After talking to my Compai the other day I started to try and find an answer to this question, one that makes sense to me anyway. I grew up a diehard Salsa fan, I loved all the groups from Puerto Rico (yes, Raphy Levitt too) and waited with great anticipation for new releases from Bobby Valentin, El Gran Combo, La Sonora Poncena at Sandy's Record Shop or Bate's.
During this conversation, off the cuff, I stated that music does not exist on an organic level anymore. Later that night, I started to wonder what exactly did that mean.
My favorite bands, (some from New York as well) their composers, arrangers and singers had one thing in common, they understood form, their swing and groove was never contrived and swung in a way I can best describe as organic. Today this has all been lost, substituted with regurgitated offerings from decades past with new and old artist (I use this term loosely) relegating themselves to copying the popular crooner of the day.
I think Roger Sessions' "The Musical Experience of Composer, Performer, Listener" explains is best. "Does music actually communicate something it is capable of defining clearly?" In our case I think it did, it defined our culture, heritage and in many respects our essence.
Having grown up around many of them, I hold El Jibaro in high regard. The Jíbaro persona and their music are very tightly intertwined, las décimas and seis chorreao of Chuito and Ramito for example, are more auto-biography than lyric. To new jacks, Jibaro means hick or hillbilly, lost in this disconnect is the essence of what they supposedly represent and want to sell.
Salsa's epitaph was El Gran Combo's Nuevo Milenio (how appropriate), nothing of any cultural or musical substance has been released since, in my, and Compi's opinion. If you are looking for anything remotely organic look elsewhere, I have chosen early 1960s Jazz.
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