to “The Blinds of the Hood.” Alvin shares the stage wit his twin brother Derek, on bass, Jimmy, on keyboard, and Tony, on drums.

All visually-impaired, they've been band mates since coming together way back in 1997, but they're also very good friends.

(♪♪♪) - All of us, we are family in some way.

It doesn't matter where you're from, what color you are, what you believe in.

I think we're all family and I always have this sense of togetherness.

- (narrator): In additio to shaking things up on bass, Derek is also the group's lead singer.

- There's no better feeling than playing with family and longtime friends.

Alvin and I, we've obviously been playing together since we were kids, but then, to get together with guys like Jimmy and Tony and all of the other musicians we work with, we have such a comfort level that can't be explained, really.

It just comes naturally.

I am of Puerto Rican, Cuban and Guatemalan descent.

I was born here in New York.

I think the advantage of having such a broad mix of Latin blood is that we're one of the rare bands that can play salsa, merengue, bachata, bolero, but then also play reggaeton, rock, because we're American, you know.

Pop music.

But we can also play cumbia, and not a lot of groups can do both sides of the gulf, I guess I would say.

Especially in the East Coast.

(♪♪♪) - (narrator): One of the band's biggest fans is, without a doubt, Eliot Osborn.

He is very proud to see the path which these young men have blazed since he first knew them back when he taught at an institution for visually-impaired people.

- I was a songwriter looking to support myself.

I found a job opportunity at a school for visually- impaired students.

I began to realize that I was around some extremely capable musical people.

All I really need to do is to help channel their interests.

And then, I had these other interests about travelling with music internationally at a small nonprofit.

So I said, why not take these guys?

- So we've been to Russia, five different cities there.

We've been to the Dominican Republic.

We've also been to Cuba.

We also made a very brief stop over in Montreal, Canada.

And then we've been to several places around the Northeast.

We're just so thankful that he enjoyed it with us.

He really taught us to be global and to go beyond the music room and beyond the studio, and look at music with a vision other than just playing notes.

(♪♪♪) (♪♪♪) - (narrator): About 7 kilometers outside of Barcelona, in Catalonia, we find Vic, a charming town much-visited by tourists, where modernity overlaps with a historic town which dates back to medieval times.

The open door through which we're hearing that music is the front entrance of Jazz Cava.

The spot, with its stone walls, has an undeniable charm.

Here we meet the percussionist David Viñolas, a well-known figure on Catalonia's jazz scene, as well as the other members of his band, the Nucli Trio.

(♪♪♪) - (dubbed): My name is David Viñolas Freixer.

I'm a drummer.

I think that I consider myself more of a performer than a composer.

I've played in different bands, I play in a lot of different bands, I might find myself playing the role of sideman, for example.

I play on other people's recordings when they ask me.

And I really dig everything to do with composition.

You know?

I like playing piano and I like composing stuff.

(♪♪♪) I started playing punk with local bands in the village, with friends, with colleagues.

And I was always listening to the Sex Pistols and to polla records, nothing else.

And then from there, I began to study drumming and to explore different styles of playing.

It's true enough that at my place, my folks listened to jazz and I dug it, but when you're an adolescent, you don't want to listen to the records your dad is listening to, right?

So jazz came along, but it's not like I was going to say, so long, punk, I'm about jazz now, that's it.

For me, these things happen slowly.

One thing leads to the next.

- (narrator): Every month, the trio is invited to grace the stage of the Jazz Cava.

Aleix Forts is the bassist.

And Guillem Plana plays the guitar.

When the group was founded, their goal was to recapture the sound of the classical guitar trios who defined the 50's and 60's, all the while bringing in elements that were new and modern.

(♪♪♪) - The Nucli Trio came together about three or four years ago, I think.

We three knew each other already from having played together in other bands, stuff like that, and it came together when we met Guillem.

- (dubbed): One day, I said to him, listen, I just bought a jazz guitar, a heavy sound, to try my hand at jazz, with a classic jazz sound.

So come on!

Let's get something together, we said to Alex, and that is how the Nucli Trio got its start, because we were seeking to recreate the classical sound.

(♪♪♪) The fact of being able to see affects how you signal your band mates.

We're quite accustomed to relying on vision.

The signal to start, to wrap up, we often make those with a look, eye contact with the drummer, and boom, here we go.

Not with David.

With David, you've got to play it exclusively by ear and go like that.

- (narrator): David and Guillem show us around the streets of the old town.

