Larry Harlow

Larry Harlow emerged among the storied figures from New York's Fania Records, the premier imprint for Latin sounds. Over a professional span exceeding six decades, he assumed multiple positions. As the producer behind 260 Fania singles and albums plus musical director for the Fania All-Stars, he also issued numerous recordings under his own name and through Orchestra Harlow, an ensemble that spotlighted leading musicians of the salsa period. His Fania debut, Heavy Smokin', arrived in 1965, followed by Orchestra Harlow Presenta A Ismael Miranda in 1968, which helped launch the salsa dura movement of the 1970s. Amid that decade's upheavals in Latin music, his 1971 Tribute to Arsenio Rodriguez bridged contemporary and traditional segments of the Latin community. He composed and recorded Hommy: A Latin Opera, staged at Carnegie Hall in 1973, while the expansive suite La Raza Latina, tracing Latin music's history alongside singer/songwriter Rubén Blades, appeared in 1977 and earned a Grammy nomination. He delivered the landmark Our Latin Feeling with Junior Rodriguez in 1980. The 1991 release My Time Is Now received worldwide recognition, and in 2010 Harlow championed the establishment of the Latin Grammy awards. His concluding effort, 2016's Passing the Torch (a joint project with pianist, composer, and producer Marlow Rosado), garnered critical praise throughout the U.S. and Latin America.

Affectionately and respectfully known throughout the Latin music scene as "El Judío Maravilloso" ("The Marvelous Jew"), Harlow entered the world as Ira Kahn in Brooklyn in 1939. His parents supplied his earliest musical exposure: mother Rose Sherman Kahn performed as an opera singer, while father Nathan, a bass player and bandleader who performed under the stage name Buddy Harlowe, shaped his initial path. Piano lessons commenced at age five. Additional influences came from time spent backstage at the Latin Quarter, the Manhattan venue where his father directed the house band.

Although his father's groups had introduced him to Latin music through mambos at Catskill resorts, Harlow initially aspired to a jazz piano career. Latin music registered faintly until his enrollment at Manhattan's Music and Art High School, where he distinguished himself on oboe, flute, violin, bass, and piano. Daily walks through Latino neighborhoods exposed him to Latin recordings by Perez Prado and Tito Puente emanating from passing bodegas, whose rhythmic, harmonic, and improvisational depth drew him in.

Following high school graduation in 1957, he traveled to Havana for rigorous immersion in Afro-Cuban traditions, encompassing West African liturgical forms and popular dance idioms such as rhumba, mambo, and son montuno, all captured on his tape recorder. He returned to the U.S. amid the Cuban Revolution and assembled his own Latin ensemble. At the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing, Queens, Harlow performed piano with Johnny Pacheco's conjunto band before founding the Larry Harlow Orchestra. Drawing heavily from the Arsenio Rodriguez approach, he updated it and earned recognition as a disciple of "El Ciegito Maravilloso" ("The Marvelous Blind One"), soon receiving the moniker "El Judío Maravilloso" ("The Marvelous Jew"). Prompt signing to the fledgling Fania Records by Jerry Masucci followed. His debut album, Heavy Smokin', highlighted the explosive trumpet/trombone timbre that defined later salsa ensembles. He also pioneered the integration of sacred batà drums from Cuba's Yoruba religion (Santeria) into secular Afro-Cuban dance music in New York. Eventually initiated into Santeria and baptized as a child of Ochun, the Yoruba deity of the river, shekere, and love, Harlow further challenged conventions on Heavy Smokin' when his girlfriend Vicky Berdy contributed backing vocals alongside lead singer Felo Brito, formerly of Charlie Palmieri, breaching an Afro-Cuban taboo. While 1967's Gettin' Off (Bajandote) and El Exigente succeeded in blending son montuno with rhumba, guajira, and boogaloo, it was 1968's Orchestra Harlow Presenta A Ismael Miranda that reached proto-salsa listeners and secured airplay on Latin stations across the United States and Caribbean. Electric Harlow followed in 1969; its use of electric piano on select tracks led some to regard it among the earliest Latin funk recordings. That same year Me and My Monkey appeared, presenting a Latinized rendition of the Beatles' "Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey," which achieved hit status and delivered Harlow's first gold record.

Harlow participated in the divide between modern and traditional Latin music advocates. For the bandleader the two strands formed an inseparable entity. Following Arsenio Rodriguez's death on New Year's Eve in 1970, Harlow sought to connect the factions through his Tribute to Arsenio Rodriguez, which found broad acceptance among Latin audiences. As Fania's inaugural in-house producer and A&R man, he authored the opera Hommy (modeled on the Who's Tommy). Its swift success included a Carnegie Hall performance and facilitated Celia Cruz's return from retirement. That year he also served as first pianist with the Fania All-Stars. He persuaded Masucci and partner Johnny Pacheco to fund and promote director Leon Gast's 1972 documentary Our Latin Thing (Nuestra Cosa), which captured Latin music's vitality in New York at Manhattan's Cheetah nightclub; Orchestra Harlow's rendition of "Abran Paso" with a youthful Ismael Miranda stood among its highlights. The Fania All-Stars' Live at Yankee Stadium appeared the same year, documenting a sold-out concert there and establishing itself as a salsa classic that shaped three subsequent generations of musicians.

Orchestra Harlow issued the classic Salsa in 1974 featuring Junior González on lead vocals (while Miranda remained in the group). Cut across two sessions in fall 1973, the album included a cover of Rodriguez's "La Cartera," a piece Harlow performed live throughout his career. The charting El Judío Maravilloso arrived in 1975. Seven further albums followed before the decade closed, among them the acclaimed La Raza Latina: A Salsa Suite in 1977. This ambitious chronicle of Latin music as a genre, co-created with singer/songwriter Rubén Blades, received a Grammy nomination. Harlow simultaneously signed artists to Fania and oversaw dozens of productions, including the groundbreaking Latin Fever by the identically named ensemble fronted by three female vocalists.

In 1980 Harlow and Junior González joined forces on the hit Our Latin Feeling (Nuestro Sentimeinto Latino). Additional successes included Yo Soy Latino and 1984's Señor Salsa, which yielded at least three club hits such as "Estare Enamorado." He collaborated with flutist brother Andy Harlow (who released several records Larry produced for Fania) on 1988's The Miami Sessions.

Following the internationally praised My Time Is Now in 1991, Harlow assembled the Latin Legends Band alongside singer David Gonzalez, Ray Barretto, Adalberto Santiago, and cuatro guitar virtuoso Yomo Toro to impart Latin music's heritage and foster innovation to Latino and American youth. With rotating vocalists and instrumentalists (among them Pete Rodriguez and Dave Valentin), the ensemble released Larry Harlow and The Latin Legends Band in 1998.

Induction into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame occurred in 2000; in 2002, one year after Latin Legends Band's classic Sofrito!, the organization presented him with the Beny Moré Memorial Award. Larry Harlow's Latin Jazz Encounter documented Live at Birdland in 2003, an audio and video release offering Latin jazz interpretations of many salsa hits. He contributed piano to Mars Volta's "L'Via L'Viaquez" on Frances the Mute in 2005 and joined them onstage at New York's Roseland Ballroom. His Latin Legends of Fania issued a self-titled live album the following year. The Latin Grammy Trustees Award arrived in 2008. Harlow maintained live performances with Latin Legends of Fania through 2016, when he issued his final album, the well-received Passing The Torch in collaboration with arranger, composer, and bandleader Marlow Rosado, and received the Legacy Award at the annual La Musa Awards.

Larry Harlow died on August 20, 2021, from a heart attack while hospitalized for kidney disease; he was 82 years old.