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- [00:01]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [00:23]
Felix Contreras
From NPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras.
- [00:27]
Ana Maria Sayer
And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Let the chiswe begin.
- [00:32]
Felix Contreras
Okay, Ana. On February 21st, the music world lost one of the original architects of the earliest days of salsa, legendary salsa musician and pioneer Willie Colon. In the late 1960s and through the 70s, the trombonist, bandleader, composer, producer played a pivotal role in transforming Afro Caribbean dance music into what became known around the world as salsa.
- [00:55]
Ana Maria Sayer
And Felix music, released on what was at the time the small, independent, upstart label, Fania Records, was the source of that music revolution. Vocalists, instrumentalists, composers, producers, even the sound engineers and the people who designed the album covers. Felix created an aesthetic that has influenced. We can't even name how many musicians today. So what we're going to do is look back at those early days of Fania and Willy Colon's earliest and most influential recordings with a very special guide.
- [01:27]
Papo Vasquez
Okay, people, let's go. You ready?
- [01:33]
Ana Maria Sayer
Trombonist Papo Vasquez is joining us this week. Papo was not only inspired to play the trombone by Willie Colon, but he also played on some of the albums that old school salsa fans considered must haves.
- [01:45]
Felix Contreras
Papo's main inspiration to become a musician was when he saw Willy Colon and Hector Lavo in the basement of his local church in the 1970s and was we gave him the unenviable task of picking five songs to reflect his memories of Willy Colon. And he brought in albums from 1968 to 1972.
- [02:05]
Papo Vasquez
I decided to choose stuff that I grew up listening to. What influenced me to become a trombone player. To me, the core sound of Willie was that early band. Instead of me, like, choosing, like, the stuff that I recorded on, like, by 1976 or 77, I was part of that generation, you know. But to me, first edition of Willy Colon with Hector Labo was like, was what made them, you know, what made them.
- [02:28]
Felix Contreras
Papo, you brought in a lot of music. Let's hear the first.
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Papo Vasquez
The first track that I chose was Gizando. This is his earliest recordings of Woody Colon.
- [02:37]
Felix Contreras
Let's hear a little bit of the music and then hear a little bit more about your bio and where you come from. All right, let's hear the track.
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Papo Vasquez
I s b o f o y n.
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Felix Contreras
Okay. Watching you through zoom. You have this huge smile on your face, man.
- [04:11]
Papo Vasquez
Yeah, that. That is hard listening to that.
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Felix Contreras
What is that, man?
- [04:16]
Papo Vasquez
It's. It's taking me back. It's taking back. When I was a little kid, I. When I first heard that, we're like, wow. Now that I'm like, I'm 68 years old, I hear that, I go, like, man, that music was hot. Still hot.
- [04:27]
Ana Maria Sayer
Still hot.
- [04:29]
Papo Vasquez
Yeah, man. And then I get a little emotional because it's taking me back to when I was. You know, when I was a young, young man in Philly, because my father used to have a record shop. I used to open the records and listen to them, and if I liked them, I would take them upstairs and hide them underneath my bed. I was. I was stealing the records. You're a record, that's one thing. But when you see what's on the record being done in person, you go like, that blew my mind, you know, when I saw it live. You saw it live? I'm like 11 years old. Either I snuck into the church dance, or I was there with my family, and they were in the basement, you know, And I'm, like, looking onto the stage, and all of a sudden it's Willie Col,
- [05:21]
Sponsor/Announcer
Baby.
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Papo Vasquez
You know, when Final Records assigned Willie cologne, he was 15 years old. He had to get permission from his mom. That's crazy.
- [05:29]
Ana Maria Sayer
Wow.
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Papo Vasquez
Like, his grandmother bought him a trumpet. But he says that he lived in such a rough neighborhood that they. They stole this trumpet like, twice. He had. I guess he had one or two trumpets that he stole them. So he used to. He said he would have bought a trombone, so they won't steal. It's just crazy. But that. That reflects the. The environment that he was coming from, you know, the street, you know, like, you know, you gotta be like, you know, you gotta be ready to fight and stuff, you know, whatever, you know. It was a. He. He was a young kid, come from a rough neighborhood.
