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Papo Vázquez and his extraordinary career

His beginnings

As we all know, the United States has been the birthplace of a large number of Latin music stars who are dedicated to this group of musical genres in order to stay true to their roots. Such is the case of Angel Papo Vazquez, who was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but much of his training occurred in Puerto Rico, so he has always had a very special connection with the Island of Enchantment.

As a 14-year-old teenager, it was his uncle who recommended him to the first band in which he participated. It was around this time that he met famed trumpet player Jimmy Purvis, who would be his biggest inspiration to focus on jazz and start to show interest in trombone. The following year, the boy had already acquired enough experience to perform with local orchestras and accompany renowned artists such as Eddie Palmieri.

A few years later, he decided to move to New York, where he would rack up most of his musical accomplishments to date. It was there that he performed and recorded along with some of the greatest Latin musicians such as Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón, Ray Barreto, Larry Harlow and many others. He was hardly 20 years old when he had already toured the world and showed his talent to all types of audiences he could find on the way.

This is Ángel Vásquez — Papo Vázquez playing his trombone

His groups and orchestras

Another reason why he is so well known is for being one of the founding members of Ford Apache and Conjunto Libre de Jerry Gonzalez, but these are just some of the groups of which he was part. He was also in Tito Puente’s Latin Jazz Ensemble. It was with the King of Timbales with whom he achieved recognition as a lead trombonist and experimented a lot with jazz, a genre for which he was already fascinated at a very young age.

After all the experience gained so far, Vasquez was able to start merging certain Afro-Caribbean rhythms that allowed him to innovate in jazz and Latin music in general. He was based on many of the things he learned and heard in Puerto for this.

As early as the 1980s, Papo was mixing bomba jazz, which is basically a mix of jazz and traditional Puerto Rican bomba. In the 90’s, he recorded his first album as a bandleader and collaborated with a lot of Latin jazz artists who greatly appreciated his talent, resulting in great discographic works that are still remembered to this day. One of them was the one he made with certain New York personalities, which is a live recording that included the participation of recognized figures such as American saxophonist Michael Brecker, New York bassist Andy Gonzalez and many more.

This project was called Pirates & Trobadours – At the point Volume 1 and evolved as such that it include more musicians who had no trouble joining the trombonist in this adventure. The group that made the album did many tours and performed at music festivals all over the world. They were so successful that they continued to make new editions throughout the years. In fact, one of Vasquez’s latest albums was Papo Vázquez Mighty Pirates Troubadours – Chapter 10: Breaking Cover, which was released in 2020.

Ángel Vásquez performing — Papo Vázquez paying trombone in one of his performances

By: Johnny Cruz correspondent of International Salsa Magazine in New York City, New York

Luis Medina as a master of ceremonies, broadcaster, DJ and much more

Incredible conversation with Luis Medina

Good afternoon, everyone. We are here with broadcaster, DJ and event producer Luis Medina. Mr. Medina, how are you today?

I am well and ready to talk to you right now.

Mr. Medina, you have a very long career as a radio presenter. You got started in this business in 1974. What led you to spend so much time in your career on the radio?

In 1971 I was studying architecture at San Francisco State University, but in 1974 I changed my major to broadcasting and communications in the Department of Radio and Television. When I was a kid, I was always fascinated by broadcasters on TV with their microphones. My parents gave me a toy microphone, and I always imagined I was broadcasting. At the time I was accepted in the broadcasting program, I already loved salsa because my cousin Stella played popular music for me since I was about 8 years old. I loved all kinds of music. At home, we always had the radio on, and my parents always listened to tropical music, which was very common at that time.

In 1974 my cousin Eduardo invited me to go to a radio station called KBRG to visit some friends who had a program called Venezuela Suya. In another studio in the station, there was a radio producer named Arturito Santiago, who was the master of ceremonies for the Gran Combo de Puerto Rico when they did dances in San Francisco hotels. When I saw him doing his job, I was intrigued. Two months later, my cousin called to tell me that he’d gotten involved in a community radio station called KPOO San Francisco and asked me if I wanted to help him with the show. I brought a stack of LPs, and we did the show from midnight until 6 am. I went a few times to help, but I could not maintain that pace because I was still in college.

A few months later, he called me to tell me that he had a show from 3pm to 6pm on Sundays. He told me he was talking to other people I knew in order to do the show together. I got a segment of 45 minutes to an hour to do whatever I wanted, so I decided to start programming salsa. I helped produce several programs until I had my own show. In 1979, while I had a four-hour show on Saturdays on KPOO, KBRG’s program director, Al Carlos Hernandez, called me. KBRG was a powerful FM station at that time. That gave me the opportunity to do a commercial show.

DJ Luis Medina — Broadcaster Luis Medina with two maracas

I am part Venezuelan and part Mexican, but I grew up in the United States. I spoke Spanish perfectly until I was five years old, but when I started school, I just wanted to speak English in school and at home. When I turned 18, I decided to get my culture back and relearn to speak Spanish again. However, I’m wasn’t completely fluent in Spanish because I have to translate mentally from English. I explained the situation to Al Carlos, and he told me that he did not care. That’s how I became the first radio announcer to do salsa programming in English on a Spanish-speaking station. The program was called Sabor Caliente and it lasted about a year and a half, until they let me go due to philosophical differences. After that, I did specials in KPFA, until Víctor Castro, who produced the program Ahora, invited me to alternate weeks with him. I produced salsa shows on KPFA from 1983 to 1995.

What Medina has to say about all his combined activities

How do you balance your radio activities and event production and your job as a DJ?

When I was a student at San Francisco State University, I became co-director of the university’s productions to present musical acts. From 1974 to 1976 I presented acts from various genres such as rock, R&B, and jazz, among others. I also presented some salsa and Latin jazz shows, including Pete and Sheila Escovedo, who were part of Roger Glenn’s band, Benny Velarde and others. I became friends with Pete and Sheila before Sheila became Sheila E and I also worked with Pete’s brother, Coke Escovedo in the 70s.

Then I met Roberto Hernandez, who had an organization that helped produced the first major street fairs in the San Francisco Mission district together with a coalition of community agencies. I got involved with the fairs, which presented the famous singer Joe Bataan among others. It was the era of Latin rock, but salsa was also booming. I was part of the renaissance of salsa music that occurred on the radio, but I also had the opportunity to play an influential role in the community in the Mission. In 1977, the Mission Cultural Center opened in a furniture store ran by artists that were organizing it. I became part of the music committee and we presented performances and salsa groups that were growing in fame at that time. I was involved on the activities of the center until the 1980s, when some of us created a production group called CMP (Cultural Music Productions). During the 80s we did a series of dances, in which I worked as master of ceremonies. I already had experience as master of ceremonies because when I was at KBRG, they gave me the opportunity to introduce some great shows with Celia Cruz, La Sonora Matancera, Oscar D’ León, Cal Tjader and La Orquesta Broadway. I was also master of ceremonies for Brazilian carnivals for about five years. With CMP I was involved in dances with Willie Colón, Bobby Valentín, Oscar D’ León, and boxing champion Roberto Durán (who at the time wanted to be a salsa singer).

Eventually I left CMP, and I was contacted by Roberto Hernandez, who offered me the position of entertainment director of his new organization, MECA. I accepted and started to help him program the schedule for events such as the San Francisco Carnival, and the 24 Street Fair. I worked with Roberto until 1994 and we presented Santana, Los Lobos, Eddie Palmieri, Luis Henrique, Willie Colón, Yomo Toro, Mighty Sparrow, The Neville Brothers, Shaggy, and many more. When Roberto Hernandez left the organization, I stayed for four more years and worked with Manny Oquendo and Libre, John Santos, Pete Escovedo and Pancho Quinto. In 1998, the president of the organization Patricia Aguayo and I had some problems, so we stopped working together.

A radio DJ and a party DJ are two completely different things. It took me a little while to adjust to being a live DJ. In the early 1990’s, the producers at the Alta Vista club hired me from time to time. Then, they moved to a ship called Alta Vista del Mar in Pier 3, and occasionally hired me as their DJ.

