“Good evening, my name is Paquito Navarro of WHOM, NY, here is Larry Harlow and Orchestra Harlow…” With that begins one of my favorite “live” salsa albums of the 1970’s, Harlow Live in Quad (FANIA 00472).  Recorded in January 16, 1974 in Sing-Sing, this album brought with it the intensity that had been generated in the Salsa scene in New York in the 1970’s.   Let’s put the album in context first.  It came just 3 short years after the famous concert-turned-film by the FANIA All-Stars.  That concert, live at the Cheetah, in New York City was captured for all generations to enjoy in the film titled Our Latin Thing.  The FAS and Harlow in particular were riding a nice wave of popularity after the smashing success of the film and the soundtrack recordings that were sold at the aftermath of the film.

Quad?  Four, what?

Also, Harlow Live in Quad (HLQ) came after the Harlow album (and live performance) of Hommy, A Latin Opera.  I give credit to Larry Harlow for trying to maintain excitement in the Latin music business, even if it was not always original.  HLQ in my opinion represents one of his good efforts.  First, it compiled a great sounding band, which included some of the best at the time (see full personnel list below) plus arrangement contributions of some of the heavy hitters in our music (Barry Rogers, Sam Burtis, Bobby Valentín).  Then he took the extra step of delivering one of the first (if not the first) Latin album in quad.  For those of you that are too young to legally remember what quad is, allow me to digress for just a minute.  After being bored with mono systems, the industry gave us music fans all over stereo.  This was great, now you could buy albums and with the proper system (and appropriate volume J), you could (almost) feel like you were there.  The success of stereo enticed the system manufacturers to one up themselves and they came up with quadraphonic.  As the name implies, unlike its stereo cousin, quad required that 4 speakers were strategically placed in a room (a square or rectangular room was preferable).  Theoretically, such a system, in combination with a recording that took advantage of all 4 speakers was supposed to give you an experienced unmatched by anything to date.  Many of the rock bands were coming with their quad albums and Larry Harlow made sure that us cocólos wouldn’t feel left behind.  I say theoretically because I never found out if the experience  was there or not.  I never purchased one of the pricey quad systems, and they have now disappeared, but I did purchase this album and to this day I’m glad I did.

 

Junior y Justo, just what the doctor ordered.

 The all star cast of musicians was joined by two great soneros, Junior González and Justo Betancourt.

Justo, of course, is one of the great soneros of all time.  In addition to being a recording aritist in his own right, Justo also recorded with many of the great salsa bands of the 70’s providing his voice in the “coros” and providing help and advice to the young soneros of the time.  One of these young ones coming up at the time was Junior González .  Junior joined with Harlow after the departure of Ismael Miranda from the orchestra.  Despite the fact that he had huge shoes to fill, Junior has always held his own and as this particular album shows, he is a great interpreter of our music.  He opens the album with, of all things, an Ismael Miranda hit, Señor Sereno, doing a nice job of it.  Then he follows is up with Gracia Divina.  Now this was odd.  Gracia Divina was a tune from the Hommy album that was sung by none other than Celia Cruz.  

“El Niño Judío Toca Señores…”

  Not only is there great singing in this album, but you also have great jams, or solos.  Harlow, as previously indicated, surrounded himself with great talent in just about every area in the band.  The rhythm section had the strong contributions of Nicky Marrero, Tony Jimenez and Pablo Rosario.  While the horn sections included heavy weights Reinaldo Jorge, Lewis Khan, Ralph Castrella and Charlie Miller.  Lewis Khan, the other Judío Maravilloso, doubled up as violin player (in addition to trombone) in La Cartera.  All of this wrapped up by Eddie “Guagua” Rivera on bass and Harlow on keyboards and piano.  

My favorite song?  

This is a tough question, because they are all a pleasure to listen to, even (almost) 26 years hence.  But my favorite then and still today was Arsenio Rodriguez’s Jovenes Del Muelle, where Guagua Rivera really let us have it!

 

Album Credits

 

Orchestra Harlow 1974  

Ralph Castrella	Trumpet		Pablo Rosario	Bongó
Charlie Miller	Trumpet		Tony Jimenez	Conga
Junior González	Maracas, lead vocals		Nicky Marrero	Timbales
Larry Harlow	Piano/clavinet		Eddie (Guagua) Rivera	Bass
Reinaldo Jorge	Trombone		Lewis Khan	Trombone/violin
Justo Betancourt	Lead vocals

Coro – Ralph Castrella, Larry Harlow, and Adalberto Santiago

Arrangements by Larry Harlow, Barry Rogers, José Luis Cruz, Charlie Camalieri, Mark Weinstein, Sam Burtis, and Bobby Valentín.

Produced by Larry Harlow for Passing Clouds Music, Inc.