Ivy greetings - We get all the best MC guys here !

Maybe it's a growing up thing?  Ivy as the style for the mature (as opposed to immature!) Modernist !

Best -

Welcome aboard Senor. Good to see you here.  Always enjoyed your posts on MC.

Was it Miami where you were based? Always loved your summery style... especially when it was sandwiched between gloomy UK posts.

Wooooord up Servo!

Hey Yuka! You are into Fania Records by any chance? (boogaloo, nyc salsa, ray barreto etc..) if so, we have a lot in common, I used to work for them as their staff writer... I got to work on a lot of those compilations they put out from 2006 to 2008... really cool stuff... a perk of the job was that I got copies of their whole catalog... cool sixties music with an edge...   

interestingly, Fania seems to be better appreciated in the UK and Europe than it is in the US...

Cool to make you acquaintance Señor Yuca!

senorservo wrote:

Hey Yuka! You are into Fania Records by any chance? (boogaloo, nyc salsa, ray barreto etc..) if so, we have a lot in common, I used to work for them as their staff writer... I got to work on a lot of those compilations they put out from 2006 to 2008... really cool stuff... a perk of the job was that I got copies of their whole catalog... cool sixties music with an edge...   

interestingly, Fania seems to be better appreciated in the UK and Europe than it is in the US...

Cool to make you acquaintance Señor Yuca!

I'm jealous, as I do regard their catalogue very highly, and there's many (in fact the majority) I don't own.  And the present owners seem reluctant to press much on CD, preferring downloads (a format that does not appeal to me).

I'm a bit surprised Fania is better appreciated in the Europe than the US; I can imagine the 60s stuff might be more popular over here, but I thought their more famous stuff, from the 70s, would be more popular in the US, as that's where it's from, and the Puerto Rican and Latino presence is much larger over there.  I know the official Fania DJ is based in the US (Chicago).

You still work in the music biz?

Last edited by Yuca (2012-06-15 00:37:14)

senorservo wrote:

Cheers, 

Jim thank you so much for starting that Ivy thread on Modculture, it gave me a gateway into the 'look' that is much deeper than the great (but youthful) mod... Yeah for the more mature modernist!     

And I think you are right Jim, Ivy seems to provide a mature playing field with many possibilities, a nice look to age into as well.

Last night a saw a an old timer walking on the beach boardwalk- he must have been at least 75, he had a crisp natural Baracuta G4, zippered all the way to the top, with the collar down and showing off his button down shirt lapels... He also had an grey Ivy cap, sand chinos with no break and some really nice white Adidas Stan Smiths! I could also tell his clothes were all the right fit for him...   

I stopped and told him he looked very sharp, and I could tell it made him quite happy... he seemed a little frail, but he still cared a lot about his look...

The only thing I'm really proud of is that our lot were the only ones to reach out to everybody. All the other factions were very keen to limit the style to just themselves & their own little definitions of it.

You telling that old timer he looked good is in exactly the same spirit.  I thoroughly approve !

Best -

Is downloading music for free killing music, like we were warned in the 1980s about home taping?

Gotta love Ray Barreto - perfect sunshine music.

There is a fania allstar album with some flowers and a picture of a couple of sky scrapers in the back ground, can't remember the name, but it is a quality, think it is a live recording going from memory

Yuca wrote:

IvyLeagueOfGentlemen wrote:

I enjoy Salsa music, so I just had a quick look at some of the Allstars studio albums from the Fania label. Can either you or Yuca recommend one of their albums?

I see that their albums stretch over three decades, so I'm not sure whether they got better or worse as time went on?

I've not heard all the Fania All Stars albums unfortunately.  I believe their live albums from the late 60s to the 70s are the most highly regarded, although you need to be into long tunes to appreciate them, as they liked to stretch out in their gigs.  (Fortunately they had the chops to do so.)  Incidentally, avoid Fania All Stars attempts to cross over (mostly from when they left Fania).

My favourite Fania salsa albums are:

Pacheco Y El Conde - La Perfecta Combinación (my avatar)
Barretto - Indestructible
Willie Colón - La Gran Fuga

I've omitted loads of classics there, but that's 3 beauties for you. 

Another killer is Bobby Paunetto - El Sonido Moderno, an outstanding Latin jazz album (with mambo and boogalú influences) recorded in 67, originally on Mardi Gras records but reissued by modern Fania.  Highly recommended!

Here's one not from Fania: Patato Y Totico on Verve, killer Cuban rumba from NYC, recorded in 68.

¡A Gozar!

Thanks for that heads up Yuca.

I just tried to treat myself to a copy of "Barrettos Indestructible", but have been denied at this immediate time.

I know you mentioned you're not a fan of the download format. And at this precise moment, neither am I... Especially when I'm told -

"We could not process your order. The sale of MP3 Downloads is currently available only to US customers located in the United States"


Grrrrrr

Any of you guys dig Joe Bataan?

Yuca: I toiled for seven years as an arts and culture journalist and worked three years for Fania ( I now work for the Uncle Sam as a Research-Writer), I was the content editor for the Fania website, wrote liner notes, news releases, newsletters and translated a ton of stuff...  the company has been bought over and over several times... in 2006, V2 music in the UK owned it for a few years  (that's when I was working with them). A lot of CDs were reissued in the US back then...there was a great British team behind the remastered reissues, we did some compilation work with London DJ Giles Peterson...   

In the States Fania is mostly popular in NYC, Puerto Rico and amongst the music cognoscenti... Most of the stuff was out of print till 2006, In Europe reissues kept rolling through the Vampi Soul label... Like Stax, the Fania is more **widely** appreciated in Europe, interestingly the US people of Mexican origin do not like Fania at all... they are into mariachi mex-tex music... Strange, isn't?

Cool you like Barreto, Colon and Pacheco...

My top Fania :
Barreto Indestructible
Barreto: Acid
Colon: El Malo
Larry Harlow: Harlow
Barreto Power
Barreto Together (all his sixties albums are great)
any of the Boogaloo compilations

IVL: for Fania All-Stars try "Night At The Cheetah". That's a quintessential album, Barreto Acid and Together will not disappoint, any of the Boogaloo compilations are worth your time/ Very sixties, yet very unique and new...         
and I do love-and bet you do to- the Watermelon Man, Mongo Santamaria

Last edited by senorservo (2012-06-15 14:29:33)