Fania records reissues

[Adam]

We had an old thread on this, but the search function is not working for me. We were discussing the poor state of remastering labels such as Tico and Fania.

Anyway, here's the label's page:

http://www.faniarecords.com/Fania/site/Home.aspx

And here is the article in today's NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/arts/mus...e692023&ei=5070

The Return of Fania, the Record Company That Made Salsa Hot

By JODY ROSEN

Published: June 4, 2006

FANIA RECORDS, the legendary New York label that pioneered salsa, has often been called the Latin Motown. In its heyday, from the late 1960's through the 70's, Fania, like Motown, had a superstar-packed roster, a virtual monopoly on salsa's A-list: Celia Cruz, Willie Colón, Hector Lavoe, Johnny Pacheco, Rubén Blades, Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto, Bobby Valentin, Larry Harlow and other greats. Like Motown, Fania began as a humble cottage industry — its releases were once sold out of the trunk of a car on the streets of Harlem and the Bronx — and became a multimillion-dollar business that carried a bracing musical hybrid to the nation and the world.

But the comparison soon breaks down. Today Motown looms gigantic in American cultural memory, a cornerstone of the 60's nostalgia industry, the subject of innumerable books and documentaries, its hits still ubiquitous on the airwaves decades after they made the charts. Fania, on the other hand, is recalled mostly by collectors and Latinos of a certain age. And where Motown's records have been endlessly reissued and anthologized, Fania's catalog languished for years, its master tapes moldering in a warehouse in Hudson, N.Y. Dozens of its most important recordings are out of print, and others were so shoddily transferred to CD — often directly from the original vinyl — as to be virtually unlistenable.

Now, though, a Fania revival is stirring. Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez just finished shooting "El Cantante," a biopic about the short, tragic life of the singing star Hector Lavoe. More important, the music itself is at last being reissued properly, with informative liner notes (in Spanish and English) and shimmering remastered sound that conjures a bygone era: the funky tumult of Latin New York in the years of Vietnam, Watergate and Jimmy Carter. Emusica, the Miami company that purchased the Fania catalog last year in a deal worth several million dollars, recently released the first 30 of a planned 300 reissues. This bounty holds surprises even for longtime Fania aficionados and offers non-initiates a chance to catch up with some of the greatest music from one of pop's most fertile periods.

"Fania is the catalog of salsa music, an unmatched body of recordings," said David Garcia, an assistant professor of music at the University of North Carolina and an expert on Latin music. Larry Harlow, the keyboardist and bandleader who produced and arranged many of Fania's classic records (his 1979 album "Yo Soy Latino" is among the first reissued Fania CD's), called the label's output "a chronological biography of the whole Latin music scene from the mid-60's through the early 80's." Fania, Mr. Harlow said, "is Latin music." The label was the brainchild of unlikely business partners: the Dominican flutist and bandleader Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci, an Italian-American former New York City police officer turned lawyer who fell in love with Latin music during a brief stay in Cuba in the early 60's. In 1964, Mr. Masucci (who died in 1997) and Mr. Pacheco teamed up and began signing hot New York musicians, including Ray Barretto (who died in February at 76), a conga virtuoso and leader of one of the city's best dance bands, as well as younger bandleaders like Bobby Valentin and Mr. Harlow.

By the late 60's the label's roster had swelled with young talent, and Fania would soon annex several smaller Latin labels. The roster included Willie Colón, a gifted trombonist and composer with eclectic musical tastes, and Hector Lavoe, a Puerto Rican singer with a luminous tenor voice. Together these musicians honed a new sound — a blend of bustling Afro-Cuban rhythms, big-band jazz, street-smart R&B and other styles — in a combustive atmosphere of collaboration and friendly rivalry.

"It was a very competitive time," recalled Mr. Colón, who in recent years has become involved in New York City politics, running for public advocate in 2001 and serving as co-chairman of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's re-election campaign last year. "Within the label, there was a lot of competition. We were all trying to innovate and outdo each other."

