I love Latin music. At its best, its frenetic exuberance comes this close to complete insanity--but the band keeps it together for stanza after stanza, inducing a sort of joyful trance state. The jazz-inflected music of master conguero Ray Barreto of the '50s and '60s exemplifies this quality, and seven of his tracks--all gems--are on the four disc, 80-song Salsamania compilation put out by Spanish label Blue Moon/Palladium in 1995.
In an older edition--late '90s?--of the Rough Guide to World Music, Eugene Holley, Jr., had high praise for the set (quoted in Sals@lemania, a German Latin music fan site), but took issue with its title:
Every once in a while a specially-focused collection of rare, timeless recordings comes along that's so unique it truly merits "must have" status. Indeed, the only problem with Salsamania (Blue Moon) is its misleading title; the four-CD set actually documents the mambo era that preceded the birth of salsa in the sixties. The title was nothing more than a marketing ploy contrived by the Barcelona, Spain, label to capture the attention of French Latin music lovers. The collection's generous program of 80 tracks is uniformly excellent, with relatively few over-exposed performances, even though Salsamania (read: "Mambomania") is loaded with vintage tracks by Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Cachao, Ray Barretto, Perez Prado, Xavier Cugat, Beny More, Tito Rodriguez, and other mambo legends from the fifties. The producers throw listeners some interesting curves, like featuring Cugat's surprisingly zesty version of the Prado hit "Mambo No. 5." The addition of cuts by storied groups like Conjunto Casino and Orquesta Hermanos Castro add to the historic value of the set. A fourteen-page booklet in both Spanish and English, loaded with historic photos, makes the collection a must-have for mambo fans of all generations.
I can't find "Salsamania" on Amazon or eBay--just the German site linked to above--so I suspect its not in wide circulation. If you ever come across it, grab it, no matter what it costs. You'll thank me later.
