{"id":2868,"date":"2011-08-19T23:58:44","date_gmt":"2011-08-20T06:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2011-08-19T23:58:44","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T06:58:44","slug":"their-latin-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2011\/08\/their-latin-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Their Latin Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My peripheral involvement in Bob Belden\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2011\/08\/the-miles-espanol-project.html\"><em>Miles Espa\u00c3\u00b1ol<\/em> project<\/a> has refired a longstanding interest in music that combines Latin and jazz elements. A story by Larry Rohter in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>New York Times<\/em> added more fuel. It is about the restoration and DVD release of a film that played an influential role in bringing widespread attention to Latin music and, in particular, to the brand of salsa cooked up in New York&#8217;s Latin melting pot. Rohter begins by quoting the master percussionist Ray Barretto about his hopes for the film\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s success in raising awareness. Then, he writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In 1971 Latin music barely existed on the margins of American consciousness. But Mr. Barretto, who died in 2006 at 76, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Barretto.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Barretto.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Barretto\" width=\"120\" height=\"124\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2869\" \/><\/a>prescient. If salsa is today a globally popular and influential dance music style, that is due in no small part to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our Latin Thing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which documents a concert by the Fania All-Stars at the Cheetah club on 52nd Street in Manhattan on Aug. 26, 1971, and the chain of events it set in motion.<\/p>\n<p><p>In the history of salsa music and Fania Records, which for many years were all but synonymous, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our Latin Thing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the Cheetah show occupy a singular position. It took another Fania All-Stars concert, this time for a crowd of more than 45,000 people at Yankee Stadium in 1973, to alert mainstream English-speaking America to the vast commercial potential of the Latin music market, but it was the Cheetah performance that may have been the ensemble\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s artistic pinnacle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The article includes an embedded performance excerpt from the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our Latin Thing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d film. To read it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/08\/21\/arts\/music\/fania-all-stars-return-in-our-latin-thing-dvd.html?pagewanted=1\"target=\"_blank\">go here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My peripheral involvement in Bob Belden\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Miles Espa\u00c3\u00b1ol project has refired a longstanding interest in music that combines Latin and jazz elements. A story by Larry Rohter in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s New York Times added more fuel. It is about the restoration and DVD release of a film that played an influential role in bringing widespread attention [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}