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$25.00
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ARTIST
TITLE
Tesura
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
VAMPI 173LP VAMPI 173LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
7/7/2017

"Though the modern style of New York Latin music known as salsa penetrated South America during the mid to late 1960s, and Colombia had its share of bands and recordings influenced by this new strain of Cuban-influenced urban Latin dance music, it wasn't until Medellín's Fruko Y Sus Tesos first hit the scene in the early 1970s that the genre began to really take off in a home-grown, domestic form. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, band-leader/bassist/producer Julio Ernesto Estrada (aka Fruko) would develop and tweak his own take on this sound, the arrangements becoming more complex and original over time. In 1968, Fruko personally experienced the burgeoning salsa scene on a tour with Los Corraleros de Majagual when they went to Caracas and New York, inspiring him to form the Tesos (local slang for tough guys who know it all and are on top of their game, bestowed upon the band by Fruko's lead trumpeter, Jorge Gaviria) in 1969. Tesura (from 1970) is Fruko Y Sus Tesos' debut record. It displays a diamond-in-the-rough simplicity born of the street, flaunting an uncompromising macho menace that is compelling in its focus and elemental integrity, heavily influenced by Willie Colón's gangster posturing in New York. As Fruko has said, when Tesura was first released Colombians were convinced it was in fact recorded by a Nuyorican group, so thoroughly did it break with previous Colombian tastes, which until then had been mostly for bambuco, tango, ranchera or cumbia. . . . From the severely separated audio channeling to the uncompromising rhythmic approach and ubiquitous sharp trumpet stabs in the style of Ricardo Ray and Ray Barretto, Tesura more than lives up to its title (slang for 'toughness'). Fruko is right out front, his giant electric bass positioned in the center. The emphasis is on allowing the musicians to flex their muscles and strut their stuff, with many purely instrumental sections in a descarga (jam session) style echoing the freedoms being explored by the previously mentioned New York heavyweights Ray, Colón and Barretto, as well as Eddie Palmieri, Larry Harlow, Louie Ramírez and Johnny Pacheco. . . . The vocalist for this record is Humberto 'Huango' Muriel (shown on the cover with the cigar and attack dog), who had been in Sexteto Miramar." --Pablo Yglesias, aka DJ Bongohead This first ever reissue is presented in facsimile artwork and pressed on 180 gram vinyl.