If you're interested in salsa, one of the best books on the subject, by the Venezuelan César Rondón, happens to be online through the BU library.
Before there was salsa...
There was, of course, the Palladium. Tito Rodríguez: his "voice was suave enough to sound new, but it also had the vigor and mischief to get even the young tough guys to dance." (Rondón 11). After 1963, he turned to boleros, "those tender love songs that can only be rendered in Spanish" (Rondón 14). And Tito Puente.
The early 1960's charanga boom:
The early 1960's charanga boom:
Charanga Duboney, with Johnny Pacheco and Charlie Palmieri (Eddie's older brother), Rondón 13 (rendón 15)
Salsa diehard Ray Barretto began with a charanga group (and without an Afro): here's "Charanga Moderna" from 1962, featuring violinist Alfredo de la Fé.
Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta's two-trombone sound (borrowed from Mon Rivera, a plena singer in Puerto Rico) was a revelation in 1962, and would provide the perfect amount of New York grit for what would become salsa.
Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta's two-trombone sound (borrowed from Mon Rivera, a plena singer in Puerto Rico) was a revelation in 1962, and would provide the perfect amount of New York grit for what would become salsa.
Willie Colón and Hector Lavoe
Salsa's young roughnecks.
Colón/Lavoe album covers
Salsa's young roughnecks.
Colón/Lavoe album covers
From Lo mato: "Calle luna, calle sol" by Willie Colón with Hector Lavoe (Rondón 68). Lavoe sings:
"Put your hand in your pocket, pull out your knife and open it. Listen to me, in this neighborhood they've killed a lot of tough guys. In these tough streets, you can't relax. Be careful with your words - you're not worth a kilo."
Their albim "Asalto Navideño" - a pun mixing their usual street tough image with traditional Purto Rican Christmas caroling (sort of) - incorporated the cuatro from música jíbara.
It also contains the first of many experiments by Colón with non-Cuban music - not only música jíbara, but Panamanian murga. Colón's later "El gran varón" deals with homosexuality and AIDS
Héctor Lavoe
Lavoe, who was born in Puerto Rico and came to NY as a young man, was popular in part because of how much his voice was heard as reminiscent of música jíbrar, even though he was no traditionalist. He was wont to insert an improvised "Le lo lai" from música jíbara whenever the mood struck, even in a non-Puerto Rican song like the apocalyptic masterpiece "Todo tiene su final" ("Everything Ends"). New York Puerto Ricans identified very strongly with him, and songs like "Mi Gente/My People" (here sung with the Fania All-Stars in Zaire - Cuban music and salsa have been popular in West Africa since the "rhumba" days - in 1975, for the Ali-Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle"). He also sang religious themes, such as the santería-influenced "Aguanile."His most famous song was "El cantante," about a famous singer whom despite his fame and acclaim, has just as much pain as anyone else, which became sadly auto-biographical as Lavoe's inner demons took over his life through the 1980s and 1990s until his death in 1993.
Lavoe, who was born in Puerto Rico and came to NY as a young man, was popular in part because of how much his voice was heard as reminiscent of música jíbrar, even though he was no traditionalist. He was wont to insert an improvised "Le lo lai" from música jíbara whenever the mood struck, even in a non-Puerto Rican song like the apocalyptic masterpiece "Todo tiene su final" ("Everything Ends"). New York Puerto Ricans identified very strongly with him, and songs like "Mi Gente/My People" (here sung with the Fania All-Stars in Zaire - Cuban music and salsa have been popular in West Africa since the "rhumba" days - in 1975, for the Ali-Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle"). He also sang religious themes, such as the santería-influenced "Aguanile."His most famous song was "El cantante," about a famous singer whom despite his fame and acclaim, has just as much pain as anyone else, which became sadly auto-biographical as Lavoe's inner demons took over his life through the 1980s and 1990s until his death in 1993.
Rubén Blades
After Hector Lavoe left Willie Colón's band in 1973, Blades took up Rubén Blades as singer. A college-educated Panamanian from a well-off politically leftists family in Panama, Blades worked at the mailroom of Fania before getting artists to record some of his songs, and finally emerged as a singer himself and the composer of complex and thoughtful, often politically tinged songs that were popular throughout Latin America.
