Larry Harlow and Me…
I came from a family of all musical people: mom, dad, uncles, brother, aunts, grandfather, great grandfather, so it was so easy to slip into music. Music and Art High School in New York City in the Barrio opened my mind to Música Latina. Going to pre-Castro Cuba to study and listen was my schooling… I fell in love with the 'cha cha cha.'
Larry Harlow
Larry is a gringo with clave, who understands and respects our music, but also knows how to be innovative. Most of the people at Fania, no matter what their age, could be very conservative. But Larry came in with an open mind and renovated the format, adding new ingredients, new chords, new instruments, and that created enthusiasm and led to tremendous success for a lot of people, including me.
singer Ruben Blades
Heavy Smokin’ (1965) signed by Larry
I miss those days, I do. I miss the recording days; I was very, very good at doing it. I studied a lot, every time a new machine came out, I was right on it. We took everything from Mono, we started with Mono to the 4 Tracks, 8 Tracks, 12 Tracks, 24 to 32 then Digital. From writing operas, to writing symphonies, music scores for movies. We were always expanding the music to other concepts, taking salsa music to other worlds. I do miss those recording days, but I have a lot of business to take care of these days also.
Larry HarlowWhen we got there, there was a big reception with all the natives in native garb, dancing and bands playing, Mobutu's staff and Don King waiting at the bottom of the steps. When we came off the plane, there was also a little band and it was playing (Fania founder Johnny) Pacheco's music, playing and singing phonetically in Spanish. Of course they didn't understand the Spanish but it sounded just like Pacheco's band. The kids would run up to me in the street and say 'You're Larry Harlow, you're Larry Harlow' and I thought 'how do these kids know who I am?' I was totally surprised, especially in a French speaking country. They would sing my songs and then do scat solos, playing bottles or pails, stuff in the street. The (concert) music was spectacular, almost everyone performed very well. James Brown - here's a guy who works every single day of the year - was still rehearsing his band twice a day in Africa. He was putting them though it - dancing, singing, everything.
Larry Harlow's Zaire '74 concert experience, prior to the Ali-Foreman Rumble In The Jungle
El Exigente (1967) signed by Larry
It is a label that right now only sell T-shirts, compilations and stuff like that, they don’t bring out new material whatsoever. It is great they keep the music alive as a testimony of a wonderful era. They put salsa on the map; brought it to a worldwide audience. A lot of kudos for Jerry Masucci in the old days, he put his money into creating this new musical genre. I was one of the lucky ones, was one of the first artists signed to the label. He used me, I used him. We had a love-hate relationship… it was very healthy and very good for all of us. It took us to places we would have never gone otherwise. Basically, Jerry made a career for me and I give him a lot of credit. There are issues with non-payment of royalties, not giving musicians credits when credits were due…
Larry Harlow on his relationship with Fania Records co-founder Jerry Masucci
Con Mi Viego Amigo (1976) signed by Larry
Born Lawrence Ira Kahn in Brooklyn, Larry Harlow became an unlikely champion of Musica Latina and one of its foremost artists, celebrated as a performer, pianist, songwriter, arranger and producer. Surrounded by music at an early age, Larry's mother, Rose Sherman, was an opera singer, and his father performed as Buddy Harlowe, a bandleader at the Latin Quarter, a famous New York City nightclub run by Lou Walters, father of television icon, Barbara Walters. Larry remembered, “I was brought up backstage there. When I was a kid, ten or eleven years old, Barbara and I used to sit in the booth next to the spotlight, and we saw every show that came in there, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Joe E. Brown, Sophie Tucker...”
Larry's exposure to Latin music was piqued further as he walked to the High School of Music and Art on West 135th Street in Hamilton Heights. Larry heard "this strange music coming out of the bodegas and the mom and pop record stores and the bars." He was smitten and because he was an accomplished pianist, he soon joined Latin dance bands and played throughout New York City and at gigs in the Catskills during the summer. The Mambo dance craze was in full flight and Larry and his band mates made sure people got their Latin dance groove on. Rather than attend Brooklyn College in the late 1950s, Larry decamped for Cuba to study Latin music at its fountainhead. While the class work in Cuba was challenging, Larry's real education happened at clubs and concerts, As he recalled, “I became 'salsified', totally absorbed into the Latin culture. The music wasn’t called 'salsa' yet, but I became an Afro-Cuban nut, just studying the history and the old photographs and going to see Beny Moré, Orquesta Riverside and all those people in person.”