- [06:02]
Ana Maria Sayer
I mean, that's what I was gonna say. Papo is that track you just played. It's light, rhythmically. It's danceable, but it's kind of heavy thematically. The early days were heavy thematically.
- [06:13]
Papo Vasquez
Exactly. If you listen to the. The composition is titled, you're robbing, you're stealing. That's what the song is about. A lot of his tools were about, I guess, his experience in the streets
- [06:27]
Ana Maria Sayer
and stuff, you know, which is funny, because with time, right? With the passage of time and the genre salsa, it became, I think, associated with very different things. I don't think People as familiar that in the early days, salsa was musica del barrio, and Willie was part of that.
- [06:45]
Papo Vasquez
Yeah. Willie Colon's impact for the Latino community was especially important to the younger generations. It was different than the music our parents were listening to. Hipper and more relevant with young, aspiring musicians like me.
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Felix Contreras
That seemed to be the. The. The take, not just of Willie Colon, but a lot of the musicians that were playing because you guys grew up with a certain tradition, but they were creating something brand new, man.
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Papo Vasquez
Exactly. I've always been extremely grateful to Willie because at the age of 20, I'm in New York recording with, like, the guys that I met were my heroes.
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Felix Contreras
Let's go to another track. What else did you bring?
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Papo Vasquez
The next thing I chose that was recorded in 1969.
- [07:40]
Ana Maria Sayer
Sa. There's something really striking to me about how, comparing to a lot of what you hear today, like the production, it's so simple, but it's so cutting. Like, those horns, when they come in, you cannot dance.
- [08:53]
Papo Vasquez
And then, Maria, you just brought to mind something that I was thinking about when I was taking a shower. I said, you know, I think I know what was the secret to Willy Colosse thing. It was organic. It was organic. And plus, those days back then, you know, when we used to record back in. In the 70s, everybody was in the studio. The horns, the piano and the bass and. And the percussion. We were all recording live. So it's like. So it's like, if somebody will mess up, you have to record the song again. Everybody who messed up, Felix, Everybody be
- [09:25]
Ana Maria Sayer
like, of course it was Felix. It's always Felix.
- [09:32]
Papo Vasquez
Don't call Felix again, please.
- [09:43]
Felix Contreras
So talk a little bit about the role of the trombone in the music at that time, because it's. When you. When we talk about the history of the music, we talk about conjuntos, the 40s or 50s, mostly trumpet, you know, they're coming out of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Mostly trumpet, the brass. But at some point, the trombone became, like, the main thing, like the front line. I don't know if that was, you know, Eddie Palmeri, la Perfecta in 61, 1961. You know what? It just became such a standard part, even going beyond, like, what you did, what Willie did, what, you know, Emmanuel Kendall's libre, like, all of these famous trombone players. You guys are almost as popular as the singers sometimes.
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Papo Vasquez
Yes. Eddie Palmer, Moribera, and I think Joe Coto. I think Joe Cotto. Their front lines were trombone, you know, and. And. And Barry Rodgers, Jose Rodriguez, those guys, they influenced Willie.
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Ana Maria Sayer
So what happened Willie Colon comes on the scene with this really organic sound as you described it. I mean, what shifted? What was the change? Was it immediate?
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Papo Vasquez
Well, Eddie Palmeri was already out there and. And they were. They were like the killer bands. Now Willie comes out, they were like the kids. All of a sudden, all these kids become more popular than anybody else.
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Felix Contreras
Wow.
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Papo Vasquez
You know, because this band was like. To me was like from here, everything else, you know, was created.
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Felix Contreras
And it almost sounds like. When I listen to the early. Those early recordings, his tone, it stands out. It's in. In. In a way that it's a lead vocal, in a way, because it wasn't part of a large ensemble. If you listen to big bands, like if you listen to Machito or Puente or somebody, the trombones are ensemble. It's like out front, like right in your face.
