Salsa music is a style of Latin American music. 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, with elements of mambo, Latin jazz, bomba, plena and guaracha. All of these elements are adapted to fit the basic son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa.
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna, known professionally as Rubén Blades, is a Panamanian musician, singer, composer, actor, activist, and politician, performing musically most often in the salsa, and Latin jazz genres. As a songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova as well as experimental tempos and politically inspired Son Cubano salsa to his music, creating "thinking persons' (salsa) dance music". Blades has written dozens of hit songs, including "Pedro Navaja" and "El Cantante". He has won ten Grammy Awards out of seventeen nominations and twelve Latin Grammy Awards.
Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría Rodríguez was a Cuban percussionist and bandleader who spent most of his career in the United States. Primarily a conga drummer, Santamaría was a leading figure in the pachanga and boogaloo dance crazes of the 1960s. His biggest hit was his rendition of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. From the 1970s, he recorded mainly salsa and Latin jazz, before retiring in the late 1990s.
Ray Barretto was an American percussionist and bandleader of Puerto Rican ancestry. Throughout his career as a percussionist, he played a wide variety of Latin music styles, as well as Latin jazz. His first hit, "El Watusi", was recorded by his Charanga Moderna in 1962, becoming the most successful pachanga song in the United States. In the late 1960s, Barretto became one of the leading exponents of boogaloo and what would later be known as salsa. Nonetheless, many of Barretto's recordings would remain rooted in more traditional genres such as son cubano. A master of the descarga, Barretto was a long-time member of the Fania All-Stars. His success continued into the 1970s with songs such as "Cocinando" and "Indestructible." His last album for Fania Records, Soy dichoso, was released in 1990. He then formed the New World Spirit jazz ensemble and continued to tour and record until his death in 2006.
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.
The Fania All-Stars is a musical group formed in 1968 as a showcase for the musicians on Fania Records, the leading salsa music record label of the time.
Thomas "Bones" Malone is an American jazz musician, arranger, and producer. As his nickname implies, he specializes on the trombone but he also plays saxophone, trumpet, tuba, flute, and bass guitar. He has been a member of The Blues Brothers, Saturday Night Live Band, and the CBS Orchestra, the house band for the Late Show with David Letterman.
Barron W. "Barry" Rogers was an American jazz and salsa trombonist.
Seguida is a Latin Rock Group from New York., who were winners of the 1976 Latin NY Magazine "Best Latin Rock Album" award.
Sonny Bravo, born Elio Osacar, is an Afro-Cuban jazz and Latin jazz pianist. He was once a very good baseball player with many prospects born in New York, New York, though due to an injury in 1956 he sought out a career in music. It was then he started performing with Many Campo, El Casino de Miami, José Fajardo and many others. He also recorded with Tito Puente and Bobby Paunetto.
Mario Rivera was a Latin jazz saxophonist from the Dominican Republic. Besides saxophone, Rivera played trumpet, flute, piano, vibraphone, congas, and drums.
Roger Dawson is a jazz percussionist, conga drummer, bandleader and jazz composer. He was a leading jazz and salsa disc jockey in the US and acknowledged as at the forefront of New York's salsa music explosion of the seventies and early eighties. He was the creator of the long running "Salsa Meets Jazz" concert series at New York's Village Gate club.
Steven Alan Gluzband is an American latin jazz trumpeter based in New York City.
Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos is the third studio álbum between the duo of Willie Colón and Rubén Blades released on September 20, 1981 by Fania Records. This being the second most successful album of the duo and the one that comes closest to being a post-boogalo album with the sounds of hard salsa characteristic of the Harlow Orchestra.
Jose "Joe" Gallardo is an American jazz musician and composer.
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly is the ninth studio album by Willie Colón with backing from Yomo Toro on cuatro and vocal contributions from his regular singer Héctor Lavoe and Lavoe's replacement Rubén Blades. The album featured three cover art portraits by Ron Levine of Yomo Toro, Colón and Lavoe but not Blades, punning the film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Lavoe recorded his tracks on return from Kinshasha in Zaire. It was to be Lavoe's last collaboration for a period after a successful series with Colón as he issued his first solo album La Voz. For Blades it was his second album after 1970's De Panama a New York, also for Fania, and marked the start of a collaboration with Colón which would continue for several albums.
Harvey Averne has been described as "one of several prominent Jewish Americans in New York's bustling Latin music scene."
Mongo Introduces La Lupe is an album by La Lupe and the Mongo Santamaria Orchestra. It was recorded at the Plaza Sound Studios in New York City and released by Riverside Records in 1963. AllMusic gave the album a rating of four stars. Reviewer Scott Yanow called it "an excellent set of stirring Afro-Cuban jazz."
Tras La Tormenta It is the fifth and last studio album made between the American singer Willie Colón and the Panamian Songwriter Rubén Blades. It was released on January 31, 1995 through Sony Music Latin and Epic, and recorded at Acme Recordings Studios, being the last great collaboration that the two artists did. It had four singles, "Talento De Televisión", "Homenaje A Héctor Lavoe", "Tras La Tormenta" and "Como Un Huracán", being the first mentioned the most awarded of the album.
Mongo Returns! is an album by the Cuban musician Mongo Santamaria. It was released in 1995. The album marked Santamaria's return to the Fantasy Records label.