The "Stairway to Heaven" of salsa, "Pedro Navaja."
Eddie Palmieri
The innovative Palmieri never signed with Fania and never stopped experimenting or making msuic outside the box. After introducing the two-trombone sound that fueled salsa, he made political music like "Justicia"and Live at Sing-Sing prison, ("VP Blues" here). He did fusion projects with soul music, like "Harlem River Drive." He was experimented with jazz music, pushing the musical theory (4th voicings and pentatonics) of jazz pianist McCoy Tyner toward Latin music and even doing way-out Cecil Taylor type free jazz.
"Vamonos pa'l monte" (with Charlie Palmieri, live in Central Park)
Ray Barretto
Another polyfacetic artists. We already heard his proto-boogaloo "Watusi."
In traditional/típico mode, doing Arsenio Rodríguez's "Bruca maniguá"
And mixing everything, "Canto abacuá"
Johnny Pacheco
Johnny Pacheco, aside from co-running Fania Records and leading the Fania All-Stars, was himself a well-known flutist, with a deep típico feel.
Larry Harlow
The Fania bandleader and pianist. Here rocking it with singer Ismael Miranda on "Abran paso" (with great period video) and "Abandonada fue." He was also deeply típico. His neckname, the "Judío Maravilloso" (Marvellous Jew)was derived from the nickname of his idol Arsenio Rodríguez, "El Ciego Maravilloso" (The Marvellous Blind Man): Larry Harlow's "Suéltala" vs. Arsenio Rodríguez's original "Suéltala"
Harlow's "Divina Gracia," featuring Celia Cruz, from Hommy, a salsa version of "Acid Queen" from The Who's rock opera Tommy
Harlow's son/charanga phase: "El paso de Encarnación"
Celia Cruz
"Quimbará" with Johnny Pacheco
And in her pre-NY phase in the Sonora Matancera in Cuba, singing "Burundanga"
Grupo Folklórico y Experimental Neoyorkino
It started as a listening club in René López's basement, and opened out into one of the great experimental projects, that spawned multiple bands, and much of the Latin jazz movement. They played Cuban trad guajira, plena, Puerto Rican mazurka, and Santería batá, as well as some really swinging salsa.
Típica '73
"Mañoño," with Adalberto Santiago
Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican Rafael Cortijo's group (featuring Ismael Rivera) (Rendón 12), here in the early 1960s
El Gran Combo, a later outgrowth of Cortijo's Combo
La Sonora Ponceña, featuring pianist Papo Lucca: "Boranda"
Post-Fania salsa (salsa romántica)
Salsa romántica: Lalo Rodríguez, Frankie Ruíz
Marc Anthony and La India together on "Vivir lo nuestro"
Gilberto Santa Rosa "Bomba de tiempo"
Neo-traditional salsa
Spanish Harlem Orchestra
Latin Jazz
Like Jerry and Andy González's projects, such as Ft. Apache Band, and many others.
Latin Jazz
Like Jerry and Andy González's projects, such as Ft. Apache Band, and many others.
Salsa was, among the things, a nationalist movement, as illustrated in the Fania film, Our Latin Thing (Cosa nuestra)
People have been, and still are playing rumba in the parks of New York.
Bonus: Salsa poetry
Here Afro-Nuyorican Last Poet and Young Lords co-founder Felipe Luciano reading his poem "Jíbaro/My Pretty Nigger" opening for Eddie Palmieri at Sing-Sing Prison, 1972.
Luciano opening for Palmieri again, here.
Pedro Pietri, founder of the Nuyorican Poet's Café, reading "Puerto Rican Obituary" (1969)
Bonus: The Young Lords
The Young Lords, whose 13 Point Plan included rights for US Puerto Ricans, the independence of the island of Puerto Rico, women's liberation, and solidarity with the Vietnamese people, began in Chicago in 1967, spread to New York (and beyond) in 1969, and was influential until the mid 1970s.
Bonus: The Young Lords
The Young Lords, whose 13 Point Plan included rights for US Puerto Ricans, the independence of the island of Puerto Rico, women's liberation, and solidarity with the Vietnamese people, began in Chicago in 1967, spread to New York (and beyond) in 1969, and was influential until the mid 1970s.
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