The 50 Greatest Salsa Albums of All Time

Early 21^st century salsa became the domain of those living legends strong enough to show off their craft in front of their adoring fans. But tropical music blooms in the hands of young musicians, and the need for new voices became imperative. Hailing from Bogotá, La-33 arrived just in time to fill the void. Led by brothers Sergio and Santiago Mejía, the group’s warm-hearted debut shimmers with respect for the tenets of swing. The propulsive bass accents on the bridge of the awesome “Soledad” will fill the soul of any self-respecting salsero with pride.

The peculiarities of daily life in New York became a recurring theme in Seventies salsa, and Rubén Blades approached the subject with humor on “Número 6,” one of his first hits as a songwriter for hire. His empathetic description of people waiting for the subway was enhanced by the lightness of spirit in bandleader Bobby Rodríguez and La Compañía. Rodríguez played sax, flute and clarinet – joined by such distinguished artists as Al Dorsey on piano and the debonair vocals of Junior Córdova. An underrated combo, La Compañía knew how to add a fresh spin to older nuggets like the Johnny Pacheco standard “Recuerdos de Arcaño.”

When “Yo No Sé Mañana” landed on nightclubs across the Americas in the springtime of 2009, it was just what the doctor ordered. An earnest reminder that salsa was a viable proposition, and could still infuse the dancefloor with a touching combination of fury and nostalgia. A smash single about a one-night stand, the track was part of Luis Enrique’s 17^th album, and every single element here underscores the Nicaraguan singer and musician’s expertise. Even salsa romántica detractors will be forced to admit that the paroxysm of Afro-Caribbean verve in the bridge is as explosive as it gets.

After four albums with Grupo Niche – the mythical orchestra he co-founded with Jairo Varela – multi-instrumentalist Alexis Lozano jumped ship and experienced salsa stardom on his own. Close in spirit to Niche and blessed with the songwriting brilliance of Nino Caicedo, Guayacán traffics in smoother sensations, like the Latin pop arabesques that give tunes like “Te Amo, Te Extraño” such an exotic air. With its unrelenting cowbell downbeat, “Oiga, Mire, Vea” became an unofficial hymn of Cali’s party scene. “Invierno en Primavera” embodies Colombia’s gift for mixing dreamy salsa romántica with percolating grooves.

A brutal rift shook up the New York salsa scene in 1972 when five members of Ray Barretto’s orchestra jumped ship and founded the stubbornly experimental Típica 73. Barretto was devastated, but he bounced back – while the world was treated to an exhilarating debut buzzing with the adrenaline of freedom. Under the leadership of former Tito Puente bongosero Johnny Rodríguez Jr., the band cultivated a traditional style, dusting off Cuban classics like “Son De La Loma” and flying at the speed of light on timbalero Orestés Vilató’s bone crunching “Acere Boncó.”

Before she recorded the oceanic “Vivir Lo Nuestro” with Marc Anthony and became the de facto diva of the salsa romántica insurgency, Linda Bell Viera Caballero burst into the tropical landscape collaborating with an old master who understood the full potential of her amazing voice. Fittingly, she proclaims her own initiation to the ritual on the queenly “Mi Primera Rumba.” Palmieri leaves his harmonic building blocks in the background, but the intensity of India’s voice and the jagged percussion section is brutal (don’t miss “Yemayá y Ochún.”) Sadly, they never recorded a follow-up to this mercurial masterpiece.

Recorded during the tail end of the salsa apex, Estampas was Feliciano’s personal favorite of his many albums. A collection of loosely linked sociopolitical vignettes co-produced by the Puerto Rican singer together with La Sonora Ponceña’s Papo Lucca, it favors a solemn, semi-symphonic sound that alienated genre purists. The outburst of joy in “Los Entierros” – about the emotional sincerity to be found in the burials of the poor – is complemented by the languid meditation of baladas like “Lucero.” Now in full control of his craft, Feliciano aligned every sonic element with fastidious care, from the jazzy vibes and female coros to the sweeping string section.

Oscar Hernández was 16 when he played the piano on the cult 1972 debut by New York’s La Conquistadora – his remarkable career includes stints with Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto and Rubén Blades. In the late Nineties, he felt motivated to rescue the genre from oblivion and founded Spanish Harlem Orchestra – the most inspired U.S. salsa group of the past 25 years. This sophomore effort shines on the strength of Hernández’s spotless arrangements, and the well tempered soneos of guest vocalist Rubén Blades. Bonus track “Tú Te Lo Pierdes” finds the Panamanian maestro in a decidedly salacious – and hilarious – mode.

