In 1979, when César Miguel Rondón presented his manuscript to his publisher in Caracas, the latter was very unconvinced. For him, salsa is “thug music. » And it’s well known, thugs can’t read.
When he starts his book, the young journalist is plunged into the heart of the movement. Having settled in New York a year earlier, he had hosted his radio show for several years and had a number of musicians in his entourage. So when one of his friends, Flaco Rodríguez, asked him: “When are you releasing your Book of Salsa? ”, that’s the trigger. Armed with an old typewriter and a tape recorder, he set about documenting his “chronicle of urban Caribbean music.” Now a renowned journalist, author and broadcaster, Rondón is still amazed at the incredible luck of this 23-year-old young man to have found himself in the right place at the right time.
“El libro de la salsa” had a unique career. Addressing a previously ignored part of popular culture, the work is acclaimed by amateurs, with multiple pirated editions and just as many illegal translations. Here is “El libro” propelled to the rank of cult object. Abandoning the most superficial aspects of the genre, the author focuses on its artists, its songs, its social context. So much so that the work finds itself cited as a reference for the countless academic and journalistic works which will undoubtedly follow it.
It was only twenty years later that a Colombian publisher finally took an interest in the book phenomenon. Ediciones B (followed by the Spaniard Turner in 2017) offers the Book a second life with a luxurious large format edition, richly illustrated and prefaced by the Cuban writer Leonardo Padura who sees in the work the inspiration for his own “Los salsa rostros. » The English version will be published in 2008 by The University of North Carolina Press.
A widely editorialized essay
The primary merit of the “Book of Salsa” is to restore its letters of nobility to a genre too often assimilated to dispossessed Cuban music.
The author’s main thesis is as follows: Salsa was born in the Latino urban neighborhoods of the great cities of the Americas (barrios), first and foremost: New York. Based on the Cuban sound, it was adopted and developed by Caribbean populations who enriched it with their socio-cultural particularities.
In “The Book of Salsa”, César MIguel Rondón unfolds a whole argument.
The first breaking point was the Cuban revolution of 1959. Without the political closure of the island and the flight of many musicians, the musical histories of the two countries would never have diverged.
Rondón logically starts his story at the end of the 1940s with Chano Pozo and the Afrocubans of Machito and Mario Bauzá. He continues with the era of dance halls and big bands, surveys the experiments of the 60s with the short-lived success of boogaloo, the reduction in the size of orchestras, Latin jazz groups, the revival of charanga under the impetus by the Dominican flautist Johnny Pacheco, founder in 1964 of the Fania label, who ten years later would be at the origin of what the author calls the “salsa boom. »
Rondón focuses on the famous concerts of the supergroup The Fania All-Stars. He argues that the latter are the direct heirs of the descargas (jam sessions) of the 60s, in particular those organized by the Tico and Alegre labels, themselves inspired by the famous descargas recorded a few years earlier in Cuba by double bassist Israel “Cachao »Lopez.
The release of these cleverly marketed records, in particular the double album “Live at the Cheetah” as well as Leon Gast’s documentary “Nuestra Cosa Latina/Our Latin Thing” will constitute the pinnacle of the craze surrounding a movement that Fania will label “salsa. »
Rondón points out that these lives will be the starting point for Fania in its strategy of developing the solo careers of its stars, with the stars arriving in a way after the All-Stars.
“Matanzerization” is at the heart of the journalist’s rhetoric, a reference to La Sonora Matancera, the legendary formation of Celia Cruz, a famous Cuban singer who settled in the United States after the revolution. With the arrival of Celia within his team, Fania made a shift towards traditional Cuban music, marking, according to Rondón, a brutal brake on current developments.
The author will not have harsh enough words for Fania. Little arrangements with the truth (excerpts from the San Juan concert presented as recorded at Yankee Stadium). Contempt for artists (the author attests to having seen Ismael Rivera wait for hours to be paid, “a humiliation for the Maestro”). Lure of profits. By launching the film “Salsa”, the label achieved its mainstreamization by betraying its social origin. “Salsa thus no longer had anything to do with the barrio, nor with the Caribbean, or with the people who inhabited this part of the continent. Salsa was now North American. » For Rondón, it is nothing more and nothing less a story of good guys and bad guys.
» Read also: The crazy story of Fania All-Stars at Yankee Stadium
“El libro” is the book of an enthusiast with its excitements and disenchantments. If the reader will not fail to be irritated by some of his positions, this will not prevent him from savoring the richness of his musical pantheon.
Beyond the gallery of musicians, whether they are leaders (Larry Harlow, Roberto Roena), soneros (Cheo Feliciano, Héctor Lavoe, the “Greek figure of history”), authors (Tite Curet Alonso, Rubén Blades) , Rondón highlights the key role of some: the Cuban Arsenio Rodríguez who introduced the changes in the composition of the traditional orchestra which would give birth to the salsa orchestra, the precursor Eddie Palmieri, “Miles Davis of salsa”, who with his trombones will pave the way for Willie Colón, promoter of an urban sound, rough and full of flavor, introducing rhythms from Puerto Rico like the bomba and the plena or also using the cuatro (traditional four-string guitar) of Yomo Toro.
An influencer before his time
Contrary to what we can sometimes read about him, “El libro” is not a bible, even if the buzz linked to its confidentiality, its very title, have contributed to making us think so. On the other hand, its impact was such that it helped shape opinion, making Rondón an influencer before his time.
Fania’s bosses will certainly not thank him, the image of the label leaving will be lastingly damaged, reinforced by the testimonies and works that will follow.
Rondón’s view of the music industry will be confirmed by subsequent events. Salsa erotica of the 80s, salsa romántica in the 90s (which for the author have absolutely nothing to do with salsa), certain disastrous albums by Fania All-Stars, rehabilitation before the time of precursors (Cortijo
The “Book” entered the history of this music, becoming itself a historical fact. When we talk about the birth of salsa, how can we not think of the “Book of Salsa”?
Beyond the criticism, the greatest success of the Book is perhaps the analysis of the lyrics (aided by the French translation), essential elements of demonstration of the appropriation of this music by the Latin populations of the barrio.
The French version which has just been released by Allia Editions, is based on the edition enriched with illustrations and song texts, a new chapter entitled “Coda” and a final afterword. Delighted with the translation (he is much more reserved about the English text), Mr. Rondón underlines the quality of the work carried out by the translator, Maxime Bisson, with whom he worked closely.
For the neophyte, “The Book of Salsa” is a fascinating dive into the history of Caribbean music. The music lover will find an inexhaustible source of information and reflections. Fania All-Stars fans will finally delight in the loving portrait of their idols.