Event producir Luis Medina — Event producer Luis Medina posing for or the camera

In 1994 I met a very ambitious young Venezuelan by the name of Adrian Goddard and started working with him at his club, 330 Ritch. It was a winning combination of Adrian’s talent as an event producer and my talent as a DJ and MC. I worked there for about nine very successful months, but then I had an opportunity with KPFA and I was forced to leave the club because the schedule conflicted. My priority was to produce my own salsa show (ironically, this program didn’t last long, but in 1997 they offered me the same slot, which would become the program Con Sabor, which I still produced today, 25 years later, at KPFA, on Saturdays from 9-11pm.)

A little later, Kimballs Carnaval hired me as a Latin House DJ, as this rhythm was very popular at that time. I wanted to please them, but it wasn’t a good fit. Eventually I was hired as a salsa DJ by the club Kimballs West. This opened other opportunities and I became the DJ in residence at the most prominent salsa clubs in San Francisco at the time, the legendary Jelly’s Cafe, where I DJ’d until it closed in 2010 and the popular Café Cócomo, which closed in 2014. I now DJ and MC primarily for special events and private parties.

Something very important in my story is that in 1997 I worked with Bill Martinez and Arturo Riera and they both gave me the opportunity to be master of ceremonies for a very important series of concerts featuring Cuban musicians who were allowed into the States for the first time. I was the first master of ceremonies for a Los Van Van concert in San Francisco and I also represented my show and KPFA for their concert at Stern Grove in 2019. That was one of many times that I worked with that group. I also was the MC for Orquesta Aragon, Cubanismo, NG La Banda and other Cuban acts.

During the pandemic, I was offered a show with an online radio station called World Salsa Radio. I started the show Sabiduría con Tumbao on Wednesdays from 5 to 7 pm. What makes this show different from Con Sabor is that Sabiduría Con Tumbao is a conceptual program that focuses on certain musicians, musical themes and movements within salsa and Afro-Latin music. On the other hand, Con Sabor offers a broader perspective of salsa, Latin Jazz and música cubana from the classics to the latest.

Since the pandemic started, I produce all my radio shows at home. I managed to master the technology and built my own home studio. I am not afraid of technology or modern things. I go with the flow because I’ve learned that I should be at the forefront of technology and music. If I do not know something, I am going to research it right away. I keep an open mind and ears and I appreciate and listen to all kinds of music, something that was key when I was music director at KPFA from 2001 through 2014. In terms of my own programs, I really love salsa from the 70s, but I’m not stuck in any time period.

Eduardo and Luis — Our editor Eduardo Guilarte and Luis Medina

Talented Nicaraguan Ernesto Tito Garcia and his amazing artistic career

His life and career

Ernesto Tito Garcia is a Nicaraguan bandleader and timbalero who has been part of many musical groups that passed from romantic salsa to mambo and many other Latin genres.

This astonishingly gifted artist has been playing professionally since the year 1971. A few years later, he formed his first orchestra called Ritmo 74, which was in charge of opening up for the biggest names in Latin music from back in the day. Both Ernesto and his fellow musicians were noted for their ages and the musical styles they used at the time.

He experimented with Latin rock during his youth until he heard salsa for the first time and wanted to devote himself fully to that musical genre. After spending a long time playing romantic music, he decided to experiment with hard salsa and added his own style to the rhythms played by La Orquesta Internacional.

Ernesto Tito García — Talented Nicaraguan Ernesto *Tito* García

Our conversation

We are very happy to get him in International Salsa Magazine today ready to go and talk a little about his life and musical career.

My father signed me up for music lessons. I did not like them very much, but they kept me busy and interested me. Thanks to those lessons I took once a week, my ear opened wide and I learned to read music, which is a very rare thing for a timbalero. In 1969, I was 13 years old and my dad was paying for weekly accordion lessons and when Santana came out in my eighth grade, I heard my first timpani and knew it would be my instrument. That’s when I told my dad not to spend money because I wanted to play the timpani. He was a good man who died in my arms because of the same cancer I have today.

