EL RAY Fania Records are proud to announce the release of a new retrospective collection of music by the most famous, multi-Grammy Award winning Latin musician that New York City ever produced, the original mambo king: Ernesto Antonio “Tito” Puente. No other Latin artist created a discography like Tito Puente’s. Puente and his band recorded many of his classic albums for the Tico label between 1949 and 1981. “El Rey” captures classics from many of these recordings and features such well-known artists as Vicentico Valdés, Santos Colón, Frankie Figueroa, Celia Cruz, and Guadalupe Yoli “La Lupe.” His discography set the benchmark for Latin music in New York, and this anthology sifts through dozens of hours of hot listening to present the cream of the cream. The 45 carefully selected tracks come from more than 20 remastered albums recorded by Puente during his prime. In addition to the two CDs the box set also includes a 32-page booklet in English and Spanish as well as photos. For Fans of: Fania All Stars, Dizzy Gillespie, Carlos Santana.
Review:
Fania had already gone the completist route with Tito Puente, compiling
all of his earliest 78-rpm recordings from the '40s and '50s, but El Rey
represents something else: an excellent career summation of the man who meant
more to Latin music than anyone else during the last half of the 20th century.
Mambo leader extraordinaire, father of salsa music, and standard-bearer for
virtuoso Latin music through its eventual fusion with jazz during the '80s and
'90s, Puente's personality and performances (in concert or on The Cosby Show)
often obscured the brilliance of his recordings, but the 45 recordings heard
here – ranging from 1949 through 1981, all originally released on the Tico
label and placed in chronological order – put the focus back on what he set
down with his excellent band. The set begins with his earliest and best mambos,
“Ran Kan Kan” and “Mambo Inn” and “Abaniquito,” then spends well
over an hour focusing on his work of the '60s, when “Agua-Nile” and “Oye
Como Va” and “Caribe” showed Latin audiences and a huge number of
crossover fans that Latin music had both high energy and extraordinary finesse.
The second disc shows Puente moving into the '70s, adding to his palette with
records like 1973's Tito Puente and His Concert Orchestra (which gets several
numbers here)
All Music Guide – John Bush