Fania All Stars - Latin-Soul-Rock (Remastered) (1974/2024)

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Fania All Stars - Latin-Soul-Rock (Remastered) (1974/2024)

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Latin-Soul-Rock by the Fania All-Stars is a half-live, half-studio album. In addition to featuring a few of the actual Yankee Stadium recordings, such as the now-infamous Larry Harlow/Heny Alvarez–penned “Congo Bongo,” the record demonstrated how well the Fania All-Stars could play with others in the studio, namely Billy Cobham, Jan Hammer, and Jorge Santana; and at the same time, flex their Latin rock and funk muscles on tunes like the Marty Sheller–arranged “There You Go” and “Viva Tirado,” recently made a hit by El Chicano; and then there was the Bobby Valentín–arranged “Smoke,” which wouldn’t have been out of place spinning on one of Kool Herc’s turntables a few miles down the road from the “House that Ruth Built.” It was fusion, it was funk, it was salsa.

In 1974, the Fania All Stars were not lacking in live albums. The perfectly monikered band—which, in this original lineup, featured salsa titans Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colon, Ray Barretto, and Héctor Lavoe—had been an ongoing concern since the late '60s and while the individual players were successful in their own way, the All Stars provided a loose, but incredibly intense take on the particular brand of Latin jams that Fania was known for. Their club gigs were both incredibly well-attended and appropriately high-energy, resulting in a pair of two-volume live albums recorded at the Red Garter (1968) and the Cheetah Club (1971). By 1973, the size and scale of the venues they played continued to grow, and their tour that year culminated in August with a much-promoted homecoming gig at Yankee Stadium, at which the All Stars also included guest players such as Mongo Santamaria, Manu Dibango, and Mahavishnu Orchestra's Billy Cobham and Jan Hammer in an attempt to demonstrate the cross-pollination of Latin music into other forms of '70s music. Of course, such a huge show was recorded with hopes of releasing a new live album that showed the sonic breadth and cross-demographic appeal of the All Stars, so why is the first half of Latin-Soul-Rock made up of studio recordings? Well, just a few songs into the Yankee Stadium performance—near the end of a conga duel between Mongo Santamaria and Ray Baretto on "Congo Bongo"—the enthusiastic crowd of 40,000 started pouring out of the Yankee Stadium stands and onto the field where the group was performing, prompting the concert to be shut down before it ever really got going. Thus, the live album documenting the supernova moment when salsa emerged from a nightclub-and-radio phenomenon into a massive cultural juggernaut that defined New York City throughout the mid-to late-'70s was sabotaged in a very New York way by a wave of proud, hometown energy that made the night historic for unintended reasons. Nonetheless, the three songs from the show are notable for their dynamic energy and, thanks to the inclusion of Dibango's "Soul Makossa," representative of the range of sounds performed that night. (More material from the show would be released mid-decade via two Live at Yankee Stadium albums.) Still, the concert is relegated to "bonus material" status on side two of Latin-Soul-Rock, with five studio tracks comprising the first side. These songs were originally part of the Yankee Stadium setlist, but, since the show ended early, the players went into the studio to capture them and, given the electricity and peak proficiency of the All Stars in 1974, the energy level is only slightly reduced when they're off-stage. This is an amazing album that truly captures a moment in time that is iconic for multiple reasons. Essential. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz