Olga Tañón and El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico

To the average music fan it can be slightly surreal to learn about bands like El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico. We feel so attached to the accepted totems of rock and roll, rap, pop and other genres of mainstream music that we feel that there can’t be any other enormously successful and influential bands, otherwise we would have heard of them. This is, quite obviously when you think about it, not the case.

The music world is far bigger than the one someone reads about in the NME or in a Beatles biography, and El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico are living proof of this. The band stands as the Salsa world’s true icons, able to sell out enormous arena concerts anywhere in Latin America and have over half a century’s worth of experience to their name.

The band began in 1962, founded by the now legendary pianist Rafael Ithier. Rafael Álvarez Guedes was the head of the Cuban record label Gema and asked Ithier to form a backing band to record an album by Dominican merengue singer Joseíto Mateo.

Ithier responded by calling as many members of an old orchestra he’d been a part of previously to the studio. The group instantly gelled, and Álvarez Guedes was so impressed he originally wanted to name the orchestra after Ithier but the pianist refused, instead naming them El Gran Combo.

By May 1962 they were playing live on the radio and on television, and the year after saw the release of their debut album as a group “El Gran Combo... de Siempre”. The album was an instant hit, being certified Gold and making a name for themselves in New York, Panama and the groups native Puerto Rico.

The rest of the sixties were just as good to the band; however, this lead to overexposure and in 1970, their contract with Gema wasn’t renewed. Despite receiving an offer from Motown, the band decided to form their own label just in time for their second renaissance.

The two decades saw them headline Madison Square Garden, support the Fania All Stars at the Yankees Stadium in front of 50,000 fans and headline their own stadium show at Puerto Rico’s own Hiram Bithorn Stadium.

This was done while releasing hit album after hit album and since then, their career hasn’t had any real trouble since those days in the late 60s. Even in 2006, when Ithiel retired from piano playing due to illness, he found it in himself to stay on as the bands conductor.

The band may have had a revolving door policy to membership from day one but they’ve kept the Salsa flame alive through sheer passion and talent. Their show is still utterly unmissable to this very day and should be seen by anyone with respect for the greats of any genre.