Those innovations are all over the first batch of Fania reissues. The music is built on a rock-solid Afro-Cuban base, on the clave beat and on the sensuous big-band stylings of Cuban son, with numerous other styles stirred into the mix, from mambo and rumba to Puerto Rican plena and bomba. But on early albums like "El Malo" (1967) by Mr. Colón, and classic 70's releases like "Rey del Bajo" by Mr. Valentin and "El Maestro" by Mr. Pacheco (both 1974), a sophisticated new style emerges, with son's 1-4-5 chord structures giving way to jazz chords and harmonies, complex arrangements and far more aggressive rhythm than is typical of Cuban music.

Cold war geopolitics played a role in the development of that sound. The Cuban embargo cut off virtually all contact between the island and musicians based in the United States, and a distinctively New York style was incubated in the city's dozens of Latin nightclubs. The Fania reissues radiate big-city cosmopolitanism. The label was a melting pot, with a lineup that included black and white Latinos: Puerto Ricans (Mr. Valentin, Ismael Rivera, Pete Rodriguez), Dominicans (Mr. Pacheco), Panamanians (Mr. Blades), Cubans (Celia Cruz), native New Yorkers (Mr. Barretto, Mr. Colón), even gringos like Mr. Harlow, né Lawrence Kahn, whose keyboard skills earned him the nickname El Judio Maravilloso (the Marvelous Jew). Their music drew on bebop, soul, rock and other sounds of the polyglot metropolis, and the lyrics were steeped in grit and street reportage.

"We were making city music, talking about, you know, city things — what's happening on the corner, stories about drugs, violence, looking for a job," Mr. Colón said. "The stuff that was coming from Cuba was more rural, you know, 'my grass shack' and all that. We were kind of doing an urban folklore."

Mr. Colón in particular cultivated an image as a New York street tough, toying with gangster iconography and glowering on the covers of records like "El Malo" ("The Bad One"), whose artwork includes photos of his band performing in prisoners' uniforms.

What really shines through on these remastered records is extraordinary musicianship. Albums like "Celia & Johnny" (1974), Mr. Pacheco's collaboration with Ms. Cruz, and Roberto Roena's "Roberto Roena y Su Apollo Sound 5" (1973) are the essence of classic salsa: tough, gleaming, unstoppable dance music, with brass fanfares braying over crackling syncopation from claves, timbales and congas.

Jazz fans who have not caught up with salsa will be impressed by the virtuosity packed into tight pop song structures: Eddie Palmieri's cluster-chord-thick electric piano solo on the title track of his 1971 "progressive salsa" landmark "Vamonos Pa'l Monte," or Mr. Colón's blazing trombone improvisations on "El Malo." Most of these records are headlined, à la big-band jazz, by bandleader-instrumentalists. By the mid-1980's, with the arrival of a new style, salsa romántico, singers routinely got top billing. (In that period Fania dissolved amid a string of lawsuits involving royalties.)

Fania's heroic sound was a singer's: the high, pure voice of Hector Lavoe, whose mastery of both velvety crooning and fierce, percussive vocal improvisation set the standard for all salseros who followed. On the remastered version of his 1975 solo album "La Voz," one hears the disarmingly boyish warmth of his voice, a yearning quality that fires both love ballads and up-tempo numbers like "Mi Gente" ("My People"), the Johnny Pacheco song that became Mr. Lavoe's anthem. The sweetness of Mr. Lavoe's singing belied his hard living and hard luck — battles with drug abuse, the murder of his son, suicide attempts and an AIDS-related death at 46 — and today, 13 years after his death, he remains salsa's tragic saint. (His cult, one suspects, will only grow when "El Cantante" hits theaters.)

Fania will forever be defined by those hard-driving salsa records from the mid-70's, not least by the albums of its flagship band, the Fania All-Stars, which featured most of the label's biggest names. (Emusica is planning several Fania All-Star releases.) But the new reissues reveal the surprising breadth of Fania's catalog: it wasn't just a salsa label. The recordings include a remarkable album by the eccentric vocalist La Lupe, singing torchy boleros with string orchestra accompaniment; groove-oriented Latin jazz by the Cuban conga legend Mongo Santamaria; "Cuba y Puerto Rico Son," a superb 1966 collaboration between Tito Puente and a young Celia Cruz; and several very funky boogaloo and Latin soul releases from the middle and late 60's. The best of these is Joe Bataan's "Riot" (1968), whose cover photo of weapon-wielding Latin youth captures the growing militancy of the barrio in those turbulent years.

