Fania from a Dancer's Perspective

By Sederick Short (OnlineSalsa.com)
AMSTERDAM --- Last year (2009) Albert Torres – one of the world’s greatest organizers of Salsa Dance Congresses and the organizer of the annual World Salsa Dance Championships (from 2005) - issued the following communiqué on the ‘Rules and Regulations’ page of the World Salsa Championship website:

“To all dancers competing at the 4th annual World Salsa Championships December 16-19, 2009 Hard Rock hotel Hollywood, Florida. As many of you have heard Fania Music has been sold. During the process of this sale being finalized no CD's are being sold and none of their music can be used for any reasons”.

This news came as a shock to most of the worldwide competitors (dancers from over 30 countries) who took a lot of time, energy and effort into making and mastering very intricate dance routines on Fania music. The rules and regulations stipulated the use of pre selected Fania music which all dancers could use. The list of songs was directly linked to the Fania site for purchase. Other music was allowed later on, but still nowhere to be found on the championship website. Because of this, the global top of the ‘Salsa Dance Foodchain’ became ‘Fania-tic’.

In 2005 the Emusica (Miami, U.S.A.) bought Fania (New York, U.S.A.) 7 years after Jerry Masucci – co-founder of Fania Records together with Johnny Pacheco – died as sole owner of the nearly deceased company, in 1997.  Emusica did a great job re-mastering and re-issuing classic Fania songs that have been out of print from the late 70’s and earlier on. Because of Emusica’s hard work and dedication, the wonderful music of Fania is not only recalled by collectors and Latinos of a certain age, but it has also found a way into the hearts of the next generation. In May 2009  Emusica sold its assets to Signal-Equity. Everyone expects them to approach the music with the same respect Emusica did.

The End of An Era?
Another quote from the breaking news Torres delivered: “Check this out from yesterdays Descarga.com E Mail Blast: ‘Current Fania Stock to phase out as you probably have heard, the classic salsa label Fania has recently changed ownership. The existing 400+ Emusica/Fania titles are now phasing out and will not be available until - if and when - the new label, Codigo, begins to reissue them. Some titles are already gone. Consider this an advanced warning: many of these titles might be very hard to get for some time. Place order as soon as possible to insure best possible fill.’ ”

Since then there has been a lot of speculation and hording of Fania CD’s going around. The heavily disappointed Torres struck an arrangement with Dimelo Records and issued a list of 98 songs for the competitors to choose from. Little did Jerry Masucci and Jhonny Pacheco know what kind of influence their joint venture would have on the international Salsa Music and Dance world, when they started selling out their releases of the trunk of a car on the streets of Harlem and the Bronx nearly 45 years ago.