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Between
the Sheets with Larry Harlow, el Judío Maravilloso!
By
My humble apologies to our readers for
using that attention-grabbing headline, but if you don’t know what a
key figure Larry Harlow is in Latin Music, now is your chance to find
out! If you already know what this legend has contributed to the salsa
world then this is your opportunity to go into the pages of Salsa history
to find out more about the man behind all of the cutting edge innovations.
And my apologies to Larry’s wife, Wendy, but I was referring
to MUSICAL sheets!!!
Jacira: Larry, I’ve
known you since 1996, and before that I was a fan of yours ever since
your days with the Fania record label, but there are a lot of younger
salseros who don’t know your background, even if they have heard some
of your songs, such as "La Cartera" ("Se
me perdió la cartera, ya no tengo más dinero…")
and others. Tell us a little about how a young Jewish kid from New York
City got started in Salsa.
Larry: I came from
a family of musicians. My father was a continental bandleader
at the original Latin Quarter in New York. His boss was
Barbara Walters’ father, so we grew up together. My father
sang in Spanish, but didn’t speak it. My uncles and aunts
were music and theater folks, and my mother was an opera
singer. My father wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer
or something, but I got accepted at the Music and Art
High School on the upper west side. It was an old castle
on the top of a hill, about 5 or 6 blocks from the Apollo
Theater, a very multi-cultural neighborhood. I would
take the train and walk through the area and in the 50’s
there was a lot of Latin music, and I really liked what
I was hearing.
While I was still in school,
the Hugo Dickens band asked me to join them and I met
a lot of talented guys there. The first time I played
with them they told me I sucked - that I’d better learn
to play or I was out! So I went to a record store and
bought an album by Joe Loco and I transcribed and memorized
the piano solos. When I went back, they couldn’t believe
I’d learned to play in a week! Then Dominic Loria of
the Randy Carlos band taught me about CLAVE, and it all
started making sense.
I started going to the Palladium
when I was 15 years old. If you went there early enough
it was only $0.75 cents to get in, so I’d scrape together
the money from picking up soda bottles and returning
them for the deposit, and show up at the door with my
nickels and dimes. I fell in love with the Latin women
and by watching them dance I got infected with the Latin
rhythms.
Every summer we would go
to the Catskills. There were about 100 hotels with Rumba
bands like Machito, Eddie and Charlie Palmieri and Cuban
bands, too. The band I played with was at the Schenk’s
Hotel, across from the Raleigh. The Jews were affluent
enough to go to Cuba and learn the cha-cha-chá, the son
and the mambo, and brought them back to New York. Our
hotel became the hotspot for everyone to gather after
hours, so all the musicians would come and jam until
very late. I got to know everybody!
In 1956 during the Christmas
break I went to Cuba with the Mambo Nicks. I was 17 years
old and I was seeing the Orquesta Aragón, Beny Moré and
others give free, live shows on every corner in La Habana.
A few months later I returned to Cuba and began hanging
out with Chappotín, Aragón, the Orquesta Sublime, Roberto
Faz, Fernando Ortíz and others. Jerry Massucci was at
the Universidad de la Habana studying business and working
at the Tourist Office. He used to hang out at a little
coffee shop nearby called the Fanía (with an accent),
which is where I think he got the name for the Fania.
We weren’t great friends back then, but I did know him,
as he was one of the few Americanos living and studying
there. A lot of the music students would go there to
jam. That’s where I met José Flores, the publishing guy
with Massucci. I would follow the bands around Cuba,
Roberto Faz, and Aragón. I traveled with Faz’s Conjunto
band to Camagüey and Santiago. I stayed until 1959. On
New Year’s Eve when Fidel came to La Habana, I left and
returned to the US. Sadly, the music from Cuba got cut
off due to the embargo.
| I
finally graduated with my B.A. in Music Education from Brooklyn
College and in 1962 got married for the first time. I had played
on and off with Harvey Averne, whose stage name was Arvito, beginning
in 1956 through 1962. He was an accordionist, but I taught him to
play the vibraphones. |
Left to Right:
Marty Stone, Paul Serrano, Larry Harlow, Mark
Weinstein, Harvey Averne, Sonny Land and Dr. Mike Kurzman
Photo courtesy of Larry Harlow private
collection, 1957
|
He used all of my music and arrangements
and then one day he fired me, without returning any of my material.
That was the best thing that ever happened to me! It made me sit down
and write original new stuff. My brother in law, Joe Artanis, owned
the Chez José club across from the Museum of Natural History and gave
me a regular gig. Then in 1964 I played at the World Fair in the Caribbean
Pavilion along with Pacheco’s Charanga band, Charlie Palmieri’s Duboney,
Pete Conde, Monguito el Único, Cheverito Dávila and I replaced Hector
Rivera.
