The trigger was pneumonia, mentioned a son, Elis Pacheco. He additionally had Parkinson’s illness.
Mr. Pacheco, who was dubbed the “godfather of salsa,” was a Juilliard-trained musician and bandleader, however his best contributions might have been as an impresario.
In 1964, he and a enterprise accomplice, Jerry Masucci, launched Fania Data, which quickly turned the label of alternative for main musicians and singers of Latin American heritage, together with Ray Barretto, Mongo Santamaria, Eddie Palmieri, Willie Colón, Hector Lavoe and Rubén Blades.
Mr. Pacheco was the expertise scout, bandleader and producer who supervised the recordings, which he and Masucci first bought from their vehicles. Mr. Pacheco freely blended musical kinds, combining components of the mambo from Cuba, the bomba from Puerto Rico and the merengue from the Dominican Republic with American jazz and rock to create an altogether new style of music referred to as salsa (Spanish for “sauce”).
On the studio, Mr. Pacheco introduced the musicians collectively, typically taking part in the flute or percussion devices himself. He changed the violin sections of conventional Cuban music with trumpets and trombones from big-band jazz. He added the electrical bass and amplified keyboards from rock music, then layered the melodies over thunderous rhythmic patterns of drummers, conga, bongo and timbale gamers.
“Our solely objective was to make individuals dance,” Mr. Pacheco instructed the Los Angeles Instances in 1999.
In lots of instances, he selected the musicians for the recordings, together with a landmark pairing of Cuban singer Celia Cruz and Puerto Rican percussionist Tito Puente for the 1966 album “Cuba y Puerto Rico Son.” Cruz recorded an album with Mr. Pacheco, “Celia & Johnny,” in 1974.
Salsa was a dance-driven fashion of fusion music that would have been created solely in New York. The lyrics of the principally Spanish-language songs — lots of them written by Mr. Pacheco — mirrored a tricky, new city sensibility, typically bearing on cultural satisfaction and racial injustice.
“Again then, there was no musical fashion with which Latinos might establish,” Mr. Pacheco instructed the Los Angeles Instances in 1999. “After we began the label . . . we prompted an explosion of types. We had a really gifted roster and paid loads of consideration to the selection of fabric.”
A number of the Fania musicians, together with percussionist Barretto and pianist Palmieri, have been virtuosos who typically appeared with famend jazz musicians. Colón was a strong trombonist and bandleader who, at Mr. Pacheco’s suggestion within the early Seventies, employed Lavoe, a younger singer from Puerto Rico. With songs akin to “Mi Gente” (“My Individuals,” written by Mr. Pacheco), Lavoe turned often called “la Voz” — the Voice — of salsa. Second-generation salsa singer Marc Anthony starred with Jennifer Lopez in “El Cantante,” a 2006 biopic about Lavoe, who died at 46 in 1993.
Mr. Pacheco additionally matched Colón with Blades, a Panamanian singer-songwriter. They made 4 albums collectively, together with 1978’s “Siembra,” which was Fania’s best-selling recording.
In 1968, Mr. Pacheco started to arrange his label’s prime musicians for concert events of what he referred to as the Fania All Stars. He directed the concert events, which shortly outgrew nightclubs and native neighborhoods. A 1972 live performance documentary, “Our Latin Thing,” directed by Leon Gast, showcased the dynamic music and the individuals who made it.
“At first we didn’t assume we have been something particular,” Mr. Pacheco instructed NPR in 2006, “till each place we went, the strains have been unbelievable.”
In 1973, Mr. Pacheco and Masucci rented Yankee Stadium for a salsa live performance of the Fania All Stars, rejecting recommendation that additionally they e book rock or soul acts to fill the stands. The efficiency, conducted by Mr. Pacheco in his sometimes animated fashion, ended early when among the greater than 40,000 frenzied spectators left their seats and stormed the stage.
Mr. Pacheco took his musicians, together with singer Cruz, to Zaire (now Congo), the place they carried out earlier than greater than 100,000 individuals through the buildup to the 1974 heavyweight boxing championship bout between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali.
Fania Data launched its remaining album in 1979, and Mr. Pacheco bought his curiosity within the enterprise a yr later. In a 2003 interview with the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Name, he seemed again on the 15 years when Fania was flourishing and mentioned, “I needed to have an organization that handled all people like household, and it got here true.”
Juan Azarías Pacheco Knipping was born March 25, 1935, in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. His father was a musician and bandleader, his mom a homemaker. The household moved to the Bronx when Johnny, as he turned recognized, was 11.
He realized to play the accordion, clarinet, saxophone and violin, then studied percussion devices on the Juilliard Faculty in New York. Through the Fifties, he labored in a number of bands performing what was typically referred to as Latin music and likewise was a part of the NBC studio orchestra.
He shaped his first group, Pacheco y Su Charanga — charanga is a Cuban time period for a musical group — in 1960. His first album bought 100,000 copies, spurred by the recognition of a dance fad referred to as the pachanga. He later made a number of recordings for Fania Data, which he and Masucci began with an preliminary funding of $2,500 every. (The title derives from a Cuban tune.)
Within the Nineteen Eighties, the 2 companions had a protracted, bitter dispute over unpaid royalties that was not resolved earlier than Masucci’s demise in 1997. Fania’s catalogue is now owned by the Harmony music group.
Mr. Pacheco, who lived in Fort Lee, N.J., continued to carry out properly into his 70s, drawing new generations of listeners in Venezuela, Colombia and elsewhere. His music appeared in film soundtracks, together with “The Mambo Kings” (1992) and “Carlito’s Way” (1993). He acquired a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences in 2005.
His marriages to Carmen Pacheco and Mona Rothman resulted in divorce. Survivors embrace his third spouse, the previous Maria Elena Sarabia, of Fort Lee; two daughters from his first marriage; two sons from his second marriage; and 6 grandchildren.
After starting his profession primarily as a percussionist, Mr. Pacheco later turned recognized primarily for taking part in a wood Cuban-style flute.
“After I was nonetheless drumming — and I used to be a fairly good drummer — one other musician was going to present me a experience,” he mentioned in 2003. “I began packing up my drum package however the man was in a rush. He took his flute case, put it below his arm, and mentioned he was leaving. I noticed that and I mentioned, ‘That’s my subsequent instrument.’ ”
