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Dateline -- March 20th, 1998.
On March 13th, 1998 I was picked up by Victor at 9am and went to my most favorite airline, Tower Air at JKF. Tower is known for always being late and crowded...Even though we were flying executive class with 20 Fania All-Stars…it was not a great flight..AN OLD 747 WITH A NASTY CREW. Anyway we arrived in San Juan at 3:30 pm, the Z-93 welcoming party was there picked us up, Z-93 was our hosts for the Dia Nacional de la SALSA in Puerto Rico. The 3 vans as always was not large enough to accommodate us all so…we took publicos to the Radisson Ambassador hotel in Condado. I had a beautiful mini-suite, cable, jacuzzi and a balcony on the private floor where Ricky Martin stays (only he has the whole floor with 25 security guardia palitos) At 4:30pm there was the opening of Roberto Roena's new music school rehearsal studio. Manolin Lecarose took me to the party ...The street was closed off with a huge band stage setup with sound system and the works. Food was flowing, music playing, all the band members…But where was Roena? I stayed for an hour and finally when Roberto was no where to be found I left. At the party was: Johnny and Cookie Pacheco, Bobby Valentin and his family, Willie Rosario, Tommy Olivencia, Nicky Marrero, Pete Conde and Son, Anibal Vasquez, and Muuuuuuaaaaaaa. etc. I went back to the hotel for a dinner given by Z-93...great food...nice people. Next day, there was a rehearsal scheduled for 12 noon in the Ambassador. So I, got up at 9am, had breakfast in the ambassador club, hit the papers cut the concert clippings and went to the rehearsal at 12 noon...Not one piece of sound system or member of Fania was there but I figured that it was a 2pm hit. At 2pm I returned to find most of the All-Stars floating around just like in Kenya... missing was Bobby Valentin with the music. We waited another half an hour and finally Bobby shows up. We rehearsed some new material for Andy Mantañez and Ismael Quintana...Papo Lucca was in Venezuela so he sent a sub pianist to play for him...Less work for me for he missed the last 3 rehearsals and I don't really want to cover for him anymore and he understands that…POR FIN. I went to Salsoul radio in Caguas for them to break Latin Legends CD released in Puerto Rico for Ricky's show Salsa Dorada. He played every cut on the CD and I answered many phone calls as I could till Yomo arrived and answered the rest. After the radio show Jochi, Fania's promotion man in PR drove me to Bobby Valentine's home for a birthday party for Pacheco, where many of the all -stars were for a barbecue and and booze. That evening at 4 pm we were supposed to do a soundcheck but it was raining and the sound check was cancelled… We partied till 4:00am and closed the Casino at that time...I finished the evening $360 richer... I got up early, ate, and went to the swimming pool, located on the penthouse. Baked my pale grey body and bald spot for hours and left for the beach for a couple of hours. Pick up was for 4pm to leave for Bayamon (Juan Ramon Lubriel) Baseball Stadium. On the event was Domingo Quiñones , Papo Lucca y la Sonora Ponceña, Roberto Roena Y Apollo Sound, Gilberto Santa Rosa y Orq and of course Las Estrellas de Fania menus Celia Cruz, who was playing with Tito Puente at the Blue Note in New York City for a week...instead of Celia we invited Andy Montañez to do a tribute to Santo Colon, who passed away recently and had two surprise guests to be named later... Because of so much rain the day before and the morning of the show the baseball field was all MUDDDDDD...We loaded the Vans up and with motorcycle police escort, with sirens blazing and blue lights spinning we arrived at Lubriel. We negotiated with the mud to our RV trailers and waited for our turn to go on...There were 1000 reporters, Newscasters and VIP fans backstage. Ray Barretto and I stayed in the trailers until showtime for it was nasty out there every person wanting autographs and picture... Sometimes it gets overwhelming and dangerous. When I was a younger and high on bambú paper I did not feel anything. Now I have all my senses in place and all these people grabbing my privates…it hurts… After La Ponceña we mounted the backstage area made for us...We were to come thru a hole in the scenery with blue smoke ...You could see nothing but smoke...I noticed several TV cameras and inquired where they were from... A camera man said channel 12 PR RECORDING for channel 2 PR...I became NUTS...for in our contracts stated NO recording of any kind audio or video. Soo many times we have been taken advantage of by TV stations, Promoters etc etc ..Well this was NO exception....Z-93 was broadcasting the concert LIVE and making a video for broadcast on telemundo channel 2 without our permission. We were not even asked.....THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. BECAUSE THEY MAKE MILLIONS AND DON'T EVEN SEND A POSTCARD. So what did I do…10 minutes before the show...I started a revolution… RATHER THEN BRING DOWN THE MOOD. I TOLD ALL INVOLVED NOT TO SING ANY RELEASE FOR THE VIDEO , AND INFORMED Pedro Arroyo from Z-93 that if it is shown I will sue him, Z-93 and Telemundo. Now I realize how nice it is to have a son who is an entertainment lawyer. Let me be clear Artists like me have been dicked enough over the for years on this kind of stuff… and have been ripped off enough by record companies, promoters and TV stations all of our professional lives and I am not letting it happen again. The Bambú days are over… now my mind is in control just like when I was producing good music. I have people that seem to care about me and things are different plus, two cats that depend on my attention and that means a lot to me. The crowd was 35,000 strong and had waited since 1pm to see their Legends... We played GREAT for a soling 2 hours and 45 min jam on stage...During the closing number "Quitate Tu" we invited Domingo Quiñones and Michael Stuart to join us ...for those two guys hopefully will take on the torch as the next generation professional real soneros they both sang wonderfully...The only change in personnel was Pupi Legaretta was on violin an original all-Star but who has not played with us for a number of years… Alfredo de la Fe could not enter Puerto Rico from Colombia. Everyone was happy, muddy, wet and underpaid...The crowd was great and without problems and all went home satisfied...By the way , the admission was only $10.00.... Z-93's gift to their listeners… A truly great SALSA station WE RETURNED ON TOWER AIR ... Americas WORST airlines 6 hrs late we arrived in NY at 3am in the morning. Today is my birthday and I'm in Manhattan taking care of the bills and mail. Goodbye for now...L.Harlow
Larry Harlow's Latin Legends Band is the leading worldwide Latin music band ready perform the very best of classical salsa to audiences around the globe. We have a long history of producing quality Latin music commonly known as Salsa..
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