Before he found commercial fortune in the late Eighties with questionable salsa erótica fare like “Ven Devórame Otra Vez” (“Come Devour Me Again”), Lalo Rodríguez was a straight-ahead sonero blessed with impeccable timing. In 1977, he teamed up with Cuban old timer Machito, who managed to evolve from mambo and pachanga to progressive salsa (he recounts the journey on closing cut “Soy Salsero.”) Accompanied by notable guests such as Charlie Palmieri and Ismael Quintana, the duo alternates between experimental jazz (the 13 minute-long “Macho”) and tropical scorchers penned by Rodríguez (“Guaguancó a México.”) The most moving aspect of this kaleidoscopic session on the Coco label is list

Together with Cortijo and Arsenio Rodríguez, Cuban singer Beny Moré set up the foundations of the music that would later be known as salsa. Accompanied by his majestic banda gigante in the Fifties, Moré was a virtuoso singer who succumbed to alcohol addiction at age 43. This exhilarating tribute album on the Tico label finds veteran timbalero Tito Puente having adapted his sound to the salsa wave and inviting a gallery of singers – in full Fania All-Stars mode – for a tasteful, late-Seventies update of Moré’s repertoire. “Santa Isabel de las Lajas” with Sonora Ponceña vocalist Luigi Texidor and Celia Cruz’s playful “Yiri Yiri Bon” are fantastic, but the highest point is Celia’s bolero duet with Cheo Feliciano on “Encantado de la Vida” – the vibraphone accents make it sound like a starry sky.

The orchestra of Puerto Rican trumpeter Tommy Olivencia was hailed as la escuelita – the little school – for the bandleader’s uncanny ability to identify the island’s promising singers. Olivencia started recording salsa in the mid-Sixties, and was joined from the onset by mercurial singer Chamaco Ramírez, who also wrote “Trucutú,” a red-hot guaguancó about con artists. Planté Bandera signaled a zenith for both artists – recorded in New York by brilliant producer Luis ‘Perico’ Ortiz with Héctor Lavoe on coros. It includes a revised “Trucutú” and the lush title track, about a Latino man’s triumphant crusade to uphold his rights. Ramírez died in 1983 at age 41; this was the record that confirmed his place of honor in the salsa pantheon.

Few albums illustrate the seamless fusion of Cuban and boricua sensibilities like this best-selling session produced by Larry Harlow. Born in Matanzas, Cuba, Betancourt – still with us – is the real deal: a singer from the old school of Cuban swing who moved to New York and joined the Fania All-Stars. The centerpiece here is the spunky title track – written by young Puerto Rican star Ismael Miranda – about a confident Black man who celebrates his own excellent health and virtuoso singing. More than the droll self-assuredness of the lyrics, it was Betancourt’s delivery that turned this into an evergreen favorite. He navigates every single syllable with charm, matching his attitude with breathtaking skill.

The sound of salsa became ripe and opulent in the late Seventies – a last bottle of champagne to wave off the genre’s quintessential decade. Rican/Struction found conguero Ray Barretto reuniting with Puerto Rican vocalist Adalberto Santiago – but the gruff bravado of early sessions like 1971’s The Message was now replaced with a progressive glow. The trumpets soar on “Al Ver Sus Campos,” about the emotional devastation of a boricua farmer contemplating the fields that are no longer his. On the futuristic “Algo Nuevo,” the Chick Corea soundalike electric piano billows its way through a turbulent collage of screeching brass, syncopated percussion, and tenor sax gloom. A soft spoken bandleader, Barretto molded these musical structures with pent-up intensity.

Not everything was lost when the heyday of Seventies salsa dura inexorably gave way to a smoother sound, informed by pop and replacing the genre’s radical socio political messages with ridiculous lyrics about erotic longing. Born in New Jersey, Frankie Ruiz cultivated an earnest middle ground between the raucous vibes of the previous decade with the radio-friendly salsa romántica fad. You can hear the precious specificity of this balance on the rollicking “La Cura” – a lesson in romantic cynicism – and the pristine arrangement of the Roberto Carlos cover “El Camionero,” with hypnotic piano patterns and staccato brass accents in the outro. No one championed Ruiz’s career more than his mother, and her death in a car accident at 37 exacerbated the singer’s alcohol addiction. He died in 1998, aged 40.

