Salsa 1980

[Lawana Stuckert]

Around7 years old my cousin introduced me to Art. I started with drawing comic book characters. As I kept going to school as a young kid, I continued that interest and continued to develop. I would continue with characters and then eventually transition into lettering because I saw it all around NYC where I grew up.

I came up with a name Lil Chicago 169 (The 169 represented the street that the person lived on). I practiced lettering with that name, and other names that came after. Eventually I was introduced to doing it on the train system in New York by another writer who was a neighbor in a building I had moved into around 183rd street in the Bronx.

I was about 16, I was getting into big trouble in NYC. I was failing school and doing burglaries. My step dad who raised me, offered my mom to move over here to get out of New York. It was right before the crack era, lots of crime was infested in NYC. My mom put the decision making on me being the oldest sibling. I saw it as getting away from the bad situations I was in. Moving would open me to new horizons and experiences. It was the first adult decision I made that affected the rest of my family.

The first major piece was in 1980, it was behind Wells high school the driver education center. It was a mobile trailer, it was my summer job to paint the entire place paid by the board of education. I was 17 and the director of the program gave me a board of education check and told me go to ace hardware pick out your paint, when you finish fill out the check for how much it was. The check was around $250. It was the first permission piece in Chicago. That lasted until around 1985 and it influenced a TON of artists.

When we moved to Chicago we started CTA in the summer of 83. The original three wereMe (Nick1), Quik1, and Jade 1. When we first started the crew, we only wanted members who were from New York. We wanted only people from New York because at the time they understood the culture of Graffiti, where as in Chicago they only knew gang culture.

For one, when I was going to high school my studio art teacher whose name was Anthony-Joseph Abboreno , he helped me get a scholarship to the School of the art institute. Here I was in high school during the weekdays, the school of the art institute on the weekends. I was downtown during the weekends getting my mind expanded into the arts. I had free entrance to museums, and being downtown really elevated my culture. By being in school and the museums it helped develop my beliefs about art. All of a sudden art was so open to me, and I learned to not limit myself to just graffiti. I was able to study Picasso, modern artists, impressionists, Henri de Toulouse, Henry Matisse and others. I learned how realism was made, and always wanted to do that with my lettering. Graffiti just always opened my attitude to more art.

I wish I had done more. More bombing, more underground work. But I like the fact that what I did influenced a lot of people. At some point I know I changed some kids life by accepting themselves as artists. My legacy helped kids find an outlet and not be a gang banger. I influenced kids for creative ideas and not violence.

ladies and gentlemen you have to understand how much I love salsa I listen to it all day long at work, driving, shopping, at home, everywhere and anywhere

how I love dancing my salsa to no end.

Que viva my salsa singers and musicians!

thank you so much for making my life so happy. madeline pagan

Salsa Romntica is a soft form of salsa music that emerged between the mid-1980s and early 1990s in New York City, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. It has been the most commercially successful form of salsa in the last 20 years, despite criticism that it is a pale imitation of "real" salsa, often called "salsa dura".[citation needed]

The genre was introduced by La Palabra, a Cuban musician, in the mid-1980s. It arose at a time when classic, big-band salsa, popularized by Fania Records was growing on the Latin record charts, including the rise of Latin pop. Salsa Romantica was an adaptation of melodic love songs to a smooth, light salsa backing. The style spang from a single album, Noches Calientes, created in 1984 by Fania producer Luis Ramirez.[citation needed] Young salseros such as Lalo Rodriguez and the Puerto Rican Eddie Santiago were creating salsa with light frothy songs, with suggestive lyrics."[1] Salsa Romantica is distinct from other salsa music styles because it uses softer/quieter sounding orchestral sounds, ballads set to a slowed-down salsa rhythm, and romantic lyrics. Because of the softer orchestra and leisurely rhythm, some have nicknamed this genre "limp salsa".

