Watched the first two episodes of Latin Music USA tonight. I think it started airing on PBS stations last month, but we just started getting here a couple of weeks ago. First episode was a look at the early years of Latin music and the ways it crossed over to a more "mainstream" audience. Starting with Mario Bauza and wrapping up with Carlos Santana and including stuff on Machito, Dizzy Gillespie, 50s mambo, Tito Puente and more. Where the first episode was sprawling, the second was very tightly focused on the rise of salsa in NYC in the 60s and 70s, particularly as seen thru the Fania story. Lots of good stuff: interviews with Willie Colón, Larry Harlow, Ruben Blades. Great footage of the whole Fania crew from back in the day. If I had any criticism it's that the stuff with Jerry Masucci kinda takes over the show. Would've been nice to hear a bit more from Johnny Pacheco, particularly his take on how things went downhill on the business side. Was also sorry that they didn't get any interviews with Ray Barretto. Was very happy to see that Colón's great Xmas album, Asalto Navideño, got a mention. I think this ep. just resonated with me more cos even though I wasn't paying attention to Fania in the 70s, it's the roots of the salsa that I was hearing in the 80s. Even if I wasn't actively seeking it out, it was what was out there. Before I ever got into world music, if you'd asked me what Latin music was, I'd have said it was NYC salsa. And, of course, 70s salsa was the source of a lot of stuff I was listening to in the 80s, from Konk to Kid Creole to (of course) Ruben Blades.

Side-note: among the many things I learned from these 2 episodes is that keeping track of all the Colóns in NYC Latin music is like keeping track of the Diabates in the Malian scene.