With his shaved head, manic gesturing and a most peculiar vocal style – part amateur hour, part extraterrestrial genius – Ángel Canales gained the nickname of El diferente the moment he appeared in the New York salsa scene as the singer with keyboardist Markolino Dimond. This inspired solo debut showed Canales’ gift for surrounding himself with sympathetic musicians and writing complex urban vignettes – on “Perico Macoña,” the soulful harmonics accentuate the marihuana addiction and personality troubles of the title character, “a broken bridge” and spiritual cousin to Rubén Blades’ Pedro Navaja. Canales was revered in countries like Colombia and Panama – proving how sophisticated salsa fans can be.

Born in Cuba, the inimitable Lupe Victoria Yolí Raymond embodied the archetype of the tropical diva in the throes of a nervous breakdown. But the gimmicky aspects of her live performances – removing shoes and jewelry onstage, beating up the piano player – are overshadowed by a gorgeous voice that pulsates with the joy of Afro-Caribbean culture. La Lupe collaborated with Mongo Santamaría and Tito Puente but her true persona blossomed when she flew solo. This firecracker of an LP spends side A wallowing in a deep orchestral pool of bitter bolero tears, then finds euphoric redemption in a second half that sizzles with boogaloo “Fever” and gallops wildly on the self-penned “Soy Sonerita.”

Salsa radicalist Eddie Palmieri has never stopped repeating his personal axiom: the real king of the black and white keys was not himself, but rather his beloved brother Charlie. Nine years older than Eddie, Charlie possessed a monumental technique, and was a more conservative bandleader. The grooves glide gracefully on his Sixties albums with Cuban-styled charanga La Duboney, but Charlie hit his stride in the Seventies with a no-nonsense conjunto blessed with the voice of Vitín Avilés, a crooner of the Tito Rodríguez creed. The break on the 2:28 mark smokes like crazy on “La Hija de Lola,” and Charlie’s jazzy solo on “Sedante de Rhumba” will probably move you to tears. An underrated giant, he died aged 60 in 1988.    

By the time he recorded his second to last studio album, Ismael Rivera’s once prodigious voice had become a shadow of its former self. In the Fifties, Maelo was the vocalist with the proto-salsa orchestra of bandleader Rafael Cortijo in Puerto Rico. He spent time in jail after a drug bust, and added his own spin to the salsa apex of the Seventies. There is a hopeful innocence to his singing – a sense of humor that lights up his wicked, highly percussive phrasing. Maelo found a great ally in songwriter Tite Curet Alonso, and opening track “Las Caras Lindas” cherishes Black culture with just the right combination of tenderness and pride.

The best Christmas record in the history of Latin music emerged from the Fania label in 1970, just as the salsa movement was taking hold of New York. A celebration of the Puerto Rican parranda tradition that addresses both the boricua diaspora and the people who stayed behind, Asalto Navideño draws a perfect triangle that zigzags from the rough trombone of mastermind Willie Colón to the raucous soneos of Héctor Lavoe in his prime, and the artistry of guest soloist Yomo Toro, master of the spidery cuatro lines imbuing the songs with credible folk roots. The essence may be Puerto Rican, but the sticky patterns of the Panamanian-based “La Murga” had the entire continent dancing.

It begins with a rustic rendition of Bobby Capó’s morbid “Mi Adorada,” cemented on the thick trombone duo of César Monge and Antonio José Rojas. All hell breaks loose with “Llorarás” – a heart attack of a salsa hit, initially discarded as a throwaway, written by star vocalist and upright bassist Oscar D’León. The song itself – and the entire fourth album by Caracas formed Dimensión Latina – marked the specific moment in time when Venezuelan salsa burst into the scene with its raw candor and oversexed, bacchanalian approach. On “Taboga,” singer Wladimir Lozano emotes a starry-eyed bolero that morphs into a reckless montuno when D’León takes over and the rhythm picks up.

Unlike his contemporaries who sought to radicalize the ’70s Afro-Caribbean tinge with dissonance and funk, Fania co-founder Johnny Pacheco was a traditionalist. Growing up in the Dominican Republic, he listened to Cuban radio and treasured the tropical nuggets of La Sonora Matancera. As a bandleader, composer and producer in New York, Pacheco updated the retro sound of Cuba’s golden era with tight arrangements and a series of wondrous vocalists, including Puerto Rican sonero Pete ‘El Conde’ Rodríguez. Their partnership became legendary, and this exultant session keeps the groove of “Primoroso Cantar” and “Víralo Al Revés” close to the roots – bouncy and elegant, devoid of shadows.