As they've been good friends for over a decade, their mutual affection is evident.

- (Guillem): David is a very serious and determined man.

When he wants to do something, well, he pays close attention, he concentrates, he put his head down and gets to it.

He always pushes forward, he makes it look easy because he's such an incredibly resourceful person.

- (David): I'm blind.

I have two options, either I cry about it and stay home, or I go out and jump into the water.

What do I want to do with my life?

Well, I've chosen to just g for it and to jump in the water.

Alvin isn't the least bit intimidated by the streets of one of the world's busiest metropolises.

That's because he was born and raised in East Harlem, so he knows it like the back of his hand.

- That's a really nice French place, if you want to have coffee there.

This is also the smoothie place I go to after I work out, because my gym is over there, on 93rd Street.

So this is a place I always come to after my workouts.

- (narrator): Locals nicknamed the place Spanish Harlem, or El Barrio.

The Spanish-speaking community is so well-established that you can very easily live here without speaking a single word of English.

- So I know Manhattan pretty well, especially this area.

I mean, I grew up here.

But the way I know when to cross a street is, I listen to the traffic.

And there's also some timing involved.

But for example, let's see.

We got the flow of traffic coming here.

This is 3rd Avenue and 95th Street.

So I just crossed 3rd Avenue.

The flow of traffic on 3rd Avenue is going to go North, which is this way.

So when I hear this traffic stopping, I know that this traffic is about to move.

And I'll wait for this traffic, which is going West, to move.

And that's how I know I have the light.

This is my cane.

I call him Papa Yuyu.

Ha!

ha!

It basically gets me where I want to go.

Derek and I have LCA, which is leber congenital amaurosis.

It's a lot of optic nerve damage where there's pigmentation there.

We're also premature.

So, a lot of our rods and cones are damaged.

So we've always been visually-impaired.

We used to see much better when we were younger.

In my case, I lost most of my eyesight 10 years ago.

So I can only see lights and maybe a few images here and there.

I can no longer read print or see colors.

Right now, we are near where Derek and I went to middle school.

And we have a lot of fond memories here.

It was the former East Harlem Performing Arts School.

You had to audition to get in there.

It was a pretty exclusive school.

They had acting, dance, music and art.

Derek and I got in there for drama, actually.

We were pretty decent actors.

We didn't enjoy drama as much as we enjoyed music, so we didn't really take it all that seriously.

And then, they finally discovered that we had musical talent.

So, we ended up switching from the acting side of it to the music side of it.

Music played a huge role in my life, growing up.

You know, I never wanted to lose touch with it, because music is supposed to b what we hear, not what we see.

And music... Luckily, I play by ear.

When I could see, I did learn how to read music.

Derek as well.

I thank the Lord that I play by ear or that we play by ear, because it makes it really easy for us to learn a tune.

So I'm glad that I don't hav to rely solely on reading music in order to be able to create music.

- (narrator): In the little town of Centelles, not all that far from Barcelona, David lives with his wife Monserat, who is visually impaired.

The couple, who've been together for 20 years, invite us into their apartment.

- (dubbed): The cool thing is that we've got a kind of osmosis going on.

By that I mean that he's a musician and that he shared with me the richness of his music, and his interest in it, and from there, I became a musician through love.

(♪♪♪) - (narrator): Over time, Monserat has become a truly gifted saxophonist; she and David make a really good duo, with him accompanying her on the piano.

(♪♪♪) - I'm totally immersed in it, I play all the time, I always find time to play and I play as much as I can, and I really love it.

Music gives me so much, and I'm so grateful to it for that, seriously.

But the main thing that I do, I'm a chef through and through, no doubt about it.

- (narrator): Monserat is suc a good cook that she actually teaches cooking courses online without even leaving the house.

- I teach some cooking courses, for people who lost their sight as adults as well as for folks who just want to learn how to cook something new.

We get together over Zoom, and even if they can't see me, because of course some of them can't see me, they can still follow the steps, ask me questions.

I've always cooked a lot and now I play music too.

David, he always played music, and now he cooks.

- (narrator): The couple travel a lot.

You can discover the world by more than just sight!

- In Lisbon, Paris, Ireland, London... - (David): Cuba, of course.

- Cuba, true, Istanbul.

We're just like any other travelers.

The thing is that we can't see, and yet that really isn't much of a problem, it's just one aspect of our trips.

People are baffled by the idea that two people with total visual impairments are going alone to Turkey, and even more baffled that we're able to get around.

They just don't get it.