La Raza Latina (1977) signed by Larry
As the Cuban Revolution took hold, Larry returned to the United States and resumed playing in clubs as a sideman and leading his own orchestra. Johnny Pacheco saw Orchestra Harlow and immediately signed them to Fania Records, a fledgling record label in 1964 which Pacheco had co-founded with Jerry Masucci. Fania Records would eventually become as important to Latin music as Motown Records was to Soul music. Pacheco remembered seeing Larry and Orchestra Harlow, "The first thing I noticed was that he really knew how to play Latin music. He had the band set up, and they were pretty tight, but when he took a solo, that’s when he really got me. He used to take incredible solos. You could tell he had really listened to Peruchín and all those guys in Cuba. The scales he used to play, I was flabbergasted. He really was 'El Judío Maravilloso.' ” The Marvelous Jew - "El Judio Maravilloso" became Larry's well earned sobriquet, and the title of a memorable Harlow record release in 1975.
And what a marvelous career Larry Harlow has had, releasing over forty albums on Fania Records as a leader, and producing more than two-hundred records for Fania with seminal Latin artists like Ruben Blades, Hector Lavoe, Ismael Miranda, Johnny Colon, and The Fania All-Stars who performed a sold out concert at Yankee Stadium in 1972. Larry coaxed a then retired Celia Cruz (living in obscurity in Mexico in 1973) to perform on Hommy, A Latin Opera, which was performed at Carnegie Hall. The story was a thinly veiled appropriation of The Who's successful rock opera Tommy, substituting "Tommy", the deaf, blind pinball player with "Hommy", a deaf, blind conga player with prodigious percussion skills. The record spawned worldwide hits - "Gracia Divina", "Soy Sensacional" and "Quirinbomboro" - and rejuvenated Celia Cruz as the "Queen of Salsa" as she embarked on a second recording career, probably the most productive and satisfying of her impressive artistic journey.
Senor Salsa (1976) signed by Larry
Led by his band's infectious, pulsating rhythms and his unbridled enthusiasm, Larry Harlow always puts on a bumpin' show. Most recently, I saw him perform at the Blue Note in New York City along with his expert ten-piece band, including noted drummer Bobby Sanabria, Nelson Gonzalez on tres (Latin guitar), Joe Fielder on trombone, and (per Larry's introduction) "my fellow landsman and colleague for almost fifty years" Lewis Kahn on trombone and violin. It is a joyful and propulsive noise indeed, as the two trumpet and two trombone gloriously drone on, while the piano, bass, drums and two conga supply a sturdy bottom.
Before the show, I visited with Larry in his upstairs dressing room. He was quite expansive as he signed the vinyl. I casually mentioned that I had not seen him perform in this club. "Yes, eighteen straight years playing at the Blue Note in Japan, and this is the first time ever in the Blue Note in New York? And I live on West 86th?! C'mon, there's something wrong with that!" How about Cuba, have you ever gone back? "No, I haven't played there since 1978. I have no interest in going back, they don't want to pay anything. Their musicians come here and get paid well and they take our jobs, but they don't want to pay us anything. No thanks." I heard you were writing a book? "Yes, the book is written but it's stuck in editing. You know Judith Regan? Well, she signed me, paid me $50,000, said she would personally edit my book, did nothing and disappeared. She's busy now with (disgraced NYC police commissioner) Bernie Kerik's book. I did like the fifty grand though," Larry said with a knowing smile.