Born in New York City, Marc Anthony combined his love for vintage Héctor Lavoe with the syrupy salsa romántica aesthetic that reigned supreme in the Nineties. A heart-in-your-sleeve kinda guy, he created something entirely new: melodramatic hits that would feel right at home as telenovela theme songs, and yet thrived on a certain authenticity of spirit. Nurtured by the balada affectations of the Seventies and Eighties, his singing style continues to divide aficionados, but his standing as a gifted sonero is now indisputable. Most importantly, Marc Anthony saved salsa from irrelevance by making it commercially viable. One of his earliest efforts, Todo A Su Tiempo benefits from Sergio George’s majestic production, and the smooth panache of “Te Amaré” and “Nadie Como Ella.”

Known as el niño bonito de la salsa (salsa’s pretty boy), Puerto Rico-born Ismael Miranda was a bit of a teen prodigy. By the time he abandoned the orchestra of keyboardist Larry Harlow and launched a successful career with this seminal solo debut, he was only 23 and ready for new challenges. On the self-penned title track, he offers the recipe for a successful son – heavy on the inspiration and Cuban flavor. This is rootsy, típico stuff, with sharp bongó accents and well tempered trumpet lines. Free of restraints, Miranda belts out a merengue (“Ahora Que Estoy Sabroso”) and a lugubrious, streetwise bolero version of the tango “Las Cuarentas.” He had never sounded this confident before.

The excesses of prog-rock seeped into Puerto Rican salsa with gargantuan effect on the records that keyboardist Ricardo Ray and vocalist Bobby Cruz made during their Seventies apex – no wonder they labeled their own groundbreaking sound as ‘beastly.’ At seven minutes, the opening title track hams it up with humorous effects on the piano and trumpets before Ray – salsa’s own Rick Wakeman – revels in classical patterns and quotes Chopin as Cruz wonders if Stravinsky is on the piano. Don’t miss the crackling timbales solo and the soaring vocals of Cruz, a man possessed. Elsewhere, the duo covers James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” as a swanky Latin Soul bolero and go bossa on the opening bars of “La Vimari,” with lovely guest vocals by Miki Vimari. For Ray and Cruz, the Afro-Cuban tapestry was a joyful playground with no end in sight.   

As a child in Puerto Rico, Gilberto Santa Rosa developed an obsession with the artistry of Fifties mambo king Tito Rodríguez – his sartorial style and gentlemanly diction – eventually purchasing the master tapes of the crooner’s TV show for his personal archive. A born crowd pleaser, Santa Rosa negotiates a delicate balance between the languor of salsa romántica and the relentless combustion that fuels the tropical dancefloor. Fittingly, he became one of the genre’s biggest 21^st century stars. This slick session may convert you into the twilight pleasures of the orchestral balada, while the frantic propulsion of “La Agarro Bajando” shows that Gilbertito can also pump up the adrenaline whenever the situation requires it.

The son of a farmer, the self-taught Valentín switched from trumpet to bass early in his career and became one of the genre’s most reliable bandleaders. Recorded in Puerto Rico, Soy Boricua captures the moment of euphoria when Valentín left New York and returned to the island for good in order to take control of his fortune and form the Bronco record label. Singer Marvin Santiago shines on the volatile “Aquella Mujer” and “Pirata de la Mar” – both Tite Curet Alonso compositions – but the album’s most inspiring moment is Roberto Angleró’s title track. A disarming homage to Puerto Rican identity, its carefree chorus (“soy boricua, tú lo sabes”) can also be interpreted as a comforting message of self-acceptance for the entire Latin American diaspora.  

When young Puerto Rican musician Willie Rosario saw Tito Puente playing the timbales at the Palladium, he realized that topping such a flamboyant style would be a fool’s errand. A restrained timbalero and bandleader, Rosario decided to focus instead on establishing a rock-solid foundation over which intriguing arrangements could flourish. Inspired by jazz musician Gerry Mulligan, he also added a baritone sax to his orchestra, opening up salsa’s sonic depth of field and taking the funky textures to a higher ground. Infinito is the best of his dozens of great albums. It bristles on the Tite Curet Alonso jam “Échame La Culpa A Mí” – that’s José ‘Junior’ Toledo on vocals – and delves into space lounge with a trippy reading of Gato Barbieri’s “Last Tango In Paris” featuring vibes and electric guitar. Rosario turned 100 years old in May of 2024.

