Pablo Mayor got his first gig playing music as a teenager in the Colombian city of Cali. It wasn't exactly Carnegie Hall. But it was a learning experience.

Mayor: "I learned to play those electronic organs with pedals, bass and rhythms, so I would play Colombian music and popular music that I heard on the radio. And I was working in Sears stores in Cali. I would demonstrate and somebody would sell them."

MW: "Were you a good salesman?"

Mayor: "No way. I would just play, and then get a crowd, and then I would leave, and somebody would take care of that part."

Playing home organs at Sears stores in Cali may not seem to be good preparation for a serious career in music. But Pablo Mayor says it was. He learned something about audiences when he started working Mexican, Brazilian and Cuban songs into his repertoire.

Mayor: "When I was playing in Sears for all those people, and I would try international songs that I learned by ear, from Mexico, rumba, I would always notice that I would play the hits of the radio and people would gather always, so I guess I learned what Colombians like."

Mayor retained that sense of his audience when he put together his group Folklore Urbano in New York. The musicians in Folklore Urbano are not all Colombians. Mayor says his bandmates are from just about everywhere.

Mayor: "I have Rafi Malkiel, playing euphonium, bombardino, he's from Israel. I have Antonio Orta, on alto saxophone from Puerto Rico, Sofia Kotsovites from Argentina..."

Colombians are a minority in Mayor's large ensemble. We're only four Colombians. Mayor says there are at least as much musical diversity as there is among the other members of Folklore Urbano.

Mayor: "You see musicians from the coast trying rhythms from the Pacific, and then trying rhythms from the Andes, and starting to blend, cause we have all the ingredients for the soup, and nobody wants to put it in the pot. And that is what is needed right now, and that is what is happening, so we want to do Colombian music. And I'm from the coast, from the Caribbean, you're from Bogota, it's OK. I accept you, and that is what is happening."

It's certainly not the worst suffering immigrants have known. Still it is hard work. Pablo Mayor has a key ally: Chonta Records. It's a New York-based label that he, his wife and a close friend co-founded. Chonta's goal is to bring together Colombian sounds made in New York with Colombian sounds made in Colombia.