One of the hallmarks of Fania's golden age is politics, the social-consciousness messages musicians brought to songs that had previously stuck to themes of romance and dancing. "It was revolution time," Mr. Harlow remembered. "It was Woodstock time. It was the Black Panthers. It was Vietnam. When Latin music got cut off from Cuba in the 1960's, New York musicians added that new kind of lyrical content. We would sing about love, we would sing about war, we would sing about protest."

The pivotal figure was Rubén Blades, the singer-songwriter whose poetic lyrics carried forceful, often satirical messages about racism, social justice and cultural pride. "Siembra," Mr. Blades's 1978 collaboration with Mr. Colón, was a sweeping concept album with propulsive salsa tunes (and disco parodies) lampooning American materialism and calling for Latino unity, which for years stood as the top-selling Latin album of all time.

Like nearly all Fania albums, "Siembra" was recorded in a Manhattan studio. Your local record store will probably shelve these CD's in the world music section with all the other non-Anglophone stuff, but salsa is homegrown American music, as much a part of the indigenous musical landscape as jazz or rock or hip-hop.

At a moment when the country is convulsed by debate over the latest waves of Latin immigration, the Fania rereleases are reminders of the deep roots of Latinos here — the first Puerto Rican tradesmen arrived in New York in the 17th century — and of the profound role they have played in both shaping United States culture and exporting it back to points south.

"Fania really led the way in spreading salsa throughout South America and the Caribbean," Professor Garcia said. Leading second- and third-generation salsa musicians have hailed from such places as Colombia and Venezuela, and it wasn't just Fania's music but also its messages that took root. The huge popularity throughout Latin America of politically trenchant albums like "Siembra," with its feisty calls for pan-Latin pride, is just one dramatic example of the ways that the Latin diaspora has spoken back to the homeland.

Latin music has found a growing audience among gringos in the United States. But is the audience that embraced the Buena Vista Social Club's prerevolutionary Cuban son ready to discover some more Latin music, not nearly as genteel, from a lot closer to home?

The sound should certainly be familiar to most American listeners. Fania's songwriters were inspired by American pop like Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," but the influence ran both ways: the sonic texture of Gaye's album, with its gently percolating congas, is audibly indebted to salsa. Fania's sound seeped into soul and classic rock, into Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield, into Santana and even Led Zeppelin, whose album radio staple "Fool in the Rain" is a salsa pastiche. And no one who has lived in a city with a significant Latino population in the last four decades can have missed the festive music blasting from cars and open apartment windows on sultry summer evenings.

To younger Latinos enamored of today's Fania equivalent, reggaetón, these old albums will doubtless sound old-fashioned. But music this rhythmically tough could never be dowdy. It's late-20th-century music ready to ignite 21st-century dance floors.

[Sundog]

I've been picking up a number of these reissues over the last three months. Lot's of great stuff which is now newly available to us latin music neophytes.

[chris olivarez]

That is fantastic. Thanks for the heads up.

[chris olivarez]

I've been picking up a number of these reissues over the last three months. Lot's of great stuff which is now newly available to us latin music neophytes.

Who are you ordering them through?

[Sundog]

I've been picking up a number of these reissues over the last three months. Lot's of great stuff which is now newly available to us latin music neophytes.

Who are you ordering them through?

I've been picking them up at my local Tower outlet for $12.99 or $13.99 a pop which isn't too bad. I just checked and CDU has Fania new releases for $11.99 each.

edited to include CDU price

Edited June 14, 2006 by Sundog

[chris olivarez]

Once again thank you.

[JSngry]

A comprehensive selestion of 2006 Fania reissues here for $13.98: http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db/scan/MM...?SSt2gjIp;;1117

Edited June 15, 2006 by JSngry

[chris olivarez]

Man I'm going to spend so much money on these !!!

[JSngry]

63 titles carried, 25 currently in stock, for $12.98 at Da' Bastids: http://www.dustygroove.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap...22&issearch=yes

[chris olivarez]

63 titles carried, 25 currently in stock, for $12.98 at Da' Bastids: http://www.dustygroove.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap...22&issearch=yes

Oh the bastards!!!

