It’s already been a busy 2024 for Craft Recordings Latino, as the label has placed some prime reissues in the racks with more releases available for pre-order. Thoughts are found below on Vagabundeando! Hangin’ Out by the Joe Cuba Sextet, Cañonazo by Johnny Pacheco, Gypsy Woman by Joe Bataan, The Big Break – La Gran Fuga by Willie Colón with Hector Lavoe, and Latin-Soul-Rock by the Fania-All Stars. All are available on vinyl and digital now except for Cañonazo; that one’s scheduled to hit stores September 13.
Formed in the mid-1950s in New York City, the Joe Cuba Sextet was a well-honed unit by the time of Vagabundeando! Hangin’ Out’s recording in 1964. It was the band’s third LP and the first for Tico Records after two for the Seeco label. Cuba had already cut a few albums, including one with an orchestra, prior to debuting his sextet on wax in 1961, but from that point they remained the conguero bandleader’s focus for the rest of the decade and into the next.
Known as the Father of Latin Boogaloo, Cuba was still a couple years away from unveiling that stylistic milestone. Instead, Vagabundeando! Hangin’ Out delivers a strong Afro-Cuban thrust with a considerable Salsa vibe and a rich tonal spectrum, as two alternating vocalists, Cheo Feliciano, singing in Spanish, and Jimmy Sabater, crooning in English, complete the lineup.
Ballads? Oh, yes, but they don’t dominate the proceedings. Vibraphonist Tommy Berrios lends a distinct flavor, forceful and in the pocket rather than mallet spillage riding roughshod, as Cuba, bassist Jules Cordero and pianist Nick Jiménez establish a foundation that’s sturdy but flexible. Everything comes together in the slowed-down groove potency of “El Ratón,” the album’s highpoint amongst a handful of standouts.
Multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and Fania Records co-founder; Johnny Pacheco is fairly described as a Latin music titan. His album Cañonazo was Fania’s first release in 1964, a wholly appropriate reissue in this, the label’s 60th anniversary year. Pacheco was already solidly on the scene by the point of Cañonazo’s release, which was something of a revamp for him, being his first with the band Pacheco y su Nuevo Tumbao and legendary vocalist Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez (not to be confused with the Pete Rodriguez of “I Like It Like That” boogaloo fame).
It’s said that Pacheco popularized Salsa as a style descriptor. This isn’t far-fetched as he went on to be a dominant force in the music (not just the label but also the Fania All-Stars). Cañonazo captures Pacheco in budding Salsa mode, though of course his formal brilliance would fully flower later (more than one of his records help constitute the genre’s core collection).
Still, Cañonazo does much more than offer shades of things to come, in no small part due to the involvement of Rodriguez, who sounds magnificent throughout and during “Pinareño,” in particular. The album is all covers of popular Cuban songs, save for one, the last track, “Dakar, Punto Final,” a Pacheco original. Unsurprisingly, the playing is bursting with energy and confidence so that there are no lesser moments, and the emphasis on brass adds considerable value. Through the combination of history and pure listening enjoyment, Cañonazo is essential.
Cuba is the Father of the Latin Boogaloo and Pacheco a leader in Salsa’s development and proliferation, but pianist-vocalist-bandleader Joe Bataan is the King of Latin Soul. Of course, these tags were coined with promotional intent, but there is more than a grain of truth to them. As Gypsy Woman, Bataan’s 1967 debut for Fania leading the Latin Swingers makes clear, the Latin Soul title was intended to present Bataan as a novel fusion of groove and emotional fervor.
Soul music was on the upswing at the time, but Bataan and Fania weren’t interested in dishing out a variation on the sounds of Motown, Stax, or Atlantic. Notably, the album’s title track is a riff on a song by The Impressions, not an outright cover. Furthermore, Bataan was directly influenced by doo-wop (a style that has endured in Latin music for decades right up to the present) rather than swayed by models fresh on the radio circa 1967. This steers Gypsy Woman safely away from pastiche.
Boogaloo is also a major component the Gypsy Woman’s recipe for success. Examples of the style include the title track, “Too Much Lovin’,” and ““Chickie’s Trombone,” with the latter number leading us to the wickedly roaring brass sound; it’s one of the record’s finest attributes. Along with those dual ‘bones, the rhythms are fleet but tough, and Bataan’s piano is sharp. He sings in English, while Joe Pagan handles the Spanish. From a vocal standpoint, closer “Ordinary Guy” is a highlight and essentially Bataan’s signature tune. Any Joe Bataan collection should begin with a copy of Gypsy Woman.
And any shelf dedicated to Willie Colón needs to include The Big Break – La Gran Fuga, which was released by Fania in 1970, the trombonist-bandleader’s sixth album since debuting three years prior. Like Bataan on Gypsy Woman, Colón also favored two trombones (Willie Campbell playing the second horn here), but with no traces of boogaloo and with Hector Lavoe as the sole vocalist, singing exclusively in Spanish.
La Gran Fuga is a serving of undiluted Salsa from the dawn of the decade where the style began to dominate Latin music in its urban centers. Two years later, Fania’s Jerry Mascussi co-produced the documentary Our Latin Thing (directed by Leon Gast, freely available on YouTube) to spotlight Salsa’s proliferation (and to give some outright promotion to the label, which was already market dominant).
Our Latin Thing’s primary focus was the Fania All-Stars, which featured Colón, as his concurrent solo recordings and performances were an indispensable component in Salsa’s rise. La Gran Fuga was the second gold record for the Colón-Lavoe team (and with the piano of Professor Joe Torres integral to the sound’s success), a blend of traditional verve and up-to-date sophistication that endures as a masterpiece through top-tier arrangements and flawless execution.
In most cases, when music gets stadium sized, it loses it power. The work of the Fania All-Stars is an exception, as the recordings made by this Salsa supergroup, through their first eight years of activity almost exclusively derived from performances, manage to retain intensity and inspired interplay, even at their most grandly scaled.
Along with their work from Our Latin Thing, the band is noted for a 1973 concert attended by 40,000 people that was documented on the two volumes of Live At Yankee Stadium, although the reality is that due to superior recording quality much of both albums (released together by Craft Latino in 2019) was sourced from a subsequent show at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Initially released by Fania in 1974, Latin-Soul-Rock’s second side features recordings from Yankee Stadium and Clemente Coliseum including the ten-minute “Congo Bongo” with congueros Mongo Santamaria and Ray Baretto doing battle, plus Jorge Santana on guitar. But the real treat is the studio cuts on side one that feature Santana, drummer Billy Cobham and keyboardist Jan Hammer. While the Latin-Mahavishnu merger isn’t as explosive as one might hope, the prog-fusion vibes give the grooves an appealing flavor.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
Joe Cuba Sextet, Vagabundeando! Hangin’ Out
B+
Johnny Pacheco, Cañonazo
A-
Joe Bataan, Gypsy Woman
A-
Willie Colón, The Big Break – La Gran Fuga
A
Fania All-Stars, Latin-Soul-Rock
A-