- Sometimes - it's not like it's an advantage to travel while blind, but sometimes really interesting things happen which probably wouldn't have if we could see.

- (narrator): Montserat even enjoys taking photos of her trips.

- (David): Monserat has put together a photo exhibit of all of our trips.

- You remember the smells, the feeling of the spaces you were in...

The moment is fixed, isn't that right?

This is a way of fixing the moment in time.

(♪♪♪) Alvin brings us back to his place, a New-York sized apartment that he shares with his wife and his 13 year-old twin daughters - when they're not staying at their mom's place, that is, since the parents are no longer together.

- My dad was in a band, back in the day.

And they used to rehearse right here, in this living room.

And my brother and I, Derek, we used to watch him play and we used to get a kick out of watching the musicians and listening to their music.

They played a lot of salsa and even some rock music, back in those days.

But when they finished, what we used to like to do, we used to pick up the instruments and try to play them.

We were probably about four years old, maybe five years old.

For me, most of my emotion comes out in my writing.

But I think, for me, the guitar, even though I'm not the greatest player, I'm basically a rhythm player, the guitar, for me, is a very intimate instrument.

Last night, I was working on some stuff, just playing some chords and getting some ideas in my head for a song I'm working on.

I actually fell asleep with a guitar on my chest.

I was very tired.

And I've done that a few times in my life, where I'm just playing the guitar, and sometimes, I play myself to sleep.

Because I feel like I'm with my best friend, basically.

This guitar, I've had since 1999.

It's a very old guitar and it's been...

I believe it's been on every album that we've recorded.

So I'm very grateful for one of my longest-lasting friendships, which is this guitar.

(♪♪♪) - (narrator): Alvin and Derek are walking to a place where their band often plays.

As we walk, they confide in us their hope to change how visually-impaired people are perceived by some.

They even claim that they have been subjected to more discrimination because of their disability than because of their Latino heritage.

- Right now, we are at our favorite place to play.

It's Gonzalez y Gonzalez.

It's a nightclub, a bar and restaurant in Lower Manhattan, in New York City.

Our relationship as brothers goes far beyond just being two brothers.

We've experienced everything together.

We're identical twins, so we grew up and experienced everything together, all the good and all the bad.

And nobody understands each other more than we do.

- We are best friends.

We're partners in crime, kind of.

And we have a very close relationship.

- We can totally feel when the other one is going through something, whether it's something positive or something negative.

And then, of course, musically, the relationship just transcends into this musical chemistry, whether it's writing or performing.

- Even on stage, we have a huge chemistry.

Yeah!

Sometimes we'll kind of do the same thing at the same time based on what we kind of think the other one is doing.

Sometimes, we've even messed up our song together and we hit the same note in the same harmony by accident.

It's really funny.

And then we laugh, and then we try to correct it and we both try to correct it at the same time.

And it gets funnier because we hit the same note again at the same time when we're trying to correct it.

♪♪ Baby boy, baby boy ♪ ♪ It's going to be all right ♪ ♪ The monsters are out of sight ♪ ♪ And I'll protect you tonight ♪ - (narrator): When Los Ciego del Barrio play for the public, they're always friendly and not at all full of themselves.

Yet they share an incredible feeling that they are the masters of their destiny and that they can achieve all their dreams.

Barcelona is a fantastic city which is bordered by both the ocean and mountains.

It is filled with architectural marvels, and a magnificent pedestrian avenue which is among the most famous in Europe.

We find David in the company of Toni Pages, who is also a professional drummer.

Great friends since childhood, the two men welcome us to thei recording studio, La Fusteria.

- (Toni, dubbed): I've known David since his birth, we were born five years apart.

He always had a strong interest in music.

He's very persistent.

(♪♪♪) Music brought us together because when we were growing up, I taught drumming and he took some courses from me.

We discuss all the technical parts of drumming.

As we get older, it's more like an exchange.

What do you thing about that?

How do you do this kind of routine?

One of the things that really impresses me is his openness when it comes to improvising on the drums.

Another is his ability to adapt to different more rigorous kinds of music, always staying on tempo.

(♪♪♪) - (narrator): David will always be grateful to the friend who helped him enter the wonderful world of music, an art form which has made him profoundly happy.

- (David, dubbed): I'm a musician, but music is really a way of life, so being a musician is a way of life too.

Music has helped me so much, and it really is its own kind of language.

I think that it has this cohesive power which can help to knock down barriers in the right circumstances.

Of that, I have no doubt.