[JSngry]

Their moniker is rightfully earned.

[HWright]

I've been checking out the Fania reissues too, inspired by the New York Times article and a general interest in Latin Music. I got the two compilations "Soneros de Siempre" volumes 1 and 2, both of which I've been enjoying. The individual artist that I liked the most was Ruben Blades from Panama (there seemed to be echoes of Marvin Gaye and Philadelphia International in his work), so more recently I picked up "Bohemio y Poeta" which is an excellent compilation of tracks featuring him with various Fania bandleaders.

Has anyone here heard his two "Maestra Vida" discs (from about 1980) that Fania has reissued, and if so, do you recommend them?

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on Blades' subsequent output on Electra, starting with "Buscando America"?

Thanks

[JSngry]

Has anyone here heard his two "Maestra Vida" discs (from about 1980) that Fania has reissued, and if so, do you recommend them?

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on Blades' subsequent output on Electra, starting with "Buscando America"?

I bought the first "Maestra Vida" LP back in the day and felt that it was such a "concept album" that my relative lack of Spanish skills detracted from my enjoyment. Musically, it's not a straight salsa album. It's more 'theatrical". It was highly praised in the salsa press as a musical and lyrical breakthrough, and I'm sure it was. But I just didn't/don't speak Spanish well enough to dig it the way it was meant to be dug. Of course, you can probably say that about any and all of this stuff, but in this case, the music and the lyrics were more intrinsically linked than usual.

As for the later stuff, it's a continuation (and then some) of the "Maestra Vida" concepts, but with more sophisticated production. Somebody who didn't know better might think of it as "world music" or some such. Certainly worth a checkout at least.

Blades is an interesting person and an interesting talent, one who's more than steeped in tradition, but one who's also more than a little interested in moving beyond it.

[HWright]

Thanks, Jim.

I listened to some samples from "Maestra Vida" last night and tend to agree with your assessment. Too much talking and not enough playing! Some of it is interesting though so I may get it anyway since it may be something that grows on one with time.

I like "Bohemio y Poeta" the more I listen to it. I love the scatting Blades does at the end of "Sin Tu Carino." It reminds me of Marvin Gaye on "Make Me Wanna Holler." The Fania jazz bandleaders really knew how to bring out the best in singers.

Heard a few samples of "Buscando America" and may seek out a copy of that too... I think it's still available although it doesn't look like it's been remastered recently, which is a shame since the sound on the Fania remasters is so good.

Edited June 21, 2006 by HWright

[HWright]

I picked up some more Fania discs with Blades, including the two "Maestra Vida" discs. I've come to like the first part of "Maestra Vida" a lot. The music and playing is great. However, I find the second part less interesting so far. Blades decided to present most of the second part of his story primarily in flashback, which makes for a much less dramatic effect, in my view. Or perhaps the songs are just less interesting in the second part...I'm glad I got both parts, in any case.

I also got two more of the Blades collaborations with Willie Colon that Fania has reissued: "Siembre," which features "Plastico" as heard on "Bohemio y Poeto," is excellent; "Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos" was cut after "Maestra Vida" and is not quite as interesting (apparently relations between Colon and Blades and between Blades and Fania began to sour as the seventies turned into the eighties), although it does enable one to hear "Tiburón," Blades' controversial single mentioned in some of the liner notes for the other discs.

I also read about the first Colon/Blades album "Metiendo Mano," which came out before "Siembre" but it doesn't look like Fania has reissued it yet, although there is one track from it on "Bohemio y Poeta." I looking forward to hearing that in the future.

By the way, here's an interesting Blades discography link I used, in case anyone is interested:

http://www.maestravida.com/#1980s

[Adam]

up - Anyone buy any. I've only picked up Joe Bataan's "Riot!" It basically switches between doo wop numbers and salsa numbers. A bity more poppy than I would have liked, but not bad.

