Week 63: Fania All-Stars
Recently I watched the new biopic about Hector Lavoe, El Cantante, and I was going to write about it because it was better than I expected. However, I quickly realized that before you can begin to get a sense about Hector Lavoe, you have to get a sense about Puerto Rican salsa music. And one of the shortest routes to getting an understanding of salsa is to go directly to the Fania All-Stars.
The Fania were at their peak during the early to mid 1970s, and they almost single-handedly defined salsa music. The Fania included some of the best talent in the Latin music scene of the day, many of who were veterans of the scene and had already recorded seminal Latin music albums. They were sort of the Led Zeppelin of Latin music except with a rotating cast of up to fifteen or more members instead of just the four.
Hector Lavoe was a virtual unknown until he joined the Fania, and he quickly became their biggest superstar. But at heart the Fania were not about fame or fortune. Almost every penny the musicians made was collected by the Fania Records label owner Jerry Masucci, who basically pulled a classic record label exec move on the group and had them sign away all their money to him. But at their peak, that didn't seem to matter much. They were having a good time playing some of the best Latin music imaginable with some of the best musicians around, and paving the basics of salsa music, a style they can easily claim to have, if not invented, then certainly defined.
But let the music speak for itself. Here’s two clips, best enjoyed very late at night, with a glass of rum with coconut water. Right out of the coconut if possible, but if not, a tumbler will do.
Here’s the Fania at the Cheetah Lounge in NYC for a Christmas Show in 1973. Appropriate this January 9th, since in Puerto Rico it is still Christmas for another couple of weeks. The guy with the black bowtie is Hector Lavoe.
And here’s the Fania the following year playing at a soccer stadium in Zaire for 80,000 people as part of the festivities surrounding the Ali/Foreman fight. Hector sings the lead here and does some of the earliest crowd surfing I’ve ever seen on video.
Sometime in the following weeks, I'll get to the El Cantante movie, but there might be a couple more posts about salsa music before that.
The Fania were at their peak during the early to mid 1970s, and they almost single-handedly defined salsa music. The Fania included some of the best talent in the Latin music scene of the day, many of who were veterans of the scene and had already recorded seminal Latin music albums. They were sort of the Led Zeppelin of Latin music except with a rotating cast of up to fifteen or more members instead of just the four.
Hector Lavoe was a virtual unknown until he joined the Fania, and he quickly became their biggest superstar. But at heart the Fania were not about fame or fortune. Almost every penny the musicians made was collected by the Fania Records label owner Jerry Masucci, who basically pulled a classic record label exec move on the group and had them sign away all their money to him. But at their peak, that didn't seem to matter much. They were having a good time playing some of the best Latin music imaginable with some of the best musicians around, and paving the basics of salsa music, a style they can easily claim to have, if not invented, then certainly defined.
But let the music speak for itself. Here’s two clips, best enjoyed very late at night, with a glass of rum with coconut water. Right out of the coconut if possible, but if not, a tumbler will do.
Here’s the Fania at the Cheetah Lounge in NYC for a Christmas Show in 1973. Appropriate this January 9th, since in Puerto Rico it is still Christmas for another couple of weeks. The guy with the black bowtie is Hector Lavoe.
And here’s the Fania the following year playing at a soccer stadium in Zaire for 80,000 people as part of the festivities surrounding the Ali/Foreman fight. Hector sings the lead here and does some of the earliest crowd surfing I’ve ever seen on video.
Sometime in the following weeks, I'll get to the El Cantante movie, but there might be a couple more posts about salsa music before that.
Labels: Fania All-Stars, Hector Lavoe, Salsa, Thursdays
6 Comments:
love it Carlos. that guys the biggest music nerd since Paul Shaffer. wait, is that Paul Shaffer with hair?
CORRECTION, the band in the clip from the Cheetah Lounge is not technically the Fania All-Stars, it's the Willie Colon Orchestra. Which existed before the All-Stars officially formed and were on the Fania label.
At times its hard to tell the difference. There was a lot of crossing over of players from their original bands to the All-Stars and then back to another band, what is that called? cross-pollination? kind of like the way bands were formed and reformed in the Houston 1990s psych scene.
And yeh Wed, apparently back then, in that scene, the nerds had no reason for revenge. Lavoe was not only the biggest nerd, but also the biggest rock star, with the women, drugs, and craziness associated with 70s rockstardom, including the death of his teenage son who was shot while playing with a gun, and his own death in 1993 after a long battle with AIDS.
On the piano, Wednesday, is Larry Harlow, el Judio Maravilloso, the Wonder Jew, they called him. Probably still do. He does look a bit like Shaeffer with hair.
One of the singers in the first video looks like Isaac from the Love Boat.
Those costumes are outragest. Really dig the music.
I recently saw the documentary when We Were Kings about the Ali Foreman fight in Africa. They showed footage from the second concert.
ok carlos. i'm officially conspiring to join you at some 3am salsa jam frenzy anywhere in the continental u.s. in 2008.
thanks for the clarification. i did hear willie colon name-checked and wondered the connection.
i also remember the concert scene from 'when we were kings'. such a great doc of one of my childhood heroes. highly recommend.
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