Changing the history of Latin music through historic partnerships with Héctor Lavoe and Rubén Blades seemingly wasn’t enough. Trombonist, singer and composer Willie Colón had space in his agenda for a trendsetting solo career. An epic experiment in post-salsa, Fantasmas proposes a new path, leading tropical music into symphonic terrain with luscious orchestrations and elaborate female coros. As he did in his Seventies output, he found inspiration in outside genres: in his hands, the 1976 Chico Buarque classic “O Que Será” morphs into progressive salsa while retaining a share of Brazilian velvet. Eddy Grant’s 1977 soca hit “Say I Love You” becomes cosmopolitan disco candy on “Amor Verdadero.” One of the most vulnerable entries in the Fania canon, Fantasmas implies that salsa was finally free from any previous, self-imposed restraints.

Born in Harlem in 1931, conguero Joe Cuba built a bilingual bridge of bonhomie and groove, uniting R&B with the Latin tinge and call-and-response pop. This new sound was called boogaloo, and mirrored the Sixties sensibility of young, racially integrated New Yorkers. An elegant sound architect, Cuba did away with the prerequisite brass, complementing the rhythm section with lithe vibes patterns. His infamous sextet boasted superlative vocalists – future icon Cheo Feliciano on previous hits like “El Ratón,” and Jimmy Sabater on this, the band’s most successful outing. Lacking the rough salsa edge that followed, this innocent time capsule of an LP drifts from the doo-wop confection of “Triste” to the barrio narrative of “Alafia” and the ever smiling boogaloo nugget “Bang Bang.”

Stubbornly independent, ever so busy looking for the next shiny chip of dissonance, Nuyorican keyboardist Eddie Palmieri has never stopped reinventing himself. Following the ascent of his trombone-heavy La Perfecta, the boogaloo experiments of Champagne and the psychedelic social justice of “Vámonos Pa’l Monte,” Palmieri emerged victorious on this GRAMMY winning tropical palimpsest – a record that manages the impossible feat of sounding both relentlessly commercial and thoroughly disruptive. The voice of a young Lalo Rodríguez adds fervor to the dancefloor mega-hit “Nada De Ti,” before Palmieri does a wacky mashup of The Beatles’ “You Never Give Me Your Money” with a Puerto Rican danza. He lets his imagination gallop on the 15-minute long “Un Día Bonito” – a dense jungle of jazz mischief and Afro-Cuban choruses – a “Beautiful Day” indeed.

Born in Brooklyn, Jewish-American piano wizard Larry Harlow developed a fascination with Cuban music that earned him the nickname el judío maravilloso – a reference to his idol, Arsenio Rodríguez. On Salsa, Harlow used the album title to take ownership of the ongoing revolution with a carefully curated selection of Cuban standards that he found scouring the records of a New York collector friend. Backed by Puerto Rican vocalist Junior González, a cadre of distinguished coristas and the trombone and violin chops of Lewis Kahn (another non-Latino), Harlow gave his orchestra a counterintuitive spin: on the one hand, he commissioned progressive arrangements that modernized tunes like “El Paso de Encarnación.” But he also championed a return to the old Cuban charanga format of flute and violins. Fittingly, the spiraling melodic circles of “La Cartera” launched the greatest hit of his long career.

Free from the shackles of Fania Records, Panamanian resident genius Rubén Blades overhauled the sound of Eighties salsa with an audacious sextet featuring vibes, synths and trap drums. A concise epic, Buscando América sums up the beauty and madness of Latin America in seven vignettes. By adding an innocent altar boy to his chronicle of murdered Salvadorean priest Óscar Romero, Blades turned a regional tragedy into universal heartbreak. “Decisiones” throws a bucket of sarcasm at a mosaic of everyday urban dilemmas, and his cover of “Todos Vuelven” – a Peruvian vals by César Miró – illuminates a Latino immigrant’s pipe dream: the never ending return to the beginning. At a time when the movement was floundering, Blades created a classic that was poignant and relatable – and you could still dance to it.

Whenever the police raided the Cartagena brothel where a teen Joe Arroyo sang at night, the prostitutes would hide the future salsa legend under their beds. These colorful experiences – and the melting pot of sounds that populated the Colombian port town in the ‘60s – fueled Arroyo’s imagination. After enjoying stardom with supergroup Fruko y sus Tesos, Arroyo flew solo in the Eighties and developed the joe-son, a playful fusion of salsa and calypso, cumbia, compas and funk. There isn’t a single lukewarm moment in the man’s entire discography – albums like Musa Original are packed with petrol and honey. The self-penned “Rebelión” is possibly the most sublime moment in Colombian salsa – a tale of slavery and defiance, complete with a crystalline solo by piano master Chelito de Castro. The trumpet-heavy love ode “Mary” and the carnival-ready title track are just as poignant.

