The emblematic Dominican musician died this Monday in the United States where he resided.
By Ramón Mercedes
NEW YORK.- The emblematic composer, arranger, conductor and music producer, Johnny Pacheco, died this Monday, at the age of 85, at the «Fort Lee Medical Center» hospital, located in New Jersey, due to pneumonia and will be buried in the “White Lang Memorial Park” cemetery in that city, without specifying the exact day yet, it was reported.
Likewise, Dominican salsa, soneros, merengueros, composers and artists intend to pay tribute to him this coming Friday or Saturday afternoon in front of the great United Palace Theater, located on Broadway, between 176th and 175th streets, in Upper Manhattan, where the great musical teacher came to appear on dozens of occasions.
Representatives of the Quisqueyan community in the Big Apple have agreed that with Pacheco’s departure, Hispanic music, mainly salsa, has lost its greatest exponent worldwide.
For the renowned artistic entrepreneur Vidal Cedeño, his death fills us with regret, although we feel privileged as a Latino and most of all as a Dominican to have shared nationality with that superstar who left us a great legacy within the world of music, he said. .
He added that his main contribution was in 1968, that together with Jerry Masucci they formed in NY the most proliferating Latin musical institution known worldwide as “La Fania All Star”, said Cedeño.
While Eugenio Pérez, one of the Dominicans who was closest to Pacheco in the United States, defined him as the “icon of Tropical-Salsa music”, leaving an immense legacy in that genre.
“He was the creator of the movement called” The sound of NY “as a prelude to the ratification of the marketing concept” salsa “, which has been used to identify what we all know as guaracha, guaguancó, charanga, son, chachachá, boogaloo, and mambo, among other rhythms.
He specified that Pacheco took this musical genre throughout the world, as were the cases of Africa and Japan; also throughout Europe and the American Continent.
He recalled that his great friend once told him that when he died he wanted his epitaph to read as follows: “Here lies Johnny Pacheco against his will,” said Pérez.
For his part, the communicator Roberto Gerónimo, who came to share with the deceased musician for decades, on many occasions made him various reports about his artistic life and served as master of ceremony in international shows.
He argued that Latin music has lost its top leader worldwide in “salsa”, because that musical genre included all the rhythms of the Caribbean and other countries, and he knew how to mix it. His death is very regrettable, said Gerónimo.
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