|
All
at once trombonist, composer, singer, musical director, brilliant arranger and producer, essential part of Fania, Willie Colón is a major figure of salsa, of which he contributed to the genesis. |
|
All
at once trombonist, composer, singer, musical director, brilliant arranger and producer, essential part of Fania, Willie Colón is a major figure of salsa, of which he contributed to the genesis. |
  Sample of El Idilio in Hecho en Puerto Rico (Sony Tropical ; 1993)
Cosa nuestra |
Of Portorican origin, the young
William Anthony Colón, born in New York in 1950, rises as he
can in the rough Bronx. There he frequents during his adolescence the gangs which dominate the barrio : he will keep of it a marked inclination for marginality, and he cultivates still today the image of a corner-boy. After rapid trumpet and clarinet experimentations, Willie Colón definitively chooses trombone, following his discovery of Mon Rivera's music. By force of arm, he takes a lead in local scenes, before integrating the Fania stable in 1967, at the age of 17. As of his discographic beginnings , he develops a harsh and aggressive music, reinforced by lyrics reflecting the living conditions of the ghetto. Well before punks, well before rappers, he stresses the reverse side of America, by adopting a resolutely provocative attitude. The power of his music of then, sometimes still immature but terribly direct, is increased by the contribution of singer Héctor Lavoé, with whom he will be united for 14 albums, until 1974. He carries out one of his dreams in 1975, while recording with his idol Mon Rivera, whose influence on his life was determining. Collaboration with Rubén Blades will then produce some masterpieces, in which always continue the political and social topics (la salsa conciente), before dissolving at the beginning of the 80's. The continuation of his career, directed towards Hollywood productions, is less convincing, in spite of undeniable successes and an always epidermal reactive sensitivity : his music seems indeed definitively strained by danger and urgency, and in these thirty years of rock'n'roll and rap, Willie " El Malo " Colón deploys an urban salsa which sticks close to its time. |
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