During the early 1960s, Johnny Pacheco was riding high on Cuban-based Latin music. Dominican-born and New York-raised, Pacheco was a Juilliard-trained multi-instrumentalist who found success performing and recording with his orchestra Pacheco y Su Charanga. On the scene he came to know Italian American cop-turned-lawyer Jerry Masucci, a passionate fan of New York’s Latin sound. When Pacheco’s marriage fell apart in 1962, he turned to Masucci to handle the divorce. While one union was dissolving, another was born: a Latin music label called Fania Records. The two put $5,000 into their venture and initially sold albums from the trunks of their cars in Spanish Harlem. The label, in short time, established the musical genre that would come to be known as salsa, a collision of traditional Cuban son and pan-Latin rhythms with American jazz and funk.
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