Pochy Y Su Cocoband

Among the foremost merengue ensembles active from the start through the middle of the 1990s, the Dominican Republic outfit Pochy y Su Cocoband operated under the leadership of Alfonso "Pochi" Vásquez. Over a decade the collective issued roughly a dozen long-players on the established Kubaney imprint while operating under shifting monikers that began with Cocoband and later encompassed Pochi y Su Cocoband, Pochy y Su Cocoband, and Los Cocotuces. Vásquez assembled the original lineup in 1988, recruiting Kinito Méndez and Bobby Rafael as key members; together with Vásquez, Méndez supplied the bulk of the songwriting before departing in the early 1990s to achieve separate success fronting Rikarena and Rokabanda as well as under his own name. Kubaney introduced the group’s first full-length effort, Cocoband, in 1989 and continued to release further titles such as La Faldita (1990), Llegaron los Cocotuces (1991), Pero con Coco! (1991), El Arrollador (1992), Canciones Cocomanticas (1993), La Coco Es la Coco (1994), El Hombre Llegó Parao (1995), Temible (1995), and El Ombliguito (1996). The label also assembled retrospective packages that included Grandes Exitos de la Cocoband, Vol. 1 (1994), Grandes Exitos de la Cocoband, Vol. 2 (1994), and the two-disc Coco Mixes (1998), the last of which gathered extended merenhouse remixes that mirrored evolving tastes.

By the time that anthology appeared, Vásquez had already exited the Kubaney roster and aligned himself with Fonovisa Records, adopting the new billing Pochy Familia y Su Cocoband. The move coincided with a broadening of stylistic range that incorporated salsa and bachata alongside merengue, as heard on Ponle Sazon (1998), Tu Sabes...No Te Hagas (1999), and Con Más Sabor a Coco (2001). Those three Fonovisa albums signaled a decline in commercial momentum; after issuing the independent one-off Pochy Familia y Su Cocoband (2004), Vásquez largely stepped away from recording. Several years afterward Emusica acquired the Kubaney catalog and reissued selected early-1990s material, issuing two 2007 compilations—Coco de Oro on a single disc and the double-disc A Man and His Music...¡Pero con Coco!—along with additional individual albums. In 2008 Vásquez rejoined Méndez and Rafael for a twentieth-anniversary concert at New York City’s United Palace.