Salsa Music Best All-Time “Coristas”: Part 1
Posted on 17. Jan, 2012 by Hector Aviles in Blog
Salsa music is as much based on percusion, rhythm, winds, as it is on the singer and the chorus. And as there were specialist for every instrument, there were those who had a special gift to do “coro”. Some “coristas” happened to be good singers; others were not even singers. Here are some of the best “coristas” I remember from the early days of Salsa music.
Johnny Pacheco with Justo Betancourt:
Pacheco had a falsetto voice for “coros” which seem to strike a good cord with Salsa fans. He paired well with almost anyone, but his most memorable partners were Chivirico, Justo Betancourt, and later Ramon Rodriguez. Pacheco and Justo not only did “coros” for Pacheco y su Tumbao, but also for Willie Colon with Hector Lavoe in albums like “Asalto Navideño”, “El Juicio”, and “Lo Mato”, among others.
A good “coro” needs voices from different spectrums of the vocal scale that can also sing in harmony. Chivirico, Justo, and Ramon could all provide nice low tones to contrast Pacheco’s falsetto. Of these three, Ramon Rodriguez was the only who was not a singer, and with the also non-singer Pacheco, could make an excellent “coro”, as they recorded “El Maestro”, “The Artist”, and “Los Amigos” among others.
Paquito Guzman:
Paquito Guzman seemed to be able to add pizzaz to any Salsa music recording in which he participated in “coros”. He gain prominence as a “corista” when El Gran Combo switch from having Eddie Perez do his “falsetto” chorus, to inviting Paquito to do the high tones of the recording’s “coro”. His voice blended so well with those of Andy Montañez and Pellin Rodriguez, that other bandleaders took note. Bobby Valentin soon followed El Gran Combo in adding Paquito Guzman to his Salsa album coros, and later Paquito appeared in many other recordings, becoming Puerto Rico’s premier “corista”.
Going back to Eddie Perez from El Gran Combo, when I was a kid I used to believe that Cortijo and El Gran Combo hired the same “kid” to do “coros”. I used to ask myself, “what is a kid doing in a band of adults?”. It wasn’t until I saw El Gran Combo on TV that I realized there was no kid. It was Eddie.
Marcelino Guerra and Yayo El Indio:
Yayo El Indio circa 1985
A discussion of the early days of popular “coristas” in salsa couldn’t be complete without mentioning Marcelino Guerra and Yayo El Indio. Marcelino participated in many recording in New York, particularly with the Fania label. Yayo would participate in recording both in New York and Puerto Rico, and with different labels. Both had strong voices, but Yayo El Indio had a particular strong alto voice. El Gran Combo used Yayo El Indio in their Salsa albums “En Las Vegas” and “Aqui No Se Sienta Nadie”. In the songs “Aquí No Ha Pasado Nada” and “No Hay Yaya” in those albums respectively, Yayo’s voice can be heard clearly.
In the next Part of this topic, I’ll touch on more contemporay “coristas” in Salsa music.
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Antigonum Cajan
06. Apr, 2012
Glad to come back.
I have a particular dislike for Johny Pacheco, and many nasal voices, Ismael Miranda for example.
I always wondered why at a younger age I was never into Gran Combo and Poncenha.. Listening to Son de Cuba, a radio show in WRTU-FM it clicked.
While listening the original recording of Fuego en el 23, de Arsenio Rodriguez , I realized Barreto, Harlow, Tipica, Palmieri were copy cats of the Cuban beat, with new arrangements, thanks to the embargo.
The mystery solved. I am hooked on the Cuban sound. It does not matter if it is small or big bands.
Do you remember Jose Cheo Diaz, from WKCR? I used to listen his salsa show on Fridays.
This is a great site…Good luck in your future projects.
Chino Rodriguez
18. Apr, 2012
Each time I hear someone say it’s the Cuban Sound that made it, well yes and NO !!! – See if it wasn’t for the bands of the late sixty and early seventy Barreto, Harlow, Tipica, Palmieri re-doing the songs of the Cuban Masters in New York – you would not have the Salsa sound of Today. The New York sound was a mix of NY bebop Jazz, with Boogaloo, and Dew wop, and of course Big Band influx which turned that Mambo into a progression we all love to hear. So please give credit to the New York Bands the Pioneers of Salsa because with out them we would still be listening to Mambo, Guaguanco and Pachanga….
Antigonum Cajan
18. Apr, 2012
What can I say, write, oriental friend? What those musicians whose parents arrived NY in the Coamo did was some sort of sampling.
Yours truly does not speak/talk about Cuban sound, that stretches it too much.The Cuban embargo, made it possible.
Granted shingaling/bugaloo were not totally in this bag, but in the other, the soul brothers enclave people with those mentioned identify with, also sampling their speech, dress and body language.
If you add high hats to a guajira and a little beat, sound in the bass, you could transform it into a bugaloo.
Salsa pioneers?What the hell could that be? The term useless/full or not is arbitrary. Created by those migrants in NY, at some time known as spiks.
To put things in perspective, if you add the best bands, conjuntos, combos, composers, musicians, interpreters, lyricists, not from NY, but Puerto Rico, Cuba had much more variety for its size in terms of geography and population. Simple math.
I tell you more, when I listen to Victoria, Mayari, vs Portabales, Guaracheros de Oriente to name two from each country I believe they are both excellent.
Except with very few exceptions, Fania, watered down the whole, even if exposition to the genre was greater than any other period, allowing those who later accepted they were exploited their 15 minutes of notoriety.
While Cuba kept developing beat and sound structures with some I hate Irakere like, or Van Van those I love, Puerto Rico only produced for a very short while Batacumbele the greatest since and totally forgotten without air play.
I am not an authority on this subject, but I do my homework. At sixty of age, critical at birth, I find any nationalism, false pretenses of superiority from any group, without any research, evidence, trivial. Even if a good keyboard exercise.
Hector Aviles
25. Apr, 2012
Both Chino and you make good points. In my opinion, I would not compare Salsa to Cuban music simply because they are no the same nor intended to be. It’s an evolution of music.
With time music in all genres evolves. Artists live a different set of experiences that influence them. Society goes thru changes, and the social changes and different experiences drive a need for different music, even or hopefully based on our roots.
Salsa was born thru the circumstances of the Latino population living in New York. But a parallel evolution was happening in Puerto Rico, where the Cortijo Combo, with their bomba and plena focus gave way to El Gran Combo, Roena’s Apollo Sound, and many others. Same in Venezuela and other places.
Cuba has evolved its own music, in most cases trying to keep the it’s roots still in the new sound.
Venezuelan writer Cesar Miguel Rondon did a great job explaining this evolution in his book “Salsa”.