On Broadway Street, San Francisco was where I began to learn how to play the timpani. My dad helped me buy my first timpani and I found a group that played Latin rock just like Santana, which gave me the opportunity to develop my technique. When I was in San Francisco, I did not hear much of salsa because it was more present in New York City, but my dad bought some records recommended by a friend containing the last of salsa. That was the first time I heard salsa and I was playing Latin rock with the group I already mentioned. When I heard that music, I met a girl who was interested in buying an electric piano that belonged to my girlfriend’s brother who was 15 years old at the time. From there, we formed our first orchestra in 1974, which we called Ritmo 74. When the music outside like Eddie Palmieri or Tito Puente came, people over 40 years old also came, but young people did not like it because the music was very regimented and had many pitoretas (wind musical instrument, also known as clarion).

Tito on the beach — Ernesto *Tito* García on the beach

About the time Willie Colón came out was when the orchestra started getting big because we were the young people of salsa. I was 16 or 17 years old, while the oldest member was 26 or 27 years old. We had agents who gave us the opportunity to open up for the biggest names in New York like Eddie Palmieri and Willie Colón. At that time, we were the only orchestra of our generation with that kind of playing. We were growing up, but the thing is that I liked education and for whatever reason, I found that I made good grades.

As our fame grew here in the Bay Area, I had to devote much time to rehearsals, learn new songs, among other things. That’s why my grades started to fall and I was about to graduate from high school. The last two years were the most important ones at school, so I realized I would not be able to do both at the same time. So I decided to quit music and knew the only way in which I could do it was to sell my timpani, so I went to a store and they gave me $60 for them.

I got my grades up, was admitted by San Francisco State University and the first year was amazing, but I met other Latino students who also played music. They began renting a room right there on campus to rehearse, so I did not have to go somewhere else. It was there that we founded La Orquesta Salsa Caliente and as soon as we got to be known, people liked us. About two or three years later, my grades started to fall again, so I quit music again. I graduated from College and was admitted to the school of optometry in 1985 or 1986. Thanks to that diploma I started working with a very skilled Salvadoran doctor. He was a surgeon and ophthalmologist. When I formed my own orchestra, I had two very simple rules for the members. The first was that when we played, we could not take any kind of drugs or alcohol, while the second was that we had to always wear a suit and a tie, that’s what no other youth orchestra did.

This is Mike Rios — *Tito* García and Mike Ríos, who designed the album covers for Santana

Do you think that the style of mambo that your orchestra plays is what makes it unique or are there other elements that stand out?

First of all, when I formed the orchestra, romantic salsa was in vogue just like its exponents included Eddie Santiago, Tony Vega and many more. The problem was that the music was boring because the arrangements were very simple. In 1996 or 1997 was when I heard Tito Puente with his orchestra playing mambo and that is what gave me the idea to do the same with four or five pitoretas. That’s when I lost several musicians and singers because they wanted to sing romantic salsa, but I was tired of that.

So, we started playing what I called hard salsa, which had mambo arrangements and singers who knew how to perform it. That combination pushed us on a new level. Those who wanted to sing romantic salsa formed their own orchestra. Julio Bravo was one of my favorite artists and I helped him with some musicians. There was also my comadre Denis Corrales, who formed her women’s orchestra. The orchestra looked very good with all the girls, but it was not what dancers were looking for. There is also the case of Venezuelan Eduardo Herrera whose voice was incredible and he also grew up with salsa music, but he did not know how to sing hard salsa.

Tito García and Tito Puente — Tito Puente and *Tito* García

Do you think having musicians from so many different countries has to do with the final product you present to the public?

This did not have a lot of influence on our music. Back then, our orchestra was called Salsa Dulce. When my agent retired, I got stuck with the orchestra. He wanted the orchestra to have my name in its title but did not want it to be too obvious, for example, Los Titanes de La Salsa Con Tito García or El Gran Combo Con Rafael Ithier. Regarding nationalities, the singer was Venezuelan, the bass player was French, the pianist was Peruvian, the conguero was Puerto Rican, the saxophonist was Irish and the trombonist was American as was the trumpet player. It was the reason why my agent suggested me to call it Tito García Y Su Orquesta La Internacional. I liked how it sounded so much that I called the group that.

What are your future projects?

