Rough Guide to Salsa De Puerto Rico

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 9, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: World Music Network
• ASIN: B0000950YO
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #354,831 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Una Pena En La Navidad - Yomo Toro

2. Todo Tiene Su Final - Willie Colon & Hector Lavoe

3. Tirandote Flores II - Eddie Palmieri

4. Consuelo - Plena Libre

5. Muy Joven Para Mi - Jimmy Bosch

6. Que Humanidad - Manny Oquendo's Libre

7. Dejate Querer - Jose Alberto 'El Canario'

8. Que Bien Te Ves - Willie Colon & Hector Lavoe

9. Espresso Por Favor - Tito Puente & His Latin Jazz All Stars

10. Mujer Boricua - Nava

11. Vamonos Pa 'I Carnaval - Truco Y Zaperoko

12. Don Pedro - Los Pleneros De La 21

13. Cico Mangual - Paracumbe

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

There's something inherently wrong about an anthology of Puerto Rican salsa that fails to include the genre's most notable exponents—namely, El Gran Combo and La Sonora Ponceña. Fortunately, this otherwise worthy entry in the excellent Rough Guide series makes up for that near-fatal omission by including a number of legendary Puerto Rican expatriates. The expected tracks by Eddie Palmieri (a recent number from the pianist's revamped La Perfecta reunion) and Tito Puente (the joyful Latin jazz nugget "Espresso Por Favor") are complemented with tunes by lesser-known but equally important artists, from timbalero Manny Oquendo and Libre (the orgiastic dance jam "Qué Humanidad") to the very best salsa singer of all times, the late Héctor Lavoé, joined here by partner in crime Willie Colón on the smoldering "Qué Bien Te Ves" and the fatalistic "Todo Tiene Su Final." Reaching out beyond the confines of salsa, the compilation devotes a handful of songs to the bomba and the plena, Puerto Rico's infectious--and achingly beautiful-- folkloric genres. --Ernesto Lechner

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Awful Compilation, August 22, 2004

By 

Tito de León (Miami) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rough Guide to Salsa De Puerto Rico (Audio CD)

This is more of a soft guide to salsa de New York! How on earth can you have Yomo Toro and Plena Libre representing Puerto Rican salsa? And aren't Tito Puente, Jimmy Bosch and Eddie Palmieri New Yorker's? Let's not forget that Jose "El Canario" Alberto is DOMINICAN! You cannot make any rough guide to salsa de Puerto Rico compilation without the maestro's themselves! Namely "La Sonora Poncena", "Cheo Feliciano", "Ismael Rivera", "Pete (el conde) Rodriguez", "Andy Montanez", "Hector Lavoe", "Ray Barretto", "Ismael Miranda", "Willie Rosario", and "El Gran Combo". All of which are MISSING from this weak compilation (with the exception of Hector Lavoe)!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Compilation, April 25, 2006

By 

William Jens Jensen (North America) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Rough Guide to Salsa De Puerto Rico (Audio CD)

Another reviewer seems to miss the whole point of the Rough Guide collections. As the subtitles says, "pure latino: classic salsa to roots plena." The Rough Guide series in known for stretching their listeners' common notions of what a particular country sounds like musically. For example, the Rough Guide to Japan isn't just koto and shakuhachi; it includes Japanese music generally unknown in the West. In this case, I suspect that the "New Yorkers" represented here consider themselves Puerto Rican, especially when it comes to their art form. I was quite happy to see Nava represented. I love his music, but it's quite difficult to find more than one of his CDs in the U.S. The selection by Cico Mangual is a terrific representation of the African roots in Puerto Rican music. No collection will make everyone happy, but there are plenty of other collections out there that will satisfy salsa "purists."