'Salsa' Bands // p 1 of 1

Afro-Cuban All Stars

Afro-Cuban All Stars is a Cuban band led by Juan de Marcos González (formerly tres player for Sierra Maestra). Their music is a mix of all the styles of Cuban music, including bolero, chachachá, salsa, son montuno, timba, guajira, danzón, rumba and abakua.

They are known internationally for their 1997 album A Toda Cuba le Gusta, which was recorded at the Buena Vista Social Club sessions. Members have included Rubén González, Orlando "Cachaíto" López, Ibrahim Ferrer, Raúl Planas, Pío Leyva, Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, Félix Baloy, Yanko Pisaco and more recently Caridad Hierrezuelo and Pedro Calvo.

In early 1996 Nick Gold, head of World Circuit Records, invited Ry Cooder to participate in an experiment combining Cuban and African musicians. A group of Cuban musicians had already been assembled, including Rubén González as the selected pianist. However, since the African musicians had experienced difficulties in obtaining visas, the focus changed to recording Cuban music instead.

So, in March 1996, Gold and Juan de Marcos González (previously the tres player of Sierra Maestra) produced A Toda Cuba le Gusta, the first album by the Afro-Cuban All Stars, recorded at the EGREM Studios in Havana and featuring Rubén González (piano), Orlando "Cachaíto" López (bass), along with a big band of veteran Cuban musicians and singers, most of whom had careers that went back to the 1950s Havana scene: Ibrahim Ferrer, Pío Leyva, Manuel 'Puntillita' Licea, Raúl Planas, Félix Baloy, and José Antonio "Maceo" Rodríguez. Cooder also played slide guitar on one track, "Alto Songo". In the sleeve notes, de Marcos González, who directed the project and played tres, wrote: "This album is dedicated to Rubén González, genius of Cuban piano".

During follow-on sessions also held at EGREM Studios in March 1996, Cooder then produced the Grammy winning Buena Vista Social Club, featuring Rubén González (piano), Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo and Eliades Ochoa, supported by much of the same band that had recorded the Afro-Cuban All Stars album, and with Juan de Marcos González now acting as A & R Consultant. Cooder played guitars on all but one track.

Finally, in April 1996 and using left over studio time after the sessions that had produced the previous two albums, the solo album Introducing...Rubén González was recorded in just two days, live with no overdubs. On the album's outer cover, Cooder is quoted as saying: "The greatest piano soloist I have ever heard in my entire life. A Cuban cross between Thelonious Monk and Felix the Cat".

All three albums were released on Nick Gold's World Circuit Records in 1997. In early 1998, Wim Wenders filmed a documentary entitled Buena Vista Social Club, and the entire group of Cuban artists became famous worldwide.

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Kako Y Su Orquesta

Francisco Ángel Bastar (June 21, 1936 – July 29, 1994), known as Kako, was a Puerto Rican percussionist and bandleader. He is considered one of the most important timbaleros of the incipient salsa of New York City in the 1960s, especially due to his long-lasting association with Alegre Records.

Career

Born on June 21, 1936, in Obrero, a barrio of Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Kako started his career as a dancer and later as a percussionist in the bands of Arsenio Rodríguez and Tito Puente, among others. In 1961, he recorded and released his debut album for Alegre Records, Kako y su Combo, Vol 1, which was followed by Vol. 2 in 1962. These were followed by Puerto Rican All-Stars (1963) and Tributo a Noro (1964).

Kako was a member of the Alegre All-Stars (and its spin-off Cesta All-Stars) and recorded with Alegre Records music director and pianist Charlie Palmieri. His important role in the group was reflected in songs like Estoy buscando a Kako and Kako y Palmieri. He also performed on some of the most critically acclaimed Latin music recordings of the 1960s, including Mon Rivera's Qué gente averiguá, Mongo Santamaría's Watermelon Man and Celia Cruz's Son con guaguancó. In the late 1960s, he switched to Musicor for the LPs Sock It to Me Latino (1968) and Live It Up (1969). In the 1970s, he collaborated with Rafael Cortijo, Meñique, Totico and Azuquita. He also worked with Ismael Rivera, Willie Colón and Mon Rivera, and took part in the 1977 Alegre All-Stars reunion.

He died from a heart attack in New York City on July 29, 1994. His son, Richie Bastar, is bongosero of El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico.

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Ray Barretto

Ray Barretto (April 29, 1929 – February 17, 2006) 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 (improvised jam session), 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.

Life and career

Early years

Barretto (his real name, "Barreto", was misspelled on his birth certificate) was born on April 29, 1929, in New York City. His parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico in the early 1920s, looking for a better life. His father left their family when Barretto was four, and his mother Delores moved the family to the Bronx, and from a young age he was influenced by his mother's love of music and by the jazz of Duke Ellington and Count Basie.

In 1946, when Barretto was 17 years old, he joined the Army. While stationed in Germany, he met Belgian vibraphonist Fats Sadi. However, it was when he heard Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca" with Gil Fuller and Chano Pozo that he realized his calling.

Beginnings as a sideman

In 1949, when Barretto returned home from military service, he started to visit clubs and participated in jam sessions, where he perfected his conga playing. On one occasion Charlie Parker heard Barretto play and invited him to play in his band. Later, he was asked to play for José Curbelo and Tito Puente, for whom he played for four years. It was in 1958, while playing for Puente, that Barretto received his first recoding credit. Barretto developed a unique style of playing the conga and soon he was sought by other jazz band leaders. Latin percussionists started to appear in jazz groups with frequency as a consequence of Barretto's musical influence.

Charanga Moderna and rise to fame

In 1960, Barretto was a house musician for the Prestige, Blue Note, and Riverside labels. He also recorded on Columbia Records with Jazz flautist Herbie Mann. New York had become the center of Latin music in the United States and a musical genre called pachanga was the Latin music craze of the early 1960s. In 1962, Barretto formed his first group, Charanga La Moderna, and recorded his first hit, "El Watusi" for Tico Records. He was quite successful with the song and the genre, to the point of being typecast (something that he disliked).

Boogaloo and early salsa

In 1965, Barretto signed with the Latin division of United Artists, UA Latino, and began recording a series of albums in the boogaloo genre, which merges rhythm and blues with Latin music. On his album El Ray Criollo, Barretto explored the modern Latin sounds of New York, combining features of charanga and conjunto to birth a new style which would later be known as salsa. After recording four albums for the United Artists label, Barretto joined the Fania record label in 1967, and his first recording for the new label was the 1968 album Acid, which is often cited as one of the most enduring boogaloo albums, with songs such as "A Deeper Shade of Soul" and the title track was included in the soundtrack of the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories on the fictitious Latin music radio station "Radio Espantoso". During this period, Adalberto Santiago was the band's lead vocalist.

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