I can mention an album dedicated to Tito Puente and am going to record it between San Francisco and Nicaragua. The problem is that his family has the rights to all his music and I do not know if they give me permission to do it. I hope they are not going to charge me a lot for those rights. Of course, we are going to make money with the project, but costs are much more comfortable and negotiable in Nicaragua. That is one of the reasons why I want to do it there.

Timpani of Tito garcía — *Tito* García’s timpani

Salsa fantasy, a concept of the Salsa designer Ron Levine

Album covers can express the technological and social advances of different epochs through indirect means.

“Salsa Fantasy” is a term coined by journalist Pablo Yglesias to describe a concept that artist and illustrator Ron Levine wanted to implement when he started creating various album covers for Latin music in the 70s. He was primarily intended to propose a style that could compete directly with the creations of the prosperous American industry.

This article presents the reasons why Ron Levine decided to set out on on that journey. To that end, we have drawn on an interview conducted by Pablo Yglesias in 2011 in which, in addition to his interesting anecdotes, we are being offered a glimpse of a retrospect of all his work, going through his work with the Sonora Ponceña in which he had the opportunity to develop his style.

Album cover design, Fania Records, illustration, Pop Art, La Sonora Ponceña.

Introduction

Album covers can express the technological and social advances of different epochs through indirect means (Rondón, C., 2008), (Figueredo, M., 2010). The interesting thing about this is that the relative precarious situation in which salsa album covers were designed and the marginality expressed in many cases by the lack of resources with which they were created.

Jerry Masucci’s Fania Records was really focused on supporting that nascent number of singers of Latin origin.

Many of those covers created were concepts on which certain issues closely related to the songs or what the singer wished to express were handled.

In most cases, staging and photography were resorted to express certain ideas related to migration of Latinos in the U.S. and others of social order that prevailed in the lyrics of the songs (Yglesias, P. E., 2005).

In this way, various artists became directly or indirectly involved in the making of their album covers; one example of this are Eddie Palmieri’s album covers where a set of simple but forceful photos and the good mastering of typography can be appreciated (Yglesias, P. E. ,2005).

Although there existed a number of non-Latin graphic designers and artists who engaged in Latin music in the United States during the 70s and 80s, the team formed by Ron Levine and Marshall Lee was the most visible of Salsa in New York.

The two artists, both iconic and revered, worked for Jerry Masucci at Fania Records where Levine created many of Fania’s best known and appreciated covers.

Salsa wonderful photos of Lee would be part of a comprehensive separate study, what interests us in this article is to show the work developed in Ron Levine’s work as a graphic designer and artist.

Throughout his career he played an important role in carrying on the legacy of high quality in the design of album covers initiated by Izzy Sanabria, Walter Velez, Charlie Rosario and other artists and illustrators in the 60s and early 70s.

Below is a review of Ron Levine’s work and some aspects that led him to develop a style so particular that, still today, is applauded by many designers, artists and illustrators who have been involved in the art of creating album covers.

Levine’s childhood: from drawing horses to Ronald Stuart art school Levine was born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York and moved to Long Island at six years old. His maternal grandparents were Scottish Protestants; his maternal grandmother was Theodore Roosevelt’s nurse in a moment of her life (“She was a big burly woman with hair like sheep,” recalls Levine)

Her paternal grandparents were Jews from Poland and Russia. Her mother, who was born in Glasgow, converted to Judaism when she married her father. She attended art school and, besides being a housewife, she used to work in a professional photo studio and was an expert in dyeing and painting backgrounds oil colors in black and white photographs for weddings.

Her father worked in a textile store and had a knack for textile marketing and fashion in Manhattan.

Levine spent his childhood playing with drums, Jewish folk dances and horse riding. Drawing horses fascinated him and he was obsessed with science fiction illustrations such as Flash Gordon, Disney cartoons, superhero comics, horror and fantasy.

By the age of eight, he was longing to work for Walt Disney; at school he was irreverent in art classes, preferring to draw horses, fantasy characters or Flash Gordon, rather than those boring still life, fruit bowls and colour cards that were classroom exercises.

He motivated himself by drawing fantasy and beautiful horses. Despite his poor grades, his parents knew he had talent, so they encouraged his artistic skills knowing that his career in the arts may not be very financially feasible.

