A GREAT DAY IN SALSA

LEGENDS OF THE GENRE GATHER FOR A HISTORIC SHOOT

By SANDRA GUZMAN

THERE'S a popular song by salsa orchestra El Gran Combo about a man who asks that the love and praise he's earned in life be given to him while he is still around to appreciate it.

"If you think I deserve it," the song goes, "why not give it to me now? Don't wait 'til I die to go to the sacred space and then say that I was a good man."

It's a song that celebrates the idea that love and tributes mustn't happen posthumously. What's the point, really, if the subject is not there to experience it?

And so it was for nearly fifty Puerto Rican salsa musicians who gathered in a Midtown recording studio for a historic photograph.

"The greats are falling like dry leaves," observed 74-year-old balladeer Jimmy Sabater. "Some of them here today, may not be around next year. This gathering is poetry, beautiful poetry."

Inspired by the classic Art Kane photograph, "A Great Day in Harlem," which captured portraits of jazz legends on a Harlem stoop in 1958, our "A Great Day in Salsa" photo sought to commemorate the iconic musicians who play this unique Puerto Rican genre -- salsa dura.

While Boricuas from here and the island created the sound, there have been major contributions by Cubans, Dominicans (flautist Johnny Pacheco and singer Jose Alberto "El Canario" and non-Latinos (like pianist Larry Harlow). All were present.

The artists traveled from all parts of the country: Crooners Cheo Feliciano and Ismael Miranda flew in from Puerto Rico, Tito Nieves from Orlando and pianist Oscar Hernandez from California.

It was like an extended family reunion -- with grown men hugging, kissing, laughing, sharing stories and, from time to time, falling into improvised jams.

They seemed in awe of each other, too.

"It's pretty humbling to be in the presence of legends I grew up listening to," said 32-year-old Frankie Negrón.

At one point, 74-year-old maestro Pacheco, who was an integral part of the genre's glory years in the '60s and '70s, embraced Negrón. The grip seemed like a passing of the torch.

Salsa's infectious rhythms are not the soundtrack for today's youth, yet one thing was certain -- reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

Trombonist Papo Vazquez summed up its future: "No matter how much the music evolves, no corporation or money can destroy the spirit and magic that is salsa."

Ralph Mercado
1941 - 2009

Legendary Ralph Mercado, 
died Tuesday after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 67.

viewing will be held Thursday from 1:15 p.m. to 5 p.m.
at the Riverside Memorial Chapel
180 West 76th Street, NYC

THE "FATHER OF BOOGALOO," JOE CUBA PASSED AWAY ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15TH AT MT. SINAI HOSPITAL, N.Y.C.

He was the most popular exponent of the boogaloo, a fused Latino and R&B rhythm that exploded onto the American top 40s charts during the turbulent 1960s & ‘70s. Hits such as “Bang Bang,” “Push Push,” “El Pito,” “Ariñañara,” and “Sock It To Me Baby,” rocked the hit parades establishing Joe Cuba and his Sextet as the definitive sound of Latin New York during these eras. The Joe Cuba Sextet’s unusual instrumentation featured vibraphones replacing the traditional brass sound. His music was at the forefront of the Nuyroican movement of New York where the children of Puerto Rican emigrants, America’s last citizens, embraced their own music, arts, culture and politics, redefining their own rich heritage—always cherishing their island of birth--Puerto Rico.

Joe Cuba’s Sextet became popular in the New York Latino community precisely because it fused a bilingual mix of Afro-Caribbean genres blended with the popular urban rhythm & blues of its time, creating a musical marriage between the Fania and Motown sound. His was the first musical introduction to Latin rhythms for many American aficionados. The lyrics to Cuba's repertoire mixed Spanish and English, becoming an important part of the emerging Nuyorican (and American) identity.  Singer/songwriter Ruben Blades noted: “His music lives on. That is the most any of us can hope for, after we’re gone..  God bless him,  and we thank him for all the joy he gave usRuben's companion of that time, Paula C remembers Joe Cuba picking up Ruben to go to gigs in Jersey. "He was the nicest guy," remembers Paula. "I used to call him Gentleman Joe." .”   “He was not afraid to experiment,” said David Fernandez, arranger & musical director of Zon del Barrio who played with the legendary Cuba when he arrived in New York in 2002. 

Agustin Caraballoso, high-profile trumpeter for THE TOP Mambo and Salsa orchestras of ALL-time, has died. He was born in Cuba in 1928. He died on the morning of February 23, 2009 in New York due to major heart attack.

Caraballoso's last appearance in a major film was in "La Epoca - The Palladium Era," in which he plays a major role in sharing how he the mambo rhythm was created by Arsenio Rodriguez in Cuba.

Caraballoso's role in the film was absolutely essential to making sure history was documented correctly.

Agustin was a member of Arsenio Rodriguez's orchestra in Cuba AND in New York. He was with Arsenio Rodriguez during the times that Rodriguez created the mambo rhythm, in Cuba.

He also partnered with Cuban legendary vocalist Beny More, immediately upon More's glorious return to Cuba from Mexico after working with Perez Prado. Together, Caraballoso and More formed "Orquesta Intermezzo" featuring other prominent Cuban musicians.

