Orquesta Bien

Willie Colón - Oh Que Será

We're closing out April with a true pillar of Salsa music, who passed at the end of February but who was born on this day in 1950.

Born, like my own parents, in the South Bronx in NYC. Almost as soon as he could hold a brass instrument, he gravitated immediately toward the trumpet and then trombone.

He was signed to the seminal Fania label by age 15, and by the time Willie Colón had made it to 17, he'd made his first record as a leader.

It didn't take long for him to evolve into a kind of kingpin of Salsa music, composing many of its most iconic songs and collaborating with literally the entire firmament of the genre's stars in a career in which he sold over 30 million records worldwide.

If his music had a consistent theme shared across his whole output, it would have to do with how deeply he identified with his ancestral Puerto Rico, with a lot of his music exploring the often complex realities of living life as a Puerto Rican in New York City.

Which if you think about it, is almost like being American twice -- PR and NYC being unique geographic and cultural locations unto themselves, but both technically still in the US -- while still fully retaining your Latin heritage and outlook.

He also had great hats, did I mention the classy, always signature-stylish headwear? The suave, invincible outlaw Gangster image that became so popular in the 1970s is said to have had something to do with his 1960s album covers. I dunno about that, but I do know that if I had hats a trillionth this fly, I'd be on a boat in the Bahamas somewhere, being fed grapes by incredibly attractive, musically literate college boys wearing next to nada.

Did I also fail to mention that, in another one of those criminal omissions that make people like me tear their hard drives out, there aren't any ROIOs or unissued concert tapes of Willie Colón that circulate?

Stuff like this sends me onto my super duper YouTube Premium account faster than a teenage boy searching Porn Hub for the first time. Desperately trying to find something I can make into something, so there'll at least be one ROIO around of an artist as undeniably formative as someone of this lofty, almost royal stature.

And hey, bully for me... I found one suitable for processing, so to say.

This show sounded great and went strong and lossless all the way to 16 kHz in the spectral analysis tool I tend to spend almost as much time looking at as YouTube itself.

When I paid close attention, however, it was impossible not to notice that the presence of the bass in the music gradually disappeared over the course of it, until by the fourth tune it was essentially quieter than the World Series aspirations of your average Met fan after another disastrous doubleheader.

When I split it apart to isolate the bass, you could see that dude had come on very loud and boisterous with the slappy poppy thing bass players are sometimes keen to exhibit for women in Row 4 Seat C, that the young ladies might imagine what fingers that impactful might do after a few cocktails back in the hotel room after the gig. It was visually obvious from the waveform that the soundman was duly offended by such behavior, and kept turning him down and down until he was almost not there anymore!

But the music was so good and worth it, it meant I had to go through it tune by tune and make the bass presence somewhat consistent over the 83 minutes of exquisite Salsa Nirvana it comprises. What happened with the girl in the fourth row I'm afraid I can't say.

I clicked so many times adjusting it that the battery had to be changed in my wireless mouse, but at least I got Mr. Slappy Poppy out from under his punishment after 16 years in the sound guy's doghouse. Here, Hear! Let's see what you think...

La Orquesta de Willie Colón

Centro de Convenciones Scencia de La Molina

Lima, Perú

9.10.2010

01 Asia

02 Oh Que Será

03 Medley Contrabando

04 Idilio

05 Mi Sueño

06 Sin Poderte Hablar

07 Gitana

08 El Gran Varon

Total time: 1:23:35

disc break goes after Track 04

Willie Colón - trombone, vocals & percussion

Néstor Agudelo - trombone

Cupertino Bermúdez - tenor & soprano saxophones

Ennio Gaty - piano

Juan Carlos García - bass

Lucho Arroyo - synthesizer

Chino Rey - timbales & percussion

Javier Ortega - congas & percussion

Jairo Rosales - bongós & percussion

Willie Garcés & Janio Coronado - coros & percussion

256/48k audio extracted from an HD YouTube premium video

spectral analysis is lossless to 16 kHz FM cutoff

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, denoised, demuxed, remuxed for better balance & remastered by EN, April 2026
538 MB FLAC/direct link

I realize it's kinda cheap for a FLAC dogmatic like me to do these this way, but if they go lossless to the standard FM 15 kHz, or even the preFM 20 like some of them do, what makes them different from a radio rebroadcast you'd get off of the WDR in Germany or on France Musique? I gotta do something since Bill's Bardo of Boosted Boots went off the air, am I right? Plus this one sounds fantastic, especially since the bass is now more discernable than the Oort cloud is in the distant night sky from Earth.

I'm getting into May already, so if at the end of next month you hear them on the Infotainment News channels warning you of some sort of ridiculous DDOS attack or whatever, it ain't gonna be "the terrorists" at all. It's not even gonna be the traditional False Flag, brought to you by your friends at Dassom Industries... no, that's just drama for your momma without so much as a merciful comma. If the internet goes down, rest assured it's just gonna be little ol' Joshy, breaking the servers into tiny silicon fragments with posts all about the 100th birthday of Miles Davis.

But that's then, this is now. And now we honor Salsa superman Willie Colón, who'd have been 76 today had he not split the soundstage 7 weeks previous. When you absorb this show, you'll begin to understand that only his body has gone, but his music -- eternally burning with life and fire -- is never gonna have any problem moving yours.--J.

4.28.1950 - 2.21.2026