To him, music was a passion almost be likened to painting. Levine formed a band called “The tensions” in which he played drums. He was also the lead vocalist of another band called “The New Rock Workshop” and its members toured and recorded for several years in the 60s.

In addition to playing and singing in those bands, Levine began studying at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where he took classes in a 4-year programme. There he reclaimed his passion for drawing the human figure.

At the age of 20 Levine settled permanently in Manhattan anstarted his professional career as an artist. He could not finish the last quarter of his studies, but through a professor he was able to make contact high-profile graphic artists such as Paul Davis, Milton Glaser, Chwast Seymour and Lubalin Herb. After a while he landed a job making magazine covers and also with the famous creative director Tony Palladino with whom he learned various tools of the trade.

In these early works, as may be noted, photography was used as an element of graphic expression, combining some illustration and staging. It was a work concluded between Levine and Lee.

After the first six years, Levine was already doing most of the work for Fania All-Stars together with Lee.

At the same time, Sanabria was occupied with Latin NY magazine, which was a very influential publication for Nuyorican popular culture.

Levine comments that he felt part of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and Lo Mato.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Jhonny Pacheco has a respect for his illustrations, because Levine also knew about music. However, he says he took a crash course and went from knowing absolutely nothing about Latin music to witnessing its history — The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Jhonny Pacheco had respect for his illustrations because Levine also knew about music.

However, he says he took an intensive course and went from not knowing anything about Latin music to witnessing its history and evolution in the front row.

After that, he worked for some albums by Rubén Blades in which he began experimenting with portrait photography, which was a realistic interpretation from photography.

Lo Mato

Despite the pleasant working atmosphere, Levine had some conceptual discussions with Masucci related to logos and title sizes in typefaces. — Lo Mato

Despite the pleasant working atmosphere, Levine had some conceptual discussions with Masucci in relation to logos and title text sizes in typographies, resulting in controversial results in some cases.

Since Latin music was marginalized for many years, the designs of the 60s and 70s used a shoestring budget, considering that Fania All-Stars was neither Columbia nor Atlantic Records, for many of the typographies almost everything had to be created manually and with basic techniques such as the use of masks, photocopies, adhesive tape and rubber cement.

In this way, there was a lot of handmade work in which Levine’s photos were taken to the extreme. All the lines were done by hand and then tinted with rapidograph pens. Levine says that some of the typographies created had no concept behind them, however, illustration to produce a quality product take a long time.

Creativity was blooming as was humor. Many musicians used to dress up in costumes and pose with girls.

Subsequently, he was called to work in the covers of La Sonora Ponceña given that the aesthetics of this orchestra’s pieces were in line with his expectations about fantasy illustrations.

La Sonora Ponceña.

Many of the covers created by Levine and Lee challenged the concept of the Latin identity’s representation, this can be better seen in the LP’s created for La Sonora Ponceña from Ponce, Puerto Rico.

The record label Fania Records offered that differentiation to new musicians, giving them the opportunity to say something interestingusing their covers. Sanabria had already begun to develop a concept, but were at the hands of Lee and Levine that a classic representation of the style based on comic-inspired illustrations, some humor and Pop Art was truly shown.

Ruben Blades.

Ruben Blades With Strings

In this way, contextualized ideas and stories were developed; an example of this is a cover that shows a representation of the conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon in full body armor (and somewhat incongruous with the use of a sweater — Rubén Blades With Strings

This is how contextualized ideas and stories were developed; an example of this is a cover where a representation of the conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon in full body armor (something incongruous with the use of a sweater), a guitar on his shoulder, a maraca in one hand and a parchment in the other one.

When Levine took charge, there was some controversy concerning how the group should be represented; however, Levine was quite good in the eyes of the fans.

Given that they felt the story needed to be told in some way and the problems and artistic freedom so important to salsa in the 70s were illustrated with authencity through his creations.

These creations that came out from an initial idea of Juan Ponce de León’s representation mutated and became the issue of many album covers that not only told fantastic fictional stories related to music, but also changed the traditional image of the Latin album.

Sonora Ponceña albums (Musical Conquest – Back to work).

Sonora Ponceña Musical Conquest

Despite the success of Levine’s work with the public, Sanabria, who always tried to remain within the limits of Latin culture, criticized him precisely for distorting music and its culture.

Sonora Ponceña Back to work

However, Levine defended his idea by saying that Latin music and its artists very good music), had not received before the support as is provided to American music and artists. Given that Levine had been linked to the creation of covers for rock bands, he always felt that the quality of Latin music covers was very poor due to the low budget.

Sonora Ponceña albums (Determination – Night Rider).

Sonora Ponceña Determination

In this way with his fiction proposal, Levine put Latin music on a par with some American artists who had recognition (Boston, ELO, Earth, Wind, Fire, Kiss and Yes).

Levine believed the covers should reflect the image of success. Fortunately, he had the support of Masucci, who, motivated by Levine, invested more money in the covers using the same premise.

Sonora Ponceña Night Rider

With his proposal for the covers, Levine wanted to show that Latin music was part of one of the biggest music scenes in the world.

He remarked that each of the covers had the same standard of treatment as a work of art; it was worked with great care and detail.

Finally, the last cover created by Levine for La Sonora Ponceña was made in the digital age – On Target (1998). There is a kind of hybrid between samurai and barbarian, with certain influences of the aesthetics of video games, fast-moving typography management with a flatter illustration but with a three-dimensional look.

The CD was released the year after the death of Masucci.

Sonora Ponceña On Target.

Conclusion

The concept proposed by Ron Levine allowed to explore from creation not only the various ways of making known a musical group, but also the establishment of a style that spread among the public to such an extent that his work on each cover is recognized as a work of art at present.

Mongo Santamaria

On the other hand, he was a pioneer of a style with which Latin music was not initially identified in its beginnings (fiction illustration, Pop Art, humor.) Yet, despite economic constraints, he designed several album covers with the best quality, they are even on the same level as those created on American record labels with higher budgets.

Notes

1 Member of the Research Group Camaleón.

2 Member of the Research Group Palo de Mango.

3 Music festival, art and Hippie congregation; held on 15, 16, 17 and the early morning of 18 August 1969, in Sullivan Country, New York.

References

Figueredo, M. (2010).

Album cover design in the 1970s.

Creation and Production in Design and Communication [works of students and Graduates] Nº 35 (2010). pp 99-102 ISSN 1668-5229 99

Rondón, C. (2008).

The Book of Salsa: A Chronicle of Urban Music from the Caribbean to New York City The University of North Carolina Press.

Cocinando. Fifty Years of Latin Album Cover Art.

New York: Pricenton Architectural Press.

Received: June 30/ Approved: November 28, 2013.

For Santa Maria’s bongo album Afro-Indio, Levine produced a masterful watercolor of ritual imagery focused on African culture.

https://nexus.univalle.edu.co/index.php/nexus/article/view/747/870

A bit of history about Latin soul and its relationship with salsa

How Latin soul was born

There are certain musical genres that, despite their short duration on the public stage, marked history to such an extent that they continue to be named and taken into account when analyzing the process experienced by Latin music in the United States. One of them is Latin soul, which is defined as a musical genre born and developed in the 1960s in New York City, such as in the case of many of the rhythms we have today.

Latin soul was born of the mixing of Cuban mambo and some elements coming from the American version of soul and Latin jazz. Even though it was a set of rhythms that became relevant only in the aforementioned decade, it played a particularly valuable role in the salsa movement that was starting to take shape at that time.

One of its most striking characteristics is that it places a lot of emphasis on its Afro-Cuban rhythms, but at the same time, most of its songs are in English, which reveals an extremely interesting mix of Cuban and American cultures. After to have acquired a little more specific style, it started to become popular among New York-based Latin artists, who used the emerging genre to win over communities of their respective countries and local media at the same time.

Among the greatest exponents of Latin soul is Joe Bataan, an American of Filipino descent who is regarded as the most famous vocalist of the genre. Something that made him really different from the rest of the artists of his kind was the merger between American soul and salsa that was already sounded at that time. For this and many other reasons, Bataan is still seen as one of the greatest idols of those golden years of music.

