Salsa music is a style of Latin American music, combining elements of Cuban, Puerto Rican, and American influences. Because most of the basic musical components predate the labeling of salsa, there have been many controversies regarding its origin. Most songs considered as salsa are primarily based on son montuno and son cubano, with elements of guaracha, cha-cha-chá, danzón, descarga, bolero, guajira, rumba, mambo, jazz, funk, R&B, rock, bomba, and plena. All of these elements are adapted to fit the basic Son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa.
Carlos Manuel "Charlie" Palmieri was a Puerto Rican bandleader and musical director of salsa music. He was known as the "Giant of the Keyboards".
Eddie Palmieri is an American Grammy Award-winning pianist, bandleader, musician, and composer of Puerto Rican ancestry. He is the founder of the bands La Perfecta, La Perfecta II, and Harlem River Drive.
Ismael Quintana was a Puerto Rican singer and composer of salsa music.
A descarga is an improvised jam session consisting of variations on Cuban music themes, primarily son montuno, but also guajira, bolero, guaracha and rumba. The genre is strongly influenced by jazz and it was developed in Havana during the 1950s. Important figures in the emergence of the genre were Cachao, Julio Gutiérrez, Bebo Valdés, Peruchín and Niño Rivera in Cuba, and Tito Puente, Machito and Mario Bauzá in New York. Originally, descargas were promoted by record companies such as Panart, Maype and Gema under the label Cuban jam sessions. From the 1960s, the descarga format was usually adapted by large salsa ensembles, most notably the Fania All-Stars.
Salvador "Sal" Cuevas was an American salsa bassist known for his association with the Fania All-Stars from 1978 to 1985. Although he also played the upright bass, he was one of the most popular electric bassists in the New York salsa scene, often playing in a funk style. "He was the first to bring the slaps and funk style that he learned from R&B, Funk, and Jazz music, into Salsa music."
Juan Pablo Knipping Pacheco, known as Johnny Pacheco, was a Dominican musician, arranger, composer, bandleader, and record producer. Born in the Dominican Republic, Pacheco became a leading figure in the New York salsa scene in the 1960s and 1970s as the founder and musical director of Fania Records.
Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros was a Cuban trumpeter. He played with artists such as Arsenio Rodríguez, Generoso Jiménez, Chico O'Farrill, Orchestra Harlow, Eddie Palmieri, Cachao and Sonora Matancera. Due to his characteristic approach to Afro-Cuban trumpet playing as well as his extensive recording career, several monographs have been written on his music.
Jimmy Bosch, also known as "El Trombon Criollo", is a jazz and Salsa Music trombonist composer and bandleader of Puerto Rican descent born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was raised in Hoboken, NJ and graduated from Hoboken High School in 1975.
Mario Rivera was a Latin jazz saxophonist from the Dominican Republic. Besides saxophone, Rivera played trumpet, flute, piano, vibraphone, congas, and drums.
Manny Oquendo was an American percussionist of Puerto Rican ancestry. His main instruments were the timbales and the bongos.
Justo Betancourt is a Cuban singer famous for his interpretation of "Pa' bravo yo". He was born in Matanzas, Cuba, but has lived a significant amount of time in Puerto Rico. Betancourt led a group called Borincuba, a combination of the names Cuba and Borinquen, a name for Puerto Rico of Taíno origin. In addition to recording a number of solo albums, he has played with the Fania All Stars and Sonora Matancera, as well as performing with musicians and singers such as Celia Cruz, Mongo Santamaría, Eddie Palmieri and Ray Barretto, among others.
Jerry González was an American bandleader, trumpeter and percussionist of Puerto Rican descent. Geraldo, his father, was a singer in a band and worked for Las Villas, a chain of stores selling Latin American products. Jerry, who liked the trumpet and studied it carefully, but also the congas was a member of Cal Tjader Callen Radcliffe Tjader Jr. an American Jazz musician, known as the most successful non-Latino of Latin Jazz. Together Jerry Gonzalez with his brother, bassist Andy González, played an important role in the development of Latin Jazz during the late 20th century. During the 1970s, both played alongside Eddie Palmieri and in Manny Oquendo's Conjunto Libre, and from 1980 to 2018 they directed The Fort Apache Band. From 2000 to 2018, Jerry González resided in Madrid, where he fronted Los Piratas del Flamenco and El Comando de la Clave. In October 2018, he died of a heart attack after a fire in his home in Madrid.
