Latin Record Label Polishes Up Its Gold

Tito Puente, Celia Cruz Among Artists Whose Albums Are Being Remastered

The cover of the 1971 album "Cheo," by legendary salsa singer José "Cheo" Feliciano, depicts him standing by the sea in his native Puerto Rico with a pensive expression. He had just emerged triumphant from a harrowing struggle with drug addiction, a common affliction among salseros of his generation.

"Cheo" was Feliciano's comeback album and his debut as a solo artist. To this day, it remains the most successful of his many recordings. It is also the kind of resounding artistic statement that salsa -- a creatively bankrupt genre these days -- lost the power to create a long time ago.

"Cheo" is one of 30 discs reissued recently by the seminal record label Fania. The company, which can be best described as the Latin version of Motown, changed hands last year and has undertaken a groundbreaking remastering and repackaging campaign. The new Fania will reissue about a dozen releases a month until it reaches a self-imposed ceiling of 300 discs culled from the label's catalogue of 1,300 albums.

Notable artists in the Fania canon include Tito Puente, Celia Cruz (at her vocal peak of the mid-'70s to early '80s) and recently deceased conguero Ray Barretto, as well as the holy trinity of salsa: singer-songwriter Rubén Blades, vocalist Héctor Lavoé and trombonist, arranger and composer Willie Colón.

For the first time, a label is doing these artists justice.

"The Fania catalogue represents a cultural and social responsibility that we take very seriously," says Giora Breil, chief marketing officer with Emusica, the company that purchased the Fania assets. "Since our acquisition, we have been trying to build personal relationships with the artists, producers and arrangers who helped create this music."

Founded in 1964 by Dominican bandleader Johnny Pacheco and the late impresario Jerry Masucci, Fania and its subsidiary labels documented the New York salsa explosion of the '70s, the moment when Afro-Caribbean music hit a commercial and artistic zenith by mixing Cuban dance formats with big band jazz and gritty R&B stylings.

"It was a very special time," says Pacheco, who, at 71, still performs with his own band and at Fania reunion shows. "Back then, there was a lot of competition in the Latin scene, which is the best thing that can happen to a musician. We were all hungry. We wanted to play."

Because it remained fiercely independent through the advent of CDs, Fania released discs of substandard sonic quality, transferring many titles directly from LPs instead of the original recording tapes. It paid little attention to the preservation of one of the most remarkable archives Latin music has ever known.

Talks of a Fania buyout circulated among tropical music aficionados for years. The catalogue was finally purchased by the Miami-based Emusica for an undisclosed sum. Universal Latino is distributing the releases in the United States.

The sound is not pristine -- like a vintage wine, it retains the roughness and warmth of the original sessions. Among the treasures: