By Nate Guidry, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Enid Farber

Larry Harlow -- "When Fidel took over there was no more music coming out of Cuba, so we decided to make our own Afro-Cuban music."

If you're into Latin music, especially salsa, you should love Larry Harlow and the Latin Legends Orchestra. Billed as the official Godfather of Salsa, Harlow and his 12-piece band are set to spice up the evening Friday when they play classic salsa songs at Cabaret at Theater Square in Downtown's Cultural District.

It marks Harlow's first stop in the city, and he said he is looking forward to it. "In all the years I've been performing I have never played Pittsburgh," Harlow said from his home in New York. He said he has some friends at Duquesne University and knows others from Pittsburgh but has never made it any closer than Pittsburgh International Airport.

He also will conduct a free workshop at Duquesne University's PNC Recital Hall at 6 p.m. Thursday night, with a goal of reaching the younger set. "I am finding it hard to find kids interested in the music nowadays," Harlow said. "A lot of them have branched off into hip-hop and reggaeton, which, to me, is a bunch of crap."

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Larry Harlow & the Latin Legends

Where: Cabaret at Theater Square, Downtown.
When: 9 p.m. Friday.
Tickets: $20; 412-456-6666.

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Harlow formed the Latin Legends more than 10 years ago with the late percussionist Ray Barretto, who eventually left the band because he was fed up with the Latin scene and wanted to play jazz.

"I just continued the group," said Harlow, who plays piano. "I kept using invited guests and the shows kept getting bigger and bigger."

In 1998, the group recorded its first album.

"It was a great record, but then Fania Records went out of business," he said. "Now, Fania has new owners, and they are doing a lot of reissued releases." Which is great for Harlow because he recorded on more than 50 albums for Fania as a leader and sideman. He explains that he is one of the last original members of the Fania All-Stars, an ensemble formed in the late 1960s to showcase the record label's salsa roots.

"There's me, Willie Colon, and Johnny Pacheco is around. We are trying to pass the secrets downs to the kids because this is truly an art form."

Harlow was born in Brooklyn in 1939 and attended New York's High School of Music and Art, now LaGuardia High School of Music and Art.

"It was in the heart of Spanish Harlem," Harlow said. "At a young age I knew I wanted to be a musician. I come from a musical family. My mother was an opera singer and my father was a bassist. As much as they discouraged me from wanting to become a musician, I knew that's what I was going to do."

In high school, Harlow said, he became salsa-fied.

"I used to hear all this great music coming out of these bodegas and out of the mom-and-pop record stores," he said. "I wanted to be a jazz player, but in those days if you weren't African-American or an intravenous drug user, you weren't getting into the jazz circle. So I gravitated to Latin music because you could improvise, and eventually I got good at it."

In 1957, Harlow made his first visit to Cuba on vacation. A 10-day trip turned into two years at the University of Havana.

"I stepped off the plane and into paradise," Harlow said. "There was a band on every corner. The radio shows were free, and it was incredible. I returned to New York, packed up all of my stuff and enrolled into college."

While in Cuba, Harlow immersed himself in the music and culture. "I left when Fidel was still on the outskirts of Havana. I used to hear the bombs going off."

After Harlow returned to New York, he and other musicians formed a Latin band.

"When Fidel took over there was no more music coming out of Cuba, so we decided to make our own Afro-Cuban music," he said. "And that's really what it is. It's Afro-Cuban music, not salsa or mambo. We were writing great songs with great lyrics because it was the time of revolution in Cuba. It was also the time of the civil rights movement and Vietnam, Woodstock and the Beatles. We wrote real songs about humanity and politics."

They also made stylistic changes to the music.

"We pumped up the harmonies," Harlow said. "The arrangements also became slicker, and the Spanish people embraced it. They figured the music was something that was uniquely theirs. Wherever we went we had a large following, and as a result, many Latin clubs started popping up."

It was also around this time that Fania Records was formed.

In 1969, Harlow signed to Fania. Two years later, the label signed Willie Colon, and they recorded "Latin Thing," an album that opened the doors to Latin American music.

"We just exploded at that point," he said with a chuckle. "We were the Rolling Stones of Latin music and the Spanish Motown. We were knocking out two records a week, and I was the main producer."

Now, Harlow is leading his own group.

"I am just happy to be playing this music," he said. "I love this music, and I want to pass it on to the next generation. It's truly an art form."

First published on October 17, 2007 at 12:00 am