Vitín Avilés was a Puerto Rican singer, Born in the Barrio San Silvestre of Mayagüez. He learned from his father the Barber job, while he was singing his first gigs in amateur radio shows. In 1943 started as a lead singer on the Orquesta Hatuey of William Manzano and with the Orquesta Anacaona. In 1944 he went to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to sing with the Orquesta of Miguelito Miranda on where he recorded his first album. who in the 1940s and 1950s often went unnoticed, even though he was among Latin music's five most popular band singers during the period. He sang in Tito Puente's orchestra and was lead vocals on the hit single Ran Kan Kan. He also sang with Tito Rodríguez, Carlos Varela (bandleader), with his own orchestra, and for Charlie Palmieri. He died January 1, 2004, at St. Vincent's Hospital, in Manhattan, New York.
José Juan Piñero González, better known as Pijuán, was a Puerto Rican musician who produced and/or has been credited on several albums under the record labels Phillips Borinquen, Hit Parade, Kubaney, Discos Melón, TH Records, Private Ranch Records and Musigol Records.
Andy González was a jazz double bassist of Puerto Rican descent recognized as was one of the innovators of Latin Jazz."González was a versatile player, as well as an arranger, composer, music historian and producer of other musicians’ records. He embraced African, Cuban and Puerto Rican styles, various strains of jazz and other influences, often merging them into something fresh." Raised in the Bronx, he played violin in grammar school and later picked up the bass after taking lessons with jazz bassist Steve Swallow from 5th to 8th grade, thereafter he attended the High School of Music & Art. "Swallow turned Gonzalez on to Pablo Casals and Scott Lafaro, wrote out the second movement of the Bach Cello Suite in D minor, and helped Gonzalez prepare for his audition at Music and Art." "Andy González came to the public's attention playing for future NEA Jazz Master Ray Barretto's band, while he was still a student at Music & Art High School. Although it was a salsa group in the Cuban conjunto trumpet tradition, Barretto treated the group like a jazz combo, featuring all the players as soloists." While at Music & Art High School, he "play[ed] with other classmates such as Mongo Santamaria's son, Monguito, Jose Mangual Jr., Rene Mcclean, Onaje Allen Gumbs, Stafford Osborne, Nelson Samafiego, a Puerto Rican alto saxophonist, DJ Cousin Brucie, Eric Bibb, Wilbur Bascomb(son of Ted Bascomb, bassist for Erskine Hawkins), Allison Dean, and Janis Ian, who was in his homeroom and dropped out sophomore year just after recording 'Society's Child.'
Superimposition is the twelfth studio album by American pianist Eddie Palmieri. It was released by Tico Records in 1970. The album combines modern salsa renditions of Cuban standards on side A with experimental descargas on side B. Since its release, the album has been praised by critics such as John Storm Roberts for its innovative approach.
"Anabacoa" is a guaracha composed by Puerto Rican trumpeter Juanchín Ramírez which has become a Latin music standard. Its most famous recording was made in Mexico in 1949 by Beny Moré backed by Pérez Prado and his orchestra. Recorded as a mambo, Moré's recording became a hit throughout Latin America. It was followed by the version made by Arsenio Rodríguez and his conjunto in 1950, which further cemented the piece as a standard of the Cuban music repertoire. Arsenio's rendition, although labeled as a guaracha, was driven by a guaguancó pattern on the tumbadora.
"La chismosa del solar" is a guaguancó written by Miguel Sarría and first recorded by Los Muñequitos de Matanzas in 1970. The song was covered in 1975 by Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros ("Nicolasa") and Sonora Ponceña and released on LP and single format by both artists. A standard of the rumba repertoire, the song was reworked by Lázaro Rizo, a member of Pancho Quinto's group, as "Lenguasá", also known as "Tremendo chuchuchú", which was covered by Orquesta Revé on their successful 1991 album Mi salsa tiene sandunga. The song was later recorded by Pancho Quinto, featuring Omar Sosa on piano, and it has since been covered by other rumba ensembles such as Grupo Mezcla and Rumberos de Cuba.
Nicky Marrero is an American Latin jazz percussionist, best known as the timbale player in The Fania Allstars and as a recording artist during the 1970s salsa boom in New York.
