At the age of 15 he was signed to Fania Records and at 17 he recorded his first album, which ultimately sold more than 300,000 copies. Due to fortuitous events, the main record producer at Fania at the time, Johnny Pacheco, recommended Héctor Lavoe to him.[5] Beyond the trombone, he has also worked as a composer, arranger, and singer, and eventually as a producer and director. Combining elements of jazz, rock, and salsa, his work incorporates the rhythms of traditional music from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and that other ancestral homeland, Africa, representing the mostly one-way flow from Puerto Rico to the New York-based diaspora.[9] His life and music commute back and forth between his home turf in the Bronx and his ancestral Puerto Rico, with more than casual stop-offs in other musical zones of the Caribbean.[9] Colón makes the relation between diaspora and Caribbean homeland the central theme of his work, particularly in his 1971 Christmas album, Asalto navideño.[9] The lyrics and music of the songs on this album enact the diaspora addressing the island culture in a complex, loving but at the same time mildly challenging way.[9][10] He went on to have many successful collaborations with salsa musicians and singers such as Ismael Miranda, Celia Cruz and Soledad Bravo, and singer-songwriter Rubén Blades.[11] On his website, Colón claims to hold the all time record for sales in the Salsa genre, [having] created 40 productions that have sold more than thirty million records worldwide.[12] en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Colón
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 12:22:43 +0000
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