Here are three songs I love and play all the time, that I wanted to share – the first is “Vete Pa’lla” by Los Magos del Swing on Discos MAG (Peru). Los Magos were a hot tres (and guitar?)-led combo that never released an LP that I have seen – two or three 45s encompass their total output.
This song is an old school despecho (“Sufre, llora, ya no te quiero mas”). For a long time the only copy I could find was pretty shredded, with lots of clicks and pops, so I sent it to my man Fernando in CDMX where they ingeniously polish the record grooves down. With a thick pressing like MAG’s (or old Fuentes) this works great, and the 45 was totally listenable afterwards!
You’ll note the 45 credits “Joe de Cuba” as the author. The actual author was George Rodriguez of Spanish Harlem’s hot vibes-led New Swing Sextet, but the error points to how much the young musicians in Lima and Callao (and Cali and Medellin and Cartagena and Maracaibo and Caracas and Fort de France and…) were listening to and feeling all the hot sounds emanating from NYC in the mid to late ’60s.
The original composition is actually mistitled “Vente Pa Ya” on the 1967 debut album The Explosive New Swing Sextet. If you like this sound, check out Mita Y su Monte Adentro’s “No Coman Cuento” and “No Aguanto Mas” and anything by los Kintos from Peru and proceed directly down that rabbit hole. Saludos a Yamil en Peru!
This lovely song is by Panama’s Tille (Aristides Valderrama) y Su Nueva Dimension. Tille, who grew up in dire poverty near the ruins of the old Panama City (destroyed by English pirate Henry Morgan in 1671) was the first Panamanian to attend the Berklee school of music. He has gone on to a career one of the great professional arrangers and composers in the country’s history, but in the late ’60s he and his brother (on vocals on this track) released a total of four very hard to find 45s. Tille is a sweet and humble genius, and is frustratingly embarrassed by these early recordings. Salseros disagree =) His version of Cortijo’s “Solavaya” (which Colombian melomanos on La Costa have bootlegged – check eBay) is also 
btw.
Here’s another song Fernando turned me on to. Gracias hermano! As it turns out, there is a ton of interesting early Salsa from the Dominican Republic. My coworker Ingrid at El Diario La Prensa in NY told me she used to go to the Barrio Villa Mella in Santo Domingo and see old-timers in guayaberas and patent leather shoes dancing El Son really, really well. This release is on Radhames Aracena’s Zuni label (Aracena founded Radio Guarachita in Santo Domingo). Something in the female voices in the coro reminds me of Joey