54 albums · 1944–2023

Salsa, from Cuban son and mambo to Fania's New York, Puerto Rico, Colombia, salsa romántica and today

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

Eddie Palmieri at the piano, laughing, with the bassist Luques Curtis behind him on stage
Ray Barretto smiling behind his congas on a dark stage, a saxophonist standing at the rightFour singers of El Gran Combo in matching striped shirts singing at microphones on an outdoor stage
Eddie Palmieri at the piano, with Luques Curtis on bass, in concert in Darmstadt in 2013 Photo: Jens Vajen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Ray Barretto at the congas, in concert in Deauville, France, in July 1991 Photo: Roland Godefroy, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · The singers of El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico at the Festival Medina in 2011 Photo: Magiciandude, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Salsa grew out of Cuban son, which Arsenio Rodríguez in Havana gave a heavier sound with congas, piano and trumpets in the forties, and out of the mambo that Pérez Prado, Machito and Tito Puente played with big bands in Mexico City and New York in the fifties. In the sixties Puerto Rican and Cuban musicians in New York mixed this music with jazz and soul, first in boogaloo and then on the records of Fania, the label Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci started in 1964, and by the early seventies it was sold as salsa.

From Cuba come Arsenio Rodríguez, Beny Moré, Cachao and Celia Cruz with La Sonora Matancera, and from the New York of the fifties Tito Puente and Machito. Eddie Palmieri's La Perfecta follows, the boogaloo of Joe Cuba, Pete Rodríguez and Joe Bataan, and the Fania records of Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe, Ray Barretto, Cheo Feliciano, Celia Cruz with Johnny Pacheco, the Fania All Stars at the Cheetah, Larry Harlow's Hommy and Siembra by Willie Colón and Rubén Blades. Puerto Rico has Cortijo y su Combo, Ismael Rivera, El Gran Combo and the Sonora Ponceña, Venezuela Los Dementes, Dimensión Latina and Oscar D'León, and Colombia Fruko y sus Tesos, Grupo Niche, Guayacán and Joe Arroyo. The salsa romántica of the late eighties and nineties is here with Gilberto Santa Rosa, Jerry Rivera, Victor Manuelle and Marc Anthony, Cuban timba with NG La Banda, Japan with Orquesta de la Luz and West Africa with Africando. Later come the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, La Excelencia, Orquesta Akokán, Rubén Blades's Salswing! and Alexander Abreu y Havana D'Primera.

The list has 54 records from 1944 to 2023. It leaves out the 78s and singles on which the early Cuban records first came out, here heard on later collections, the Latin jazz and merengue that share its stages, a second or third album by many of its artists, and the albums Deezer does not have, among them Frankie Ruiz's Solista pero no solo, Eddie Santiago's Atrevido y diferente and La India's Dicen que soy. About 37 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Latin 83%Jazz 7%Soul & R&B 2%Other 8%
  • Latin 83%
  • Jazz 7%
  • Soul & R&B 2%
  • Other 8%

The genres named most: salsa, latin, boogaloo, guaracha, son cubano, salsa romántica.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 10 countries: United States 17, Puerto Rico 11, Cuba 10, Colombia 4, Panama 3 and 5 more. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Genres first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.