This tanager occurs on the eastern Andean slope north and west of the Marañón Valley. The species account also lists records from Colombia and Ecuador.
Adults have slaty-gray upperparts and lighter gray underparts. The black head has a brown median stripe, the undertail coverts are rusty, and the iris is pale yellow.
It forages in the canopy of humid montane forest, almost always with mixed-species flocks. The account gives 2,700–2,950 m for its Peruvian records.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.