[jazzman4133]

Many of the Fania albums are now available at "e-music" for download. I just took the following, all classics:

RAY BARRETTO-ACID

1. El Nuevo Barretto 5:52

2. Mercy Mercy Baby 2:46

3. Acid 5:07

4. A Deeper Shade Of Soul 2:49

5. Soul Drummers 3:49

6. Sola Te Dejare 3:51

7. The Teacher Of Love 2:30

8. Espiritu Libre 8:25

JOE BATAAN-RIOT

1. It's A Good Feeling (Riot) 7:08

2. For Your Love 3:23

3. Muneca 5:08

4. Pa Monte 2:21

5. What Good Is A Castle 7:01

6. Daddy's Coming Home 3:15

7. Mambo De Bataan 4:47

8. My Cloud 4:31

9. Ordinary Guy 2:52

REUBEN BLADES-Bohemio y Poeta

1. Juan Pachanga 6:13

2. Sin Tu Carino 6:26

3. Paula C 6:19

4. Me Recordaras 3:47

5. Pablo Pueblo 6:10

6. La Mora 6:36

7. Canto Abacua 8:10

Charlie Palmieri-El Gigante Del Teclado

1. La Hija De Lola 4:32

2. La Llave Y El Candao 3:22

3. Sedante De Rhumba 5:13

4. Que Se Vaya 4:19

5. El Mundo Esta Bien-El Loco Soy Yo 4:37

6. Coco 6:43

7. El Pan Sobao 8:31

Celia Cruz/Johnny Pacheco

1. Quimbara 4:51

2. Toro Mata 5:42

3. Vieja Luna 3:15

4. El Paso Del Mulo 4:42

5. Tengo El Idde 5:02

6. Lo Tuyo Es Mental 3:15

7. Canto A La Habana 5:31

8. No Mercedes 4:18

9. El Tumbao Y Celia 4:53

10. El Pregon Del Pescador 5:04

La Tipica 73-Charangueando con la Tipica 73

1. Buco Una Chiquita 5:32

2. Adonde Vas 6:03

3. Cachita 6:12

4. Yo No Camino Mas 4:11

5. Tunas 4:55

6. Chanchullo 4:53

7. Galletana 4:15

8. Comparsas 5:04

Lebron Brothers-Salsa Y Control

1. Tu Llegaste A Mi Vida 2:55

2. Salsa Y Control 3:47

3. Que Pana 3:22

4. Piensalo Bien 3:32

5. Estoy Loco 3:46

6. Bongo Loco 3:00

7. Regresa A Mi 4:46

8. Sabor Tipico 1:55

Willie Colon-El Malo

1. Jazzy 4:06

2. Willie Baby 2:47

3. Borinquen 3:20

4. Willie Whopper 2:41

5. El Malo 4:01

6. Skinny Papa 4:05

7. Chonqui 4:10

8. Quimbombo 5:01

Larry Harlow-Yo Soy Latino

1. Yo Soy Latino 3:41

2. Ametralladora 5:59

3. Guajira Simale 6:18

4. Mango Del Monte 5:51

5. Amor Que Sone 5:15

6. Yo Soy Asi 5:28

7. Desencanto (Precepada) 4:59

8. Anoche Aprendi 5:54

9. De Pescado Nada 4:36

10. Chiquita Y Gordita 5:01

[Adam]

Many of the Fania albums are now available at "e-music" for download. I just took the following, all classics:

Charlie Palmieri-El Gigante Del Teclado

1. La Hija De Lola 4:32

2. La Llave Y El Candao 3:22

3. Sedante De Rhumba 5:13

4. Que Se Vaya 4:19

5. El Mundo Esta Bien-El Loco Soy Yo 4:37

6. Coco 6:43

7. El Pan Sobao 8:31

I just heard one track from the Charlie Palmieri album last night on Jose Rizo's "Jazz On the Latin Side" radio show - excellent. Time to get that album.

Just before it he played an even better track (IMHO) called "Moses" by the Harold Johnson Sextet, album "The House on Elm Street" out on Vintage. But Amazon doesn't carry it. Any ideas where it might be found? I guess descarga if no where else.

[HWright]

Up.

Since we started this thread I've continued my investigation of Fania and the reissues. Having enjoyed Willie Colon's work with Ruben Blades, I went on to pick up and enjoy many of Willie's albums with Hector Lavoe (under Willie's name and later under Hector's).

