Jazz Articles about Nicky Marrero

About Nicky Marrero

Album Review

Héctor Lavoe: ¡Que Sentimiento!

Read "¡Que Sentimiento!" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
November 9, 2026

Héctor Lavoe was one of salsa's first superstars. A native of Ponce, PR, he started singing as a child. After moving to New York, he hooked up with Fania, its founder, Jerry Masucci, and Willie Colon. Together, they conjured up a gangster image, mostly for show, for it was the sights, sounds, smell and feel of the Nuyorican barrio they embodied. The music went through a number of phases, but was always an amalgam of Afro-Caribbean, bogaloo and jazz: “bueno ...

Album Review

Eddie Palmieri: Vamonos Pa'l Monte

Read "Vamonos Pa'l Monte" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
May 17, 2026

A reader may come upon a poster entitled “Highlights of the Jazz Story in the USA." One is labelled the Peter von Bartkowski Edition and it dates from 1987. It is, so to speak, a family tree of jazz, with all the strengths and weaknesses of the genre. Still, to poke about is to get someone's version of the lay of the land. On first examination, it is not clear that Latin Jazz even shows up, but ...

Album Review

Héctor Lavoe: La Voz

by Rob Garratt
June 24, 2023

Craft Recordings have been on a roll of late, following 2021's excellently presented Ornette Coleman boxset, Genesis of Genius, with 2023's Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds series and imminent Sonny Rollins set Go West!: The Contemporary Records Albums. So it is only natural that jazz-inclined audiophiles will start turning their attention to what other treasures the LA-based reissue specialists are digging out of the vaults. And so we arrive at Craft's new “special reissue" of salsa star ...