Music of Florida
overview of music traditions in the U.S. state of Florida
The music of Florida has diverse influences, with roots in rock, jazz, blues, country, and Latin music. Cities such as Tampa, Gainesville, Orlando, and Miami developed influential rock, punk, and metal scenes in the 1970s–2000s. Miami in particular has a rich tradition of Latin and Caribbean music, which has influenced mainstream pop and hip hop in the 2000s and 2010s.
Indigenous music
Blues
Blues artists from Florida include Piedmont blues singer and guitarist Gabriel Brown and saxophonist and blues shouter Buster Bennett. Some blues songs from the early 20th century reference geographic locations in Florida, including "Florida Blues" by W. C. Handy, "Jacksonville Blues", "Miami Blues", "Miami Beach Blues", "Swanee Blues", and "Pensacola Blues".
Jazz
Bebop drummer Robert Thomas, Jr. and swing drummer Panama Francis were born in Miami. Saxophonist Archie Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale. Trumpeter Fats Navarro was born in Key West. Bassist, cellist, and composer Sam Jones was born in Jacksonville.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6942081. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Music of Florida” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.