Caraballoso also worked with Machito, Mario Bauza and with Celia Cruz in Cuba.In New York, he worked with Salsa Legend Johnny Pacheco and with Mambo Legend Tito Puente, Mambo Pioneer Israel "Cachao" Lopez, as well as Moncho Leña, Mongo Santamaria, and Marcelino Guerra.

He recorded on Arsenio Rodriguez's last two albums, including "Arsenio Dice," with mambo legends "Alfonso-el Panameño," Chocolate Armenteros, Rene Hernandez and other prominent musicians of the Palladium-era. Some of the tracks from this album are featuring on the soundtrack of the film.

In a written statement, released just hours after Caraballoso's death, Director and Executive Producer Josue Joseph said, "We were planning on visiting Agustin at the end of March. I'm so saddened by this! I wanted to see him just one last time because I knew he was ill last week. My friends are dying!! Our friends are leaving us. All these legends are dying ... all around the same time. It hurts so much! Even though I'm very proud that they were so gracious as to allow me the honor of having me in their homes ... and to be so humble about their careers ... I captured their legacies! I'm so proud of that! It makes what I do so valuable and important!!"

www.LaEpocaFilm.com
Posted 2/24/09

Never-released Fania’s golden era music hits stores

By María Vega

Two never-released songs by the revered Celia Cruz?

A full recording of a live concert by the original Fania All-Stars in Cali, Colombia?

Unpublished music from Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto and other legends of Latin music?

These are samples of what has been found so far in the Fania Records archives since 2005, when Emusica bought the fabled label and rescued thousands of original tapes from an upstate warehouse where they had been languishing for years.

The names on these tapes, according to Emusica CEO Giora Breil and other people familiar with the Fania treasure trove, are astonishing.

Breil even talks of “songs unreleased” by Willie Colón and Rubén Blades from “Siembra,” the classic 1978 collaboration album that contained the hits “Pedro Navaja” and “Plástico.”

But Colón, who’s embroiled in a highly-publicized breach of contract lawsuit with Blades in Puerto Rico, says he would move to block any additional releases from the album.

“‘Siembra’ is a complete work. It should not be remixed nor should any material be added that we decided we did not want to release,” the bandleader said in an e-mail.

“I will take legal action to defend the integrity of my project,” he vowed. “Would they change the Mona Lisa’s backdrop or her clothing? That would be a lack of respect towards the artist who created the project.”

Whatever unreleased material may or may not exist from “Siembra,” it seems to be the tip of the Fania iceberg.

“Every day we find new, unreleased recordings,” says Breil.

Locating the Croton-on-Hudson warehouse where the tapes had been stored took some detective work in 2005, says Breil.

Since then, Emusica has been involved in what he called a “labor of love” to identify and preserve the material.

Some of the tapes had to be literally baked in order to save them from disintegrating, and many were not labeled at all, says composer, producer and Emusica consultant Bobby Marín.

To work on them “you had to literally blow the dust off the boxes,” says Marín. And some tapes weigh more than 20 pounds.

It was during this process that Marín noticed that “some titles looked unfamiliar, making me believe that perhaps they were never released.”

His research found that those titles had been “kept in the can for future release, but never were.”

The list of artists in these unpublished recordings, according to Marín, includes the legendary sonero Ismael (Maelo) Rivera; Cuba’s Orquesta Aragón; the dynamic duo of Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz; merengue singer Wilfrido Vargas and many sacred names in Caribbean music including Benny Moré, Daniel Santos, Machito, Mongo Santamaría and Cortijo y su Combo.

There are also five full unpublished albums by the Lebrón Brothers, the Brooklyn orchestra behind the hit “Salsa y Control.”

Marín is still amazed by the quantity of never-published material, which he says can only be explained by the frenzied speed under which artists worked at the time.

“The musicians had a commitment to record so many songs per year, so they accumulated,” Marín says.

But “some of them are really, really good,” he adds. “I can’t understand why they weren’t used.”

One Alegre Label

By María Vega

While Emusica works on its rediscoveries, it keeps producing new compilations.

One of this year’s releases “The House that Al Built,” is an homage to the larger-than-life, funny, colorful Al Santiago.

If Santiago’s name doesn’t ring a bell, you just need to know that Santiago’s label, Alegre, was the one that first recorded Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colón with Héctor Lavoe, and Eddie Palmieri with La Perfecta.

Alegre “was the seed that later spawned Fania,” says Colón.

Santiago was “very eccentric. He may have been a little bit out of his mind, but in a very creative way,” says bandleader Larry Harlow.

Harlow remembers a trip to Puerto Rico where Santiago was running in the corridors of a San Juan hotel at 5 a.m., “totally naked, with a saxophone around his neck.”

Former Alegre producer Bobby Marín — who compiled the two-disc CD — says Santiago was once fined for walking a horse along 42nd St., just because “he wanted to have the sound of a horse.”

But Marín says that for all the wild moments, Santiago’s legacy is one of great music.

The CD includes a sample of the all-out jams of the Alegre All-Stars, with the exuberant voice of a young Cheo Feliciano on songs like “Se Acabó lo que se Daba.”

Marín vividly remembers one of the Colón sessions with Santiago. “I remember going through take 47,” says Marín. “At 4 in the morning!”

Santiago would give musicians “the freedom to do what they wanted and then he’d insist that they do it properly,” adds Marín.

“Was he a proper businessman? No. But was he a fair businessman? Definitely, yes,” says Marín.

“And was he loved by all of his artists? Definitely, yes.”