During the Fifties, Nuyorican percussionist and bandleader Puente brought the timbales to the front of the stage and crowned himself king of the mambo and cha-cha-chá. After surviving the Sixties by dutifully delving into bossa nova and boogaloo, the man who recorded over 100 albums was more than ready to assimilate the challenge of salsa fever and dazzle a new generation of dancers. Para Los Rumberos began that process with an updated edition of the 1956 title track, and a gunpowder reading of “Niña y Señora” with Panamanian sonero Meñique Barcasnegras. Carlos Santana had made Puente a wealthy man by featuring “Oye Como Va” on Abraxas, and Tito gave the Tijuana guitarist a playful nod with a tribal cover of “Batuka,” from Santana III.

By 1971, salsa was rocking the foundations of Latin American culture. The confirmation of this shift – its symbolic christening – took place on the night of August 26^th when the Fania All-Stars performed for the capacity audience at New York’s Cheetah Lounge. The band’s conceit – a mega orchestra where every single member is a star – was designed for larger-than-life concerts. Fortunately, the show was recorded and filmed, resulting in a documentary (Our Latin Thing) and two-part LP. Volume one is the best one, with Cheo Feliciano belting out a glorious “Anacaona,” and a constellation of soneros trading humorous improvisations on “Quítate Tú.” Bigger gigs would follow, including a historic performance in Africa, but it was the Cheetah concert that captured lightning in a bottle.

The son of a Cuban father, Mark Alexander Dimond – Markolino – had a gift for combining salsa patterns with the misty shades of progressive jazz. The keyboardist on an early lineup of Willie Colón’s band, he was given the chance to record a solo album for Fania under the supervision of Johnny Pacheco and Larry Harlow. One listen to the first bars of “Brujería” is enough to realize that he moved in an altogether different sphere – a world of subtle chiaroscuro and extravagant harmonic richness. Future salsa star Ángel Canales does a stellar job evoking the spirit of the barrio, but Markolino’s solos steal the show (check out “Aguardiente.”) In 1975, he teamed up with Frankie Dante for the more ambitious Beethoven’s V., but the sounds of Brujería cast a spell like no other salsa record. 

Other Grupo Niche albums may be slicker – think 1990’s Cielo de Tambores – but it was with this rough-on-the-edges fifth LP that the Colombian orchestra claimed its place as a beacon of Eighties salsa. The brainchild of composer Jairo Varela, Niche tightened the grooves to a breaking point while finding beauty in poppy hooks and picaresque wordplay (the cheeky bass accents and nasal choruses make “Rosa” addictive.) The band’s defining moment, “Cali Pachanguero” became a national anthem – the brass bridge at the end delivers one of the genre’s most rousing melodies. In the decades that followed until his sudden death in 2012, Varela would take his band on a wild ride across hot-and-bothered salsa romántica sighs, then shut down the lights with new millennium dance workouts of staggering clarity and precision.

Rumor has it that the old guard felt threatened by the arrival of the two salsa punks who made up for their lack of academic training with an exciting new sound and bad-boy attitude. But behind the gangster archetype – the cover depicts a young Willie Colón, cigarette in mouth, ready to sink a corpse in the Hudson river – there was a brilliant trombonist with innovative ideas, and Héctor Lavoe, the singer from Ponce whose voice could emote all the joy and longing in the world. If their first three albums brimmed with promise, Cosa Nuestra marked the point of inflection where everything came together. You can hear it in “Che Che Colé” – an African kids’ tune turned salsa hymn – and in the ragged trombone riffs that lead “Juana Peña” into an ecstatic chorus of earth shaking intensity. This is the moment when salsa became the Nuyorican equivalent of rock’n’roll – with Willie and Héctor as its glamorous stars.

Even though he was feted in life as the charismatic dancer and bongosero who led the Apollo Sound orchestra through decades of success, Roberto Roena is still criminally underrated. Derided for his self-taught skills, he ran a tight ship whose exquisite sound flirted with the avant-garde. In his hands, the expected salsa and Latin jazz structures were enriched with fragments of funk, Brazilian music and psychedelia. He would also presage the salsa romántica trend on 1978’s “El Progreso.” The tough-as-nails 6 is probably his best effort. It begins with a tribute to fellow boricua Tito Rodríguez – an electric “El Que Se Fue” – and never lets up. Endel Dueño’s timbales solo on “Herencia Rumbera” sums up the Apollo Sound’s edge, always on the edge of a precipice.

Before the drug bust up that ruined their careers, Puerto Rican bandleader Rafael Cortijo and singer Ismael ‘Maelo’ Rivera cemented the sound of pre-salsa bliss. In 1966, Maelo celebrated his release from jail with the aptly titled LP Bienvenido (Welcome), but something had soured. Con Todos Los Hierros is the last album the duo released together before the singer went solo. “Arrecotín Arrecotán” mixes mambo and boogaloo to the highest voltage, with La Lupe on coros and Maelo still in command of his irrepressible vocals. There’s social satire on Bobby Capó’s “El Negrito de Alabama,” droll wordplay on “Calambre” and sobering bolero misery on Rivera’s own “Amor Salvaje.” The pair’s innovations would leave an imprint on everything that followed.

What was Colombia’s contribution to salsa? A splash of primary colors, oodles of tenderness, and a spoonful of burned sugar. Many orchestras blossomed in the recording studios of Medellín-based Discos Fuentes (Fania’s only legitimate competitor in the tropical reign), but only Fruko y sus Tesos achieved superstar status on the strength of multi-instrumentalist Fruko, and the protean talent of singers Joe Arroyo and Wilson ‘Saoko’ Manyoma. This is salsa of the highest intensity, downright psychedelic on “Flores Silvestres,” deeply affecting on the childhood recollections of “Manyoma,” ready to channel James Brown on the frenzied “Confundido.” An emotional and percussive tour-de-force, “El Preso” sets its sight on the downtrodden of the earth: the lament of a criminal decrying his 30 year sentence, left to rot in a dark and lonely cell. 

It was the sudden fracture of Cortijo’s orchestra that motivated pianist Rafael Ithier to form El Gran Combo in 1962. An affable leader, Ithier avoided solos and focused on creating a groove propelled by the kind of hypnotic bounce that can keep you on the dancefloor. The epitome of smooth Puerto Rican salsa, this 1979 session finds El Combo long established as la universidad de la salsa. The colorful lyrics about female witchcraft (“Brujería”), pathological jealousy (“Los Celos de mi Compay”) and post-breakup bitterness (“Así Son”) add old-fashioned charm to the no-nonsense singing by Charlie Aponte and Jerry Rivas. Now 98, Ithier continues to be involved – peripherally, at least – with this timeless boricua institution.

Barretto admitted that he felt foolish wearing a Superman t-shirt for the cover of Indestructible. But there was a story behind the gimmick, conceptualized by Fania’s inimitable graphic designer Izzy Sanabria. Months earlier, most of his players – including singer Adalberto Santiago – had deserted him in order to found Típica 73. Barretto initially found refuge in jazz, but later decided to soldier on with salsa. He expressed his hurt and struggles in the self-penned title track, one of his biggest hits. He also knew the local scene well enough to assemble a new group of virtuosos, and Puerto Rican sonero Tito Allen handled killer grooves like “El Hijo de Obatalá” with aplomb. Barretto was, indeed, indestructible – and he got the last laugh, too.

Unlike the other mythical Puerto Rican orchestra, El Gran Combo, La Sonora Ponceña cemented its identity on bandleader Papo Lucca’s fascination with his favorite pianists: Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson. Blessed with exquisite technical acumen, Lucca kept the rhythm hard while adding a sheen of finesse that sounds silky even in the most humble dancehall. Musical Conquest found the Ponce prodigy in a buoyant mode, describing an upside-down world on “Náñara Caí” (“I saw a piano playing Papo”), and praising the healthy distractions of country life on singalong smash “El Pío Pío.” The expertly calibrated three-trumpet section complements the singing of Luigi Texidor and Miguelito Ortiz. 

When he drove a taxi in Caracas during the Seventies, Oscar D’León would tap Afro-Cuban rhythms on the steering wheel. His stage persona – the testosterone fueled singing, his manic dancing while playing the upright bass – made him a local star with the group La Dimensión Latina, but D’León was poised for international stardom. This brazen double-LP reunites him with Dimensión Latina co-singer Wladimir Lozano for a madcap collection of trombone-heavy boleros and guarachas. The recollection of kissing a sensuous woman drowns “Sandunguera” in an ocean of rapture, while his savage put downs of a former lover in “María” are both offensive and hilarious. Enrique ‘Culebra’ Iriarte adds aristocratic piano solos to one of salsa’s most life affirming sessions.