This is Joe Bataan — Joe Bataan “The King of Latin Soul”

Bataan, Willie Colón, and other performers represented the emergence of a generation of musicians whose formation was the street itself and the harsh experiences occurring it. At the same time, there were others who had an academic background and studies that made them play and behave otherwise. When the union between both groups took place, the result was a display of talent that is still turning heads. All those who were trained in academies and on the street joined the new oncoming wave of rhythms.

An important detail about this is that the Latin audience in general was eager to look for artistic role models through which to reflect their daily lives. We must remember that many of these people lived in poor conditions in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, so many did not really identify with educated music that came from the music academies and schools. All that changed greatly after the emergence of a group of artists who wanted to have their own place in the Anglo-Saxon entertainment business. In some cases, these young people came from an origin very similar to the one that has been described.

This led to the creation of groups and orchestras in which formal and sophisticated music training had to coexist with other styles emerging from the humblest alleys in certain Latin neighborhoods. Music had ceased to be an elitist thing and would go on to become a mixture of different flavors and colors that were gradually brought together as the decades of the ’60s and ’70s went by.

Around this time, the figure of Monguito Santamaría (Cuban percussionist and bandleader Mongo Santamaría’s son) emerged, who would be his biggest inspiration to take the path of music. The boy studied piano and proved a great talent for leading bands, but he needed something to push his career, since the mere fact of being a legend’s son was not going to guarantee the success he longed for. This led him to be carried away by the current of Boogaloo, another nascent genre that had gained overwhelming popularity at the time.

Here you can see Monguito Santamaría — Monguito Santamaría

From there, Monguito created his own orchestra and invites some of his schoolmates to join him, which resulted in a quite complete group in which these guys designed their own American R&B versions and sounds and an accent that made them much closer to the African-American community that loved soul and funk. This made them put aside the Latin community for a while, but that would change sooner than expected.

Long after Monguito completed his musical studies, he and his band decided to audition for Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci. Let us not forget that Santamaria and the rest of his orchestra had a typically American vision of music, but they did not put aside the Cuban heritage behind them, so they always included songs in genres from the Caribbean island. This pleased the Fania All-Stars so much that they agreed to work with the orchestra, which adapted to the exigencies of the record label without losing sight of their goal: making music for Latinos in New York.

This is how Monguito and Bataan became the Fania artists whose repertoires were more inclined to Latin soul. In view of the great success that Mongo’s son had with his projects on the label, he continued to immerse himself in the aforementioned rhythm and to enter Boogaloo, whose popularity was at its peak at that time.

The bad news is that there were a set of factors that did not help the musician to make history as he wanted. One of them was the birth of salsa orchestras that perfectly read the social moment that lived by the poor Latin neighborhoods of the United States, a point on which Monguito stayed in the past. He and his musicians may have been better than many other bands of their generation, but they did not know how to read the historical moment when they were in. This and his little promotion in much of Latin America made much of his legacy be buried and forgotten.

Monguito and his musicians — Monguito Santamaría, Rene McLean (saxophone), Harvey Hargraves (trumpet), Glenn Walker (trombone), Sam Turner (congas), Ronnie Hill (timbales), José Mangual Jr. (bongos), and Andy González (bass)

Eddie Palmieri’s role in this process

American bandleader and pianist of Puerto Rican descent Eddie Palmieri played a very important role in the process carried out by Latin music during its evolution into what we know today. The artist radically changed the way Latin music was perceived thanks to his spectacular mix of Afro-Cuban rhythms and certain touches typically of Latin jazz.

During the heyday of Boogaloo and Latin soul, Palmieri did his best to mix the best aspects of soul and funk with these Cuban rhythms, which would in turn be united with a typical revolutionary message of those years. Thanks to all these messages captured in his lyrics, the musician’s repertoire became more and more present in acts promoted by leftist movements and his music was brought to several prisons, giving it a nuance of denunciation that was very difficult to ignore.

In contrast to other talents of those years, the New Yorker cannot be classified as a salsa, Boogaloo or soul musician. This is because he knew how to handle all genres and combine them in a novel way for that time.