Critics have also focused on the fact that "true salsa" involved qualified musicianship alongside the intricate composition, while salsa romntica was too systematic. Some say that one of the reasons salsa romntica even transpired was due to the cocaine cartel's affinity for it.[citation needed]

The strict lines between salsa romntica and classic salsa have been blurring in recent years. Several performers have succeeded in blending elements of salsa romntica and more hard-driving, traditional salsa, including La India, Tito Rojas, Eddie Santiago, Anthony Cruz, Gilberto Santa Rosa, and Vctor Manuelle. Jerry Rivera was the first salsero to go triple platinum with his record "Cuenta Conmigo" ("Count on Me") which was all salsa romantica.[citation needed]

La India, Luis Enrique, Giro Lopez, Marc Anthony, and Vctor Manuelle are the best-known performers of salsa romntica today. However, Marc Anthony surpasses his colleagues not only in fame but in sales as well, being the highest-selling salsa artist of the past two decades.[6] By blending elements of pop into his songs - as well as making pop versions of his salsa songs - Anthony has been able to establish a loyal fan base of Hispanics of all nationalities, as well as broaden his audience to non-Spanish speaking individuals. Young salseros gravitating to the form include Tito Rojas, Anthony Cruz, Frankie Negrn, Kevin Ceballo, Charlie Cruz, and Jay Lozada.

Omar Alfano is probably the most prolific songwriter in the salsa romntica genre he was handheld into the business by Salsa Dura songwriter Johnny Ortiz. Other notable composers include Palmer Hernandez and Jorge Luis Piloto. Antonio "Tony" Moreno, Chino Rodriguez, Sergio George, and Julio "Gunda" Merced are some of the most notable producers in the salsa romntica genre.

Despite having many prominent artists and a large fan base, Salsa Romntica is considered, by older salsa musicians and fans, to be a sad imitation of classic salsa - salsa monga or "limp salsa".[6] This is partial because this form of salsa talks less about political strife and working-class concerns, and more about non-offensive things such as love and parties.

1. ``SALSA'' -- That's Spanish for ``sauce,'' especially hot sauce, better known as salsa picante. Over the last decade or so, the name salsa has transcended its culinary implications and has come to mean Latin American music -- that distinctive blend of Caribbean rhythms -- mainly from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic -- that form the Hispanic music tradition. 2. ``JAZZ'' -- Originally the syncopated, rhythmic, improvised music that grew out of North American work songs, ragtime, the blues, and European classical and popular music. Jazz has expanded to include American pop and rock, but Latin American rhythms began to pop up in jazz as far back as Jelly Roll Morton.

Now, in the 1980s, jazz and salsa are popping up everywhere -- hand in hand. Latin bands feature hot jazz soloists, and jazz bands are incorporating Latin percussionists and playing Latin arrangements. Some say that this has always gone on between the two musical cultures, others say that it all started when Dizzy Gillespie hired percussionist Chano Pozo in the 1940s, and still others say that Latin music and jazz just don't mix.

Whatever -- the beat goes on, and it goes on more strongly in New York than anywhere else, where jazz-influenced Latin bands (and vice versa) play regularly in the streets, in the clubs, at dances, and in the concert halls. While the more traditional Latin bands play for dancing uptown, lower Manhattan tends to be a meeting place for jazz and salsa. The Village Gate, a Greenwich Village jazz club with a huge, barnlike room downstairs, has been packing people in for a long time with its Monday night ``Ja zz meets Salsa'' format. Latin bands are spotlighted, with a featured jazz soloist. It's a high energy, exciting, happy scene, with a mixed but largely Hispanic crowd that jams the tables and the dance floor every week. Another club, the Blue Note, regularly presents Latin bands, from Tito Puente's Latin Jazz Ensemble to Ray Barretto's great salsa band -- one of the finest around.

Barretto, a Hispanic percussionist who started out as a jazz musician and then switched to Latin music, is very comfortable in both idioms. Leader of one of New York's top Latin bands, he has incorporated elements of jazz into his music without sacrificing its Latin roots.

Tito Puente, whose name is synonymous with Latin music and who has earned the title ``El Rei da la Musica Latina,'' has eagerly watched and participated in the melding of jazz and salsa over the years. Says Puente, ``Dizzy [Gillespie] did it years ago. So did Machito, and I myself at Birdland. For years I have been trying to get Latin music and jazz together. I like the marriage. Both are very rhythmic and melodic. But the one thing that jazz has over Latin music are the harmonies. In Latin music we're very limited that way. When we play for a jazz player, we try to play tunes that have a lot of chord changes. They love it. But not all traditional Latin musicians can play jazz.''

Puente's band has played often at the Village Gate, and his smaller, more jazz-oriented group has performed in many jazz clubs. But, in addition to this, Puente will happily play with his band at a wedding or a bar mitzvah, or any place at all where the people like the music.

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