Montuno, Guaguanco, and Insurgent Joy

A Tribute to Fania Records

NOTE: For thirty days, illosopher Writes will focus on Hispanic Heritage Month. Every day will  be a new topic, commentary, or history lesson on the multi-colored tapestry that is the Latiné people. Welcome to 30 Days de herencia.

I learned about salsa music sometime in high school. I had stumbled across jazz, and it seems that learning about salsa music was a part of that. And if I was a record label, I would be Fania Records.

Of course, my dad was an avid fan of Marc Anthony, of whom he always said, “he makes salsa music for Mexicans. This tracks a little bit because one of the choruses of Vivir mi vida literally feels like a cumbia rhythm, and everyone knows the best cumbias  are Mexican. 

Also of course, I purposely ignored his influence on my musical tastes, something I recognize now.

What I love about salsa music, and all of its primos is that it’s the most wonderful combination of structure and improvisation. Someone is always holding it down. When the trumpet hits a sweet, dulce solo, the piano and percussion and bass maintain. If the trumpet is the picture, the rhythm section  is the frame. But if you have ever listened to Don Rubén Gonzalez, you know the  rhythm section isn’t content with just being the foundation. And when he wants to solo, the brass section tags in to keep the rhythm. Structure and flow, virtuosity and play.

So when I first heard music from Fania Records, I felt like I had come  home. The first track I heard that exemplified the Fania sound was Ralfi Pagán’s “Brother, Where Are You?” which was a son that I feel was written specifically for me. The montuno, or the opening piano riff is patently latin. But he sings it in English. I even wrote a poem years ago that borrowed from the title.

Fania music is funky, traditional and insurgent all at once. The songs are gangster, like Willie Colón’s “El dia de mi suerte”, or both traditional and rebellious, like Celia Crúz’s La vida es un carnaval which is actually in my vocal range. Hector Lavoe lost his legs eventually but without him, we don’t get Marc Anthony, and without Willie Colon, we don’t get Hector Lavoe. And with a foot in both the golden age of jazz and salsa,  I can’t think of Marc Anthony without thinking of Joe Williams, known as Count Basie’s Boy Singer, and the mentoring and elevating that happened in jazz and salsa mirrors beautifully.

Fania feels is the streets I never knew but should have. It echoes in the rainy alleys of  El Bronx and the forgotten landscapes of 1980s urban blight and “benign” neglect. It is audacious, insurgent and impossibly joyful. Infrastructure crumbled under the Reagan Administration, stripping communities of local wealth and social safety nets. Consequently, illegal narcotics, especially crack cocaine, found their way into urban communities, especially communities of color. Coupled with the dismantling of manufacturing and entry-level blue-collar jobs, gang violence escalated. Many of us lived this.

Fania provided radical artistic resistance to an otherwise bleak economic and political reality. Lavoe, Crúz, Ray Barreto, Adalberto Santiago, Johnny Pacheco and others brought color, flair, and joy to house parties, block parties, and salsa clubs everywhere. And the music defied category as well. When the Fania All-Stars performed El Chicano’s classic “Viva Tirado,” it united Latiné artistic expression across our diverse communities.

We exist in a world that is equal parts satire and dystopian. We have movements to strengthen and build. As Beric Dondarrion tells Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, “death is the enemy. The first enemy and the last. Death always wins. And we still need to fight him.” 

Oppression and hate have one goal: to steal our smiles. It’s not about crime, the economy, or policy in any real way. It’s about our joy. The Fania sound is a reminder that we must maintain our joy, ironic, unlikely, rebellious, and audacious, in the face of these forces that would do us harm. In the very face of death. We sing, we smile, we dance.

We fight.

If you are unfamiliar with the Fania sound, here is a primer from Spotify.