Willie Colón, salsa pioneer, has died at 75 : NPR

Willie Colón, the salsa legend who took the style to new heights whereas recording greater than two dozen albums for Fania Information, died Saturday. He was 75 years outdated.

Colón’s household shared the information in a put up on the musician’s Fb web page. No explanation for demise was supplied.

“Whereas we grieve his absence, we additionally rejoice within the timeless reward of his music and the cherished recollections he created that may dwell on ceaselessly,” learn the assertion.

The New York Metropolis trombonist and bandleader was a key a part of Latin music’s evolution through the Seventies. He was born within the Bronx in 1950 however had direct ties to Puerto Rico, because of grandparents who nonetheless lived on the island. As a younger teenager Colón was absorbing standard music of the Sixties: R&B, rock, jazz … and Puerto Rican people music, which he heard whereas visiting his prolonged household through the summer season.

He began enjoying trumpet at age 12 then switched to trombone. By age 15, he was recording with a brand new upstart indie file label known as Fania Information. At age 17 he launched his first album, a file that was so uncooked and unorthodox that critics and older musicians panned it. Regardless of — it grew to become standard with younger Nuyoricans who had been in search of one thing to hold their id on.

The album featured Puerto Rican vocalist Hector Lavoe, who went on to turn into one among salsa’s first main stars as a solo act — however solely after he recorded a number of extremely popular albums with Colón between 1967 and 1975.

Two years later Colón recruited vocalist Ruben Blades to affix his band, and this time his music addressed among the social points the 2 musicians had been seeing within the Latino neighborhood. That led as much as the duo’s Sowinglaunched in 1978 and nonetheless thought of one of many excessive watermarks of salsa.

Musically, Colón’s trombone-based brass part set his band other than different standard Fania bands. He was additionally busy as a producer and arranger for a lot of Fania albums, which led to him teaming up with Cuban vocalist Celia Cruz for an album known as Solely They May Have Made This Album.

Willie Colón’s later years had been a mixture of music and politics. In 1994, he ran as a Democrat within the major for New York’s seventeenth congressional district, and later for the workplace of New York Metropolis Advocate. He served for greater than a decade as an advisor to former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Within the 2010s, Colón took a slight detour from music by enrolling within the Westchester County Police Academy. He was sworn in as a police officer in 2014 at age 64 and stayed with the division for eight years half time whereas nonetheless performing. He resigned in 2022 as a deputy lieutenant.

Finally it is the music that Colón will probably be remembered for. His was the sound of the Puerto Rican neighborhood in New York discovering its voice.