Having done that, I am now taking a closer look at the rest of the Fania catalogue. In the beginning I got the first two sampler volumes (Soneros de Siempre) and have been listening to them for inspiration. I haven't been able to find an actual discography on line anywhere, but I have used the list of reissues on Descarga.com as a guide.

My question to everyone here is: how many more reissues do you suppose we can expert in the future, supposing they keep up their current pace? I am aware that there are at least 6 Willie Colon albums that haven't been remastered (The Hustler, The Big Break, Guisando, Cosa Nuestra, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) and there's also "Metiendo Mano" by Colon and Blades, but how much else is there out there to be remastered? 60 more discs? 120? More?

[Stefan Wood]

Up.

Since we started this thread I've continued my investigation of Fania and the reissues. Having enjoyed Willie Colon's work with Ruben Blades, I went on to pick up and enjoy many of Willie's albums with Hector Lavoe (under Willie's name and later under Hector's).

Having done that, I am now taking a closer look at the rest of the Fania catalogue. In the beginning I got the first two sampler volumes (Soneros de Siempre) and have been listening to them for inspiration. I haven't been able to find an actual discography on line anywhere, but I have used the list of reissues on Descarga.com as a guide.

My question to everyone here is: how many more reissues do you suppose we can expert in the future, supposing they keep up their current pace? I am aware that there are at least 6 Willie Colon albums that haven't been remastered (The Hustler, The Big Break, Guisando, Cosa Nuestra, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) and there's also "Metiendo Mano" by Colon and Blades, but how much else is there out there to be remastered? 60 more discs? 120? More?

Hundreds. This is a huge back catalog spanning not just Fania, but Tico, Alegre, and others. A treasure trove of Latin music.

[HWright]

Hundreds. This is a huge back catalog spanning not just Fania, but Tico, Alegre, and others. A treasure trove of Latin music.

[Sundog]

Do you know of any site that provides any kind of discography for the label(s)?

Maybe Mike Weil knows?

[marcello]

Pigeons?!

[HWright]

Clem:

Here are the Hector Lavoe reissues I have:

(1) Titles Under Willie Colon's name:

A. El Malo (1967): Willie and Hector's first album. It was considered quite groundbreaking at the time, but I haven't quite gotten a handle on any of the songs. Some of the sound was influenced by the then current Boogaloo craze.

B. Crime Pays(1967-1971): this is a best of compilation that includes material from "El Malo" and 3-4 of the Willie/Hector albums that followed, none of which has been remastered. I haven't had time to listen to this very carefully, but it sounds interesting.

C. El Juicio (1972): This is great, I very much recommend it. Willie and Hector in fine form.

D. Lo Mato (1973): This is great too. Another Willie and Hector classic.

At this point Willie broke up the band and from that point on worked either with Ruben Blades or as a solo artist (he even started singing leads). However, Willie produced (and frequently played) on many of Hector Lavoe's solo albums.

(2) Titles Under Hector Lavoe's name:

A. La Voz (1975): Great stuff. The main difference between this and the later Willie/Hector albums is that Willie doesn't contribute any songs and Hector's personality comes more to the fore. To me Hector is a bit like Elvis: he doesn't write a lot of songs, but when he finds good material that suites his voice and personality, he's dynamite.

B. De Ti Depende (1976): Another good one. Willie and Hector in fine form.

C. Comedia (1978): So far I like this a little less than the first two. It's still good, but the music is different and there's something a little corny about some of the tunes. I wonder if this prefigures Hector's later career. One critic I read said Hector and Willie broke off their partnership because Willie was frustrated that Hector wanted to remain a "teen idol."

Hector made 5-6 other solo albums after that (before he died) but I am approaching them with caution because even though I am very curious, I have yet to find an online source (in English or Spanish) that provides any useful comments on them. Everything I've read so far though suggests that the ones I have so far are considered the crucial releases in the classic salsa period (1967-1979, approximately).

Edited October 6, 2006 by HWright

[JSngry]

Do you know of any site that provides any kind of discography for the label(s)? Descarga seems to be set up for searching by album titles or individual artists.

The complete listing of remastered classic Fania reissues are here: http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db/fania