In late 1964 I was playing
at Chez José one night and Jerry Massucci came in. He
offered to sign the band to a contract with a new record
company he was starting. He told me he was going to send
in his musical director the following week. Well, that
next week it rained cats and dogs. There wasn’t a soul
in the place, and we were playing to the tables and chairs
when who should walk in but Pacheco! He was not only
working as the Musical Director for the new record label
but he was an owner and partner in the business. I was
the first artist to be signed to the Fania label. My
first album was "Heavy Smokin’", and then came
Bobby Valentín, Willie Colón, Ray Barreto and the rest.
My band, the Orquesta Harlow, played son and so did Pacheco
with the Típica 73.
Jacira: Alfredo De La Fé played
with the Típica 73.
Larry: Yes, as a matter
of fact, he did. When Alfredo first came to NY he was
only a kid about 9 years old. He lived with José Fajardo
and was the Band Boy, lugging suitcases! Just recently
they did a gig together over in Europe and when José
saw Alfredo he said, "Hey, kid, bring my suitcases!"
and Alfredo told him something you can’t print here!
We all laughed!
But the Charanga bands and
my band kept Cuban music alive in the US. Back in the
Catskills during the summers of 64-65 we would have these
after-hours jam sessions, and the dancers and musicians
would all join in. We would experiment mixing Latin music,
with their simple 7th chords, with jazz harmonies that
had 9ths and 11ths and augmented 13ths and 5-point harmonies.
We mixed trumpets and trombones together. Plus we would
incorporate lyrics that had messages of protest and social
commentary. Remember, this was the time of Woodstock,
the drug culture, protests, the Beatles, "hermandad",
flower power and love! The lyrics began to have more
profound meaning. Puerto Rico claimed it was their music
the word "salsa" came to mean New York Latin
sound with Jazz harmonies and meaningful lyrical content.
The Puerto Rican people supported this music.
Then the area became popular
and the costs of keeping the clubs open rose tremendously.
Many of them closed. About then Ralph Mercado opened
the Cheetah (SIR now). It was a big space with psychedelic
paint and lights. About the same time Jerry Massucci
decided to form the Fania All Stars, which took the band
directors and their lead singers from most of the big
name salsa bands on the label.
I was always ready to take chances. I
became the Fania producer, along with playing and recording my own band
and material. I was always on the leading edge. It was my idea to film
the show at the Cheetah. I brought in Leon Gast to help. When the Fania
movie came out, Puerto Rico supported it and it got great reviews. This
opened the doors for Salsa to the rest of the world. Record sales rocketed
and we began touring around Latin America. There were 5 albums made
from the Cheetah concerts and following that, the Fania began to tour
Africa, Germany, Portugal, Japan. 
The
second film was in 1974, "Live at Yankee Stadium".
Then they filmed our show in Zaire, but it took many years to come out
because of a legal battle in the international courts.
In 1973, I did the first Latin Opera,
"Hommy", the first true Latin music
show played in an American concert Venue. Up to then we had always been
relegated to dance halls and school gymnasiums. I wrote a part especially
for Celia Cruz, and with it, brought her back from retirement and obscurity.
She had been living in Mexico City and said she was very grateful and
promised she would record with the Orquesta Harlow first, but she never
made good on her promise and instead recorded with everyone else but
me.
After "Hommy"
Latin music really took off. We played in Madison Square Gardens, Carnegie
Hall, Roberto Clemente Coliseo in Puerto Rico, baseball stadiums, and
soccer stadiums, full of 100,000 people. It was like being a rock star!
People would tear our clothes off as we walked down the street!
In 1980, I left Fania Records
and Jerry Massucci moved to Argentina. Rubén Blades,
Barreto, Pacheco and the rest all left, too. Ralph Mercado
started with Celia and Tito, Marc Anthony and India.
Jacira: Who are the
musicians that influenced you the most?
Larry: Art Tatum, Charlie Parker,
Coltrane, Nora Morales, Peruchín, Charlie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Aragón,
Roberto Faz. Mine was the first band to mix the Conjunto style with
the Charanga style (brass and violins) and that is why "La
Cartera" was such a hit. Several other artists had
recorded it before, but my version was innovative and really appealed
to people because it was a new sound.
Jacira: When you are
alone, what kind of music do you listen to?
Larry: Jazz, Charanga
music, Aragón, old Cuban music. I like some of the new
stuff, too, like Orishas, Vocal Sampling, Los Van Van,
and Paulito.
Jacira: What about
getting radio play for Cuban music?