- [11:27]
Papo Vasquez
And I'll tell you something, man, you know, that's. That. That's. That's a tough job there, you know, two trombones in the front. And I guess I would credit Willie's sound and his tone is because I. I think he was self taught. If he's being sad at the age of 15, he's a little genius. Little kid that just picked up the trombone and he's. I think he said he figured it out himself. It's amazing, you know, you gotta like, wow.
- [11:51]
Ana Maria Sayer
All right, I want to hear some more music. What's your next track?
- [11:54]
Papo Vasquez
The next track is one of my favorites. It's called Piranha and it's from the recording called El Huisio.
- [12:02]
Felix Contreras
This is from 1972, La Piranha. So much to talk about. But I gotta point out, the beginning of the song is a reference to the trombone part. The horn part is beginning to Caravan, which was composed by Juan Tizol, who was from Puerto Rico and who played with the Duke Ellington for many, many years. But it, It's. I had recently done a performance with an orchestra here in D.C. i was playing conga and I did. We played. They had me come out and play Caravan. It was for a celebration of Duke Ellington. And I did some research on that song and the rhythm, the original rhythm, I think it was like in 1932, it was really early. And it sounds like a reference to Bomba, but not exactly Bomba, even back then. So the Caravan rhythm comes from the island.
- [14:07]
Papo Vasquez
I gotta go back and check it out. Check out what my throat, what he saw wrote or Duke Ellington. What I always found funny about that composition was that when I was young, I didn't know what Caravan was. Then like years later I was like, oh, man, that's Caravan.
- [14:27]
Felix Contreras
It's one of those instances where a jazz composition or somebody, a tune that was made popular in jazz, moved over into the Latin world because so many people have done that tune in Afro Caribbean style.
- [14:43]
Papo Vasquez
Or how Willie, Willie was conscious of, you know, of his culture.
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Felix Contreras
Right.
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Papo Vasquez
I guess Willie was conscious that Juan Tiso was Puerto Rican. And he's gonna, he's gonna give him a little tribute there. You know what I mean?
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Ana Maria Sayer
That's him being conscious of all of his cultures. Right? Like all parts of Willy Colon are present that he's, he's doing it in this Afro Caribbean styling and yet pulling from Duke Ellington. I mean, that could only happen in New York in a way.
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Papo Vasquez
No, Exactly. So he's being influenced by all kinds of different cultures and musics. You know, here in New York City, it's the center of the universe.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I think it's time for a break, Felix.
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Felix Contreras
I think we need to take a break.
- [15:26]
Ana Maria Sayer
All right, let's do it.
- [15:35]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [16:29]
Felix Contreras
And we're back. Let's hear some more music man. What else you got?
- [16:32]
Papo Vasquez
The next composition I chose was Calle Luna, Calle Sol.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Sam. Ola mana.
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Sponsor/Announcer
Oh yeah.
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Felix Contreras
Talk a little bit about your time with him. Like, what was he like to work with? What was that time that, that period of time like?
- [18:14]
Papo Vasquez
You know, he was always quiet. Willie was, he was always very nice. I, I even remember one time he, you know, he, he mentioned to me one time, we should get together, practice and stuff. And he was, he was always very, he was very, he was very nice
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Felix Contreras
to me and, and, and, and very dedicated to the music and just seemed to be full of Ideas?
- [18:31]
Papo Vasquez
Yeah, you know, he's, he. By the time that I came on the scene to, to work with him, he was already, you know, he was, he was producing stuff, doing, you know, few. He was into his producing, you know, stage of his career at the beginning of that.
- [18:44]
Felix Contreras
I do want to take a, a detour from your playlist to play. It's something that you recorded on the album Siembra, it was in 1978, which for writers, critics, fans, it's like a high watermark of salsa in terms of the, the lyrics, in terms of the musicality and, and the presentation of what was going on in New York at the time. Before we play the track, you know, what was it like? Do you remember doing that session? And do you remember, like, just the environment? Like, did you guys realize you guys were creating something that was gonna stand the test of time?
