Search - Various Artists :: Rough Guide: Salsa Dance

With its intensely percolating blend of melodic vigor, horn-motivated harmony, jazzy improvisation, polyrhythmic percussion, and soulful sense of celebration, Latin music at its best is arguably the world's most enjoyably complex form of dance music. Immensely entertaining if scattershot, this wide-ranging, filler-free introduction to the salsa tradition samples four decades' worth of music from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, and, of course, New York's Fania stable (where it first exploded in the 1970s). The anthology ranges from the early '60s Cuban boogaloo of Joe Cuba to Sierra Maestra's classic son (from whence salsa evolved) to seventysomething Celia Cruz's relentless energy. Sophisticated arrangements by Fania star Willie Colon, inventive pianist Charlie Palmieri, and young trombone upstart Jimmy Bosch offset the kicking sounds of La Misma Gente ("Raquel") and Dominican-born singer Jose Alberto. --Richard Gehr