Senor 007 (1965) signed by Ray Barretto, unsigned by Larry
I gave him a couple of albums to sign. He asked, "How many do you have? You know I made fifty-six." I said, I wish I had all of them plus the two-hundred-fifty you produced, as I handed him a Ray Barretto album. "Nah, I'm not signing that. You know, I miss Ray. A great friend, he played with me in the Fania-All Stars in the 1970s and he was in my first Latin Legends band in 1995. Ray had some problems though, he didn't pay his taxes for twenty-five years and it caught up with him. So, when we played, all he wanted was cash and that made it hard for the rest of the band. I didn't produce any of his albums, he was a real musician not just a drummer. He could write, arrange, produce, he was the real deal. He didn't need me as a producer." Like Tito Puente who studied at Juilliard? "Yes, exactly like Tito!"
How about the Rumble In The Jungle in Zaire in 1974? "Crazy. We were there twelve days, there was no money, but we had a blast. The (Muhammad Ali-George Foreman) fight was delayed because Foreman broke his wrist in training, but the concerts were booked so we went anyway. We had too much equipment on the (charter) plane going over there, so we had to shift it to the back of the plane. It's a miracle we got there." I mentioned that my friend, Gary Stromberg, was on the plane, and he told me that there were a lot of extracurricular activities. Larry had a big smile. "Yes, well, James Brown brought his own 'doctor' with his own bag. You can guess what was in it! Yes, there was a lot of stuff going on." How were the concerts? "The shows were great. I later produced all the music, but the scene was wild. They were hanging young kids underneath the stands for petty theft and stuff like that, while we were playing. We didn't know it at the time, but that was incredible. The (Mobutu) martial law was brutal. And all these young African bands showed up to play and we had no idea who they were. We'd say to them, 'Ok, the band in the blue suits, you're next, let's go', and they would play and they would be great. One of the bands was led by Fela Kuti, I knew who he was and he was impressive."
Nice ‘n’ Naasty (1976) signed by Larry
I asked him about his reception in other countries, playing in stadiums versus small clubs. "You know, I'm big in Colombia. Fans are so passionate, they're asking me to play songs from my first album. It's been so long, I have no idea how to play the songs. They know all the words, they ask questions like who is the bass player on the second side, track 3? How am I supposed to know?! They are fanatics. They get very deep. They also find out where you're staying and they will show up at your hotel and swarm, like two-hundred-fifty people following us around. We're like rock stars. My wife, well, my new wife is certainly not used to that." Again, Larry flashed a very knowing smile.
I mentioned that I was seeing Eddie Palmieri in a couple of weeks. "Oh, he's great, we're great friends. We go back a long time." What was his brother Charlie like? "Great musician, you know, a much better talent than Eddie, but he drank too much. That's what took him out. I'll tell you who was a great pianist that no one has ever heard - Bundini Brown (Muhammad Ali's corner man, sometime poet and author of "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, Your hands can't hit, what your eyes can't see"). He was a helluva stride player, he could really play. I'm not kidding." I thanked Larry for all his courtesy and kindness, and as I left, he said, "Hey Neil, really nice chatting with you. When I see you downstairs, I expect you to clap. Loud!"
No problem, Larry. No problem. Now if only his book could get published!
Synergy (1992) signed by Larry
Choice Larry Harlow Cuts (per BKs request)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W777MIR8-ko
"Guantanamera" Celia Cruz with Fania All-Stars Zaire, Africa 1974
Larry Harlow on piano, Johnny Pacheco conducting, Ray Barretto on conga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXN-_asIaYs
"Quimbara" Celia Cruz with Fania All-Stars Zaire, Africa 1974
Larry Harlow on piano, Johnny Pacheco conducting, Ray Barretto on conga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed7aKWIq28w
"La Cartera" Orchestra Harlow live - dig Larry's corn rows!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed7aKWIq28w
"Descarga" Buda All-Stars live with Larry and Charlie Palmieri on piano, Mongo Santamaria on conga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MX__RFXq4s
"Gracia Divina" Celia Cruz Hommy, A Latin Opera 1972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hChH_YyWAo4
"Soy Sensacional" Orchestra Harlow Hommy, A Latin Opera 1972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xEbVo1fy8I
"Descarga Fania" Larry Harlow's Latin Legends, Blue Note Tokyo 2015