Latin » Latin America » New York Salsa

During the 1970s, New York was the site of a creatively fertile Salsa scene which helped revitalize the city's status as a center of artistically ambitious Latin music. Puerto Rican salsa had developed into an eclectic blend of Latin American roots styles during the '60s, and the strong Puerto Rican presence in New York City meant that the music was readily available. While the New York salseros were somewhat influenced by Latin jazz and the mambo orchestras of the '40s and '50s, salsa was really about consciously returning to traditional Afro-Latin forms, and finding new ways to unite and blend them. To a certain extent, this was a specific reaction against the pop orientation of boogaloo and the crossover rock of Santana, but more importantly, it was a part of the generalized artistic intent that had overtaken much American music -- including rock and jazz -- during the '60s. The flagship label of New York salsa was the highly prolific Fania, founded by multi-instrumentalist Johnny Pacheco with Jerry Masucci; Fania helped create a strong, collaborative community of New York salsa musicians, partly through projects like the Fania All-Stars, which featured dozens of top players and actually headlined a concert at Yankee Stadium in 1973. Other major figures in the New York salsa movement included trombonist Willie Colón, percussion veteran Ray Barretto, singer Rubén Blades, pianist Joe Bataan, and Latin-jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri.