Willie Colon: Cosa Nuestra

The 1950s and 1960s were years of dynamic change for the island of Puerto Rico, with rapid growth and light industrialization. But widespread unemployment also produced heavy migration to the United States and especially to the New York metropolitan area, the ethnic context in which Willie Colón's salsa was conceived. Colón and singer Héctor Lavoe were at the music's forefront. Their collaboration in this recording Cosa Nuestra was especially noteworthy. The recording was a major commercial success and went gold. The wry graphics of the original cover, with Colón as an erstwhile gangster with a gig bag under his arm, preparing to entrust some nemesis to the East River, radiate the attitude that drove the music. "We are here. We are together. And we cannot be ignored."

Certainly the boisterous trombone that punctuates virtually every track is a reminder of Colón's authority. Both Colón and Lavoe, the sonero, were young and on their way. sampling African and Caribbean inflections and insisting, "Vamos todos a bailar al estilo africano. Si no lo sabes bailar, yo te enseñare mi hermano" ("We're gonna dance the African way; if you can't, brother, I'll show you) from "Ché, ché colé." Or then the hip "Te conozco," which more or less means "You ain't kidding anyone, dude," an ode to a feckless friend you could do without. It ends and quotes a lick from the then-popular television show Laugh In (1967-73). And then "Ausencia," with Lavoe singing his way through a broken heart, having lost a woman, yet suspecting he probably had something to do with it.

 Ok. This is music from another era, and it is to salsa what Motown then was to the kind of emotive performance that stirred so many from so many different communities. It is truly a pleasure to have this artifact, and on vinyl no less, of two wonderful, if sometimes difficult, careers. For some listeners, it will remind them of what it was to be young and hopeful then. Or perhaps serve as an explanation to a later generation of why that cohort was optimistic, the potential for so much disappointment yet to be fully realized, much less understood. The musicians were fine too, another reminder that taste and technique are always worth hearing, whatever the era. The pressing (180-gram) is excellent and the sound more than justifies the reappearance of a classic.