Nova York (Estados Unidos), 1949

By Ángel G. Quintero Rivera

William Anthony Colón was the musical mastermind behind the two most famous duos in salsa history before launching a successful career as a soloist and producer. Starting as a trombonist at fourteen in a New York Latino Latin jazz group, he formed his first salsa orchestra at seventeen, with Puerto Rican Hector Lavoe as the singer. Their spontaneous innovative style, aiming to create a distinct identity in a musical universe full of great instrumentalists, singers, and established orchestras, quickly made them popular among New York’s Latino youth, for whom the spectacle of Latin big bands represented an escape from the harsh realities of the ghettos. In contrast to the refined sound of Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez’s orchestras, these “challenging boys” developed a rougher, more aggressive sound that resonated with the youthful sentiment of the Bronx; this image was also emphasized in their album covers and titles, which parodied the “malandro” stereotype — a term used since West Side Story by Anglo audiences to disparagingly refer to Puerto Rican immigrants by their strong accent when speaking English.

Irreverence

Colón and Lavoe’s first album was El Malo (1967), followed by The Hustler, Guisando (Doing a Job), Cosa Nuestra (parodying the mafia’s Cosa Nostra), La Gran Fuga, El Juicio, Lo Mato, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly over the next eight years. Between their third and seventh albums, they released two Christmas records titled Asalto Navideño (1 and 2), playing with the double meaning of the word asalto — meaning both robbery and, in Puerto Rico, a traditional surprise serenade performed at night for friends.

Lavoe and Colón composed most of their hits (with some famous songs written by the Puerto Rican mailman Catalino “Tite” Curet Alonso). They were perhaps the main architects of salsa’s establishment as a fresh approach to making music with traditional Pan-American ingredients — a varied and free fusion of many different prior Afro-American genres. Their aggressive irreverence manifested, among other things, in their practice of “disrespecting genres,” transgressing some defining characteristics through free fusion. This earned them harsh criticism from traditionalists of “tropical” music, who saw their irreverence as nonsense, but in reality, they were consolidating a new, freer way of making Latin music. Their music was also innovative by relegating Cuban genres — previously dominant in Latin sound — to a secondary role. Instead, they emphasized traditional Puerto Rican genres (like bomba, plena, and aguinaldo) and jazz, seasoning these fusions with Brazilian, Panamanian, Dominican, Colombian, Anglo-Caribbean, Cuban, and innovatively, directly African genres.

Latin Superheroes

In 1975, Lavoe launched a solo career while Colón remained as producer of his records, since Lavoe’s impulsive nature and drug dependence prevented him from being fully independent. Colón’s experimental nature pushed him toward new paths. That year, he recruited Mon Rivera, the most important Puerto Rican trombonist of the previous generation, who had just finished a prison sentence for drug charges, to create the most important salsa production based on Puerto Rican bomba and plena genres, in which Mon had excelled. In their characteristic style of irreverent social critique, the album cover showed the Puerto Rican duo Mon and Willie bursting into a New York populated by superheroes — Batman and Robin, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. The title, There Goes the Neighborhood, was accompanied by the Spanish version Se Chavó el Vecindario (The Neighborhood Blew Up). It was the exasperated phrase Anglos often exclaimed when a Puerto Rican moved into their residential area.

In 1977, Colón produced music for the TV ballet Baquiné de los Angelitos Negros, a successful album with Cuban singer Celia Cruz, and finally his first record with Panamanian singer and composer Rubén Blades as soloist — Metiendo Mano!. The immediate success of this production paved the way for the release, in 1978, of Siembra, the most successful salsa album in history.

Later, the duo split, and for a time Colón and Blades followed separate paths. However, they reconciled and in the 1990s produced Tras la Tormenta, dedicated to Lavoe. It is said to be the only salsa album whose protagonists never physically met during production: everything was coordinated in the studio, with tracks sent to each other by mail. Afterwards, they participated amicably and supportively in several live concerts.

Both continued successful solo careers and produced excellent later works — many winning Grammys and other music industry awards. However, none matched the impact and success of their collaborations.