Colón is a Puerto-Rican trumpeter and singer, Blades is a Panamanian singer/songrwriter, and this is an album of salsa. Sorry, not just an album of salsa, the best-selling salsa album of all time, apparently.
I can see why. The opening track, Plástico, starts with disco strings before going into the salsa. Other tracks (notably Siembra) also start with with bits of funk and other genres, but this isn’t as fusion as you might think. The bulk of the tracks is pure salsa joy, but what the tracks do accomplish over their generally 5-7 minute run times, are deft changes of tempo and phrases, so subtly that you don’t notice at first, but that overall make each track pleasingly complex. It’s not a term I’ve seen used, but “prog salsa” is a pretty good description of what you get here.
My Sesame Street level Spanish isn’t up to picking out more than the occasional word - “una chica plástica” and “uno muchácho plástico” in Plástico are obviously decribing superficial and artificial people. In the epic track Pedro Navaja (“Peter the Blade”) I managed to get “manos” and “sombrero” - something about hands and a hat. This is the only track that has explanatory notes on the Wikipedia page; it’s kind of a Mack the Knife story about a the pimp Pedro, who is walking down the street with his hands in his pocket (aha!) and his hat pulled low (aha!), but ends up in an argument with a prostitute. He knifes her, she shoots him, and they die together before a passer-by loots their bodies.
A light hearted story, indeed, but if you were merely listening to the music, it’s a great dance track (mind you, Mack the Knife is a groovy swing tune that’s just as dark). Colón and Blades cheekily throw in a bit of Sondheim’s America from West Side Story. I’ve no idea if the other tracks are as dark lyrically – I did hear mention of Puerto Rico, Panama, and Venezuala – possibly simply shout outs, maybe some of the tracks are political. I should probably look them up – sometimes with these non-English tracks I hunt out the lyrics and run them through a translator; it somehow didn’t feel right for these but perhaps I will.
I can see why this was popular salsa. The recording is great – every little component comes through crisp and clear, every little beat on the tambales, every shake of the maraca, could be right in front of you (or to one side, there’s some nice stereo structuring). I had this on in the car while I was stuck in traffic on a rainy day, and I was transported to a colourful Latin American party on the beach, so on that aspect alone I rather liked this one.
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