3. The Night that Made Salsa
6/9/202642 min
Larry Harlow, a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, and one of the first artists to be signed to Fania, pitches an idea to film an ambitious live concert. His suggestion will dramatically change the course of the label and salsa. After Fania bankrolls the live concert at the legendary Cheetah Club, the film Our Latin Thing releases one year later, a film and evening often referred to as the night salsa was born and a new Latino consciousness starts taking shape in the media.
Listen to the Music Behind Our Thing: The Birth of Salsa in Nueva York playlist here.
Archival courtesy of The Bronx County Archives at The Bronx County Historical Society Research Library, Craft Recordings, a Concord company, Mary Kent’s Salsa Talks interviews, Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA, Aurora Flores Hostos Interview, and Martin Cohen Congahead Archives. This episode also utilizes fair use clips from Oro Productions.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsRosie Perez· Host0:00
Before we get started, I wanna let you know that you can listen to the entire season of Our Thing: The Birth of Salsa in Nueva York right now ad-free, plus exclusive episodes on Futuro Plus. Our Thing: The Birth of Salsa in Nueva York was made possible by the Mellon Foundation, which seeks to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Heads up, this episode contains some explicit language. [upbeat music] [singing] Futuro. [upbeat music] It's 1971, and this guy named Larry Harlow, a music producer and piano extraordinaire, brings Fania co-owner Jerry Masucci an idea.
Speaker 20:58
He says, "Let's make an all-star band." He said, "Let's take all the bandleaders from Fania, their singers, and their favorite sidemen, put them all together, write some new music, and do a concert and make a record."
Jerry Masucci· Soundbite1:11
"What are you, fucking crazy?"
Rosie Perez· Host1:13
Larry's big idea was to create an all-star band, a supergroup made up of all the biggest stars signed to Fania. "We should have a concert and make a record with all these stars," Larry told Jerry.
Jerry Masucci· Soundbite1:27
You know how Jerry is, though. "What are you, nuts?