It was a match made in Afro-Cuban heaven. Celia Cruz – former diva with Cuba’s venerable La Sonora Matancera, now eager to join the salsa revolution – and her young musical director and lifelong admirer, Johnny Pacheco, a Matancera fanatic and studious revivalist. The first of their four albums together, Celia & Johnny hits a sweet spot between retro danceability (two trumpets, a chilled rhythm section, La Sonora Ponceña’s Papo Lucca on piano) and modernist touches like the electrifying “Químbara,” by young boricua songwriter Junior Cepeda. An alliance forged on mutual appreciation, it spun the Afro-Peruvian classic “Toro Mata” revamped as salsa anthem, oozed self-confidence on “Lo Tuyo Es Mental” and confirmed Celia as the ultimate salsa queen.

The life of a celebrated tropical singer in New York as part of the Joe Cuba Sextet left Cheo Feliciano with a heroin habit. Determined to reclaim his soul, the singer retreated to a Puerto Rican clinic, where he received a visit from Tite Curet Alonso. The composer promised Cheo that he would wait patiently for his release with a bunch of songs custom made for the chocolaty texture of his voice. This became Cheo, an album of staggering elegance and positivity, colored by the sound of vibes and the piano artistry of Larry Harlow. Through the story of “Anacaona,” the indigenous Taíno queen hanged by Spanish invaders, Feliciano channeled his own feelings of trauma and rage. His voice sounds liberated on “Esto Es El Guaguancó” and “Mano Caliente” – lyrical tributes to the healing power of the Afro-Caribbean spirit. He also experimented with lilting tropical baladas, a format that would propel him to stardom. More than a salsa masterpiece, Cheo is an immaculate Latin classic.

He had the ability to write meaningful songs, a wicked sense of humor and the charisma of a rock star. Most importantly, Héctor Lavoe had the voice; la voz, like the title of his solo debut. Vulnerable and expressive, able to get you dancing in a flash, and just as fast make you shed tears of empathy at his catalog of misfortunes. And he wasn’t alone. Even though his partnership with Willie Colón collapsed in 1974, the trombonist remained by Lavoe’s side in the role of visionary producer. An autobiographical epic, “El Cantante” finds the Holy Trinity of salsa in a state of grace: Rubén Blades wrote it; Lavoe performed it, and Colón amped up the gravitas with a string arrangement that drips with fatalism. The brutal swing of “Bandolera” and the glee of “Sóngoro Cosongo” brought the point home – salsa was now high art; a spiritual experience.

Even today, Palmieri’s eyes sparkle whenever he remembers the dancers at the Palladium going wild with “Azúcar,” the nine-minute jam that he wrote expressly for La Perfecta’s roaring trombones and Ismael Quintana’s fierce singing. It was also the first time in tropical music that a keyboardist held the rhythmic piano tumbao with the left hand while improvising a melody with the right. Everything about Azúcar Pa’Ti invokes the excesses of a genius who had just perfected the precise mathematical formula to get people dancing. Opening bolero “Sólo Pensar En Ti,” the jazzy cha-cha-chá “Cuídate Compay,” and the clave-infused guaguancó “Óyelo Que Te Conviene” made it patently clear that salsa was here to stay.

There were already hints of greatness in 1977’s Metiendo Mano!, the initial collaboration between Panamanian singer/songwriter Rubén Blades and trombonist/producer Willie Colón. A year later, Siembra became the best-selling salsa album of all time – a distinction it held for decades – and the genre’s manifesto. 

Blades never shied away from the rustic grooves of Afro-Caribbean dance music – in fact, he found the initial inspiration for his soneos in Cheo Feliciano. But he brought to the table a fascination with the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez, the convictions of a politically aware Latino, and a keen eye for identifying the absurdities of modern life. 

Siembra begins with a decadent disco beat, until congas and timbales steer “Plástico” – a song about hypocrisy and materialism – into Afro-Caribbean territory. A bubbly son montuno, “Buscando Guayaba” includes the infamous “mouth solo” (the guitarist for the session never showed up), and “Dime” places Colón’s lush four-trombone section at the service of an endearing love song. 

But the album’s centerpiece is the seven minute-long hit single “Pedro Navaja” – an existential tale of Latino gangsters, out of luck prostitutes, and carefree drunkards – with references to Kafka and Kurt Weill, and a sardonic chorus: la vida tiene sorpresas  (life is full of surprises). The duo’s greatest virtue was remaining true to the exuberant spirit of salsa while proving that its emotional core was boundless.