Larry: Well, the problem
isn’t just with Cuban music; it’s with all Latin music.
The play lists at the major Latin music radio stations
are very limited. Gillian, the wife of Johnny Almendra
(Los Jóvenes del Barrio), organized a protest in New
York out in front of La Mega. We’ve been asking them
for a long time, "Why don’t you play Machito, Tito
Rodríguez, Johnny Pacheco, Tito Puente? Why don’t you
play New York bands in New York?" We all have new
records out.
We had about 500 people a
day protesting on Madison and 5th shouting, "Para
la Payola!" or "La Mega no se pega!"
or "Toca la música brava!". We had a
lot of press coverage and were on the front page of El
Diario various days. Willie Colón, Jimmy Sabater, Felipe
Luciano, we were all out there! We won’t settle for an
off-hours show, we want to be in regular rotation. The
new Station Manager of La Mega wants to start putting
us there. Juan Esteban of LaMusica.com is putting out
compilation CDs of those of us who were protesting and
we are hoping to get them on rotation at La Mega. Of
course, Alarcón, who has several stations in Miami and
other places as well, owns La Mega. We are starting in
NY, but hope the trend will take nation-wide.
Jacira: What current
projects are you working on?
Larry: I’ve got five
bands: the Larry Harlow Orchestra, the Latin Legends
Band, the Latin Jazz Encounter, Thunder Drums, (shown
here in Japan)
and Sofrito. I spend a lot of time helping young kids
the ones who deserve it and I have survived this long
because I am diverse, and I keep very busy! I’m teaching
master classes at Cal State Fresno in July, I am still
composing, arranging, I am doing record production. As
a matter of fact I’ve got 5 acts I’m producing right
now. Onaney is a young Puerto Rican woman
from Palm City, Florida. She is dynamite! She is going
to be the next star! I also am working with Ico
Manzanero who is a Venezuelan salsa singer and
tap dancer! You can sometimes find him tapping his way
in a clave beat across the Brooklyn Bridge at 4 a.m.,
just to practice. He is always looking for wooden surfaces
to dance on! Then there is Maya Santamaría
who is of Mexican descent and has a degree in anthropology;
Allen Alejandro, a Cuban-American salsero
from New Jersey and Luis Rosario, a Puerto
Rican who is now singing with the Legends band and was
formerly with Hechizo, living in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Jacira: And your next
album?
Larry: Maybe a 35th
anniversary album, or perhaps an album of "Hommy
2002", which we will be doing with Gilberto
Santa Rosa, Victor Manuelle, India, Cheo Feliciano, Son
by 4, Adalberto Santiago, Jr. and Michael Stuart. This
show is being produced by Henry Cárdenas of SFX Enterprises
and will be at Radio City Music Hall and in the new stadium
in Puerto Rico.
Jacira: What about
upcoming tours?
Larry: There’s so
many I can’t remember them all! (See Larry’s
Website for more information) At the end
of June I’ll be in Verona and Milano, Italy with the
Orlando Watusi Band and Alfredo de la Fe. Then I’ll be
at UC Fresno and in San Francisco with Oreste Vilató,
then the Sofrito tour in July (a bilingual children’s
show with David González), then the Fania tour on September
8th in Madison Square Gardens and the 29th of September
at the Hollywood Bowl.
Jacira: Your friend,
Alfredo de la Fe, (see SalsaPower CD review HERE)
is currently living in Italy and touring all over Europe,
but more than anything else, he dreams of moving back
to New York. What are you and other salsa musicians doing
to help make that a reality?
Larry: Well, this
is a tough situation. We are trying to help him. Years
ago he had a bench warrant and jumped bail on a drug
charge. He lived in Colombia for 12 years. He’s been
clean for years now and works very hard at helping other
addicts get and stay clean. El es hijo de Obatalá. We
are all writing letters of character reference and hope
this situation can be resolved.
Jacira: Do you have
a message for your fans?
Larry: Yes, tell them
to support LIVE Latin music. Go where there is live music.
Ask the clubs to bring in live bands. Keep the Afro-Cuban
and the TRUE salsa tradition alive so people don’t grow
up thinking that Marc Anthony is the "real deal"!
Jacira: Larry, thanks
for your time and for sharing so much of yourself with
the SalsaPower readers. I personally would like to thank
you for the tremendous contributions you have made to
Salsa and Latin music throughout the years, and for your
generosity of spirit that helps it grow around the world.
I hope that the younger generation of salseros can appreciate
the doors you have opened for us and not forget all the
barriers you tore down and everything that you have given
to salsa throughout your lifetime!
--
, May 2001
See other
Artist Interviews HERE!
This page
was last updated on:
03-Jan-2008