- [19:19]
Papo Vasquez
Well, in my case, you gotta understand that I'm. I was the little kid in the room, so I'm just like, trying to be as quiet as I can and just try to make sure that I don't mess up my part. Like I told you before, those recordings was being done live, you know, so if you will, if you were to mess up a part, you were not going to be called back on the next recording, you know, but I was always like the, the youngest guy. And they were like, okay, sit down, kid. Here, here's your part. Pray to God that you don't mess up the, the music.
- [19:50]
Felix Contreras
I, I was doing some research because you mentioned you, You. You had a birthday the other day. Happy birthday, by the way.
- [19:55]
Papo Vasquez
Oh, thank you so much.
- [19:56]
Felix Contreras
But you and I are born the same year in 1958. So when, you know, when you're recording this record, you're 20 years old, bro.
- [20:03]
Papo Vasquez
I was 20 years old. And actually years later, four or five years ago, Willie. Willie contacted me about giving some kind of interview about, about that recording. And I told him that to me, I was extremely grateful that I was, that I was given the opportunity to be around some of my, you know, my heroes and mentors. You know, I was always the guy that was always asking a lot of questions, like, yo, no problem. Stop asking so many questions. I was always asking everybody, you'll go sit down and play a trombone, you know, but because I dropped out of high school in, in to come to New York, that's, that's how, that's how much and, and that's how good I guess my music program was. It prepared me to play with these guys. Already. I was already. I, I Went, you know, of course, years later I got my ged and I went to some college and stuff. But I always say that New York City, they finished raising me.
- [20:59]
Felix Contreras
Let's hear a little bit of the track Pedro Navaja because it starts with this long, percussion driven narration. But I've always really enjoyed the part where the horns come in, man. The one thing I noticed about this track is that there's a certain level of sophistication in the arrangements by now.
- [22:48]
Papo Vasquez
Yes, exactly.
- [22:50]
Felix Contreras
Like even at the beginning, the orchestration of the horns, the trombones, it's a stark difference to what was in the first recordings that we've been playing.
- [22:58]
Papo Vasquez
Right. And if you listen closely, you'll notice that instead of two trombones, it's three trombones. So now that the texture of the harmonies a little richer, you know.
- [23:10]
Felix Contreras
And this record also reflects the, the. The moment when the salsa and. And Afro Caribbean music was looking within the community and like, okay, these things are happening. These things need to be better. It was like a social commentary stuff. The Siembre is known because of Ruben Blade's lyrics and the way Willie Colon orchestrated all the music around his. His. His songwriting. Right.
- [23:34]
Papo Vasquez
Well, you know, you could tell the difference between this and the other. The other band with Hector Lavo, and I think Hector also had a lot to do with the compositions that they were recording too. You know, it's a different sound. It's a different sound.
- [23:55]
Felix Contreras
We could do this for hours, obviously, because you got great stories and the music is amazing. Let's finish off with the last track that you brought in.
- [24:04]
Papo Vasquez
The last track. Well, you know, it says it all. You know,
- [25:33]
Felix Contreras
It's a very appropriate song to end on. Papo, before we let you go, do you have any, any last thoughts, any last words that you want to say about how Willie Colon's music influenced you in your. In your career?
- [25:45]
Papo Vasquez
I live extremely grateful for walking into that church, St. Edwards, in 1972. 71. I don't remember exactly when I saw that octet, because they were octet. That opened up the whole world to me, you know. Extremely grateful to Uli Cologne for influencing me to become a trombone player.
- [26:03]
Felix Contreras
Papa Vasquez, thank you so much, man, for coming on and sharing this music in your memories. We really appreciate it, brother. Corazon. Gracias.
- [26:10]
Papo Vasquez
You got it, brother. Bye, Anna Maria.
- [26:12]
Ana Maria Sayer
Bye, Papo.
- [26:25]
Felix Contreras
You have been listening to all latino for npr music. Our audio producer is noah caldwell.
- [26:29]
Ana Maria Sayer
The executive producer of npr music is saraya muhammad.
- [26:32]
Felix Contreras
Executive director of npr music is sonali mehta. I'm felix contreras.
- [26:37]
Ana Maria Sayer
And I'm ana maria sayer.
- [26:38]
Felix Contreras
Thank you for listening.
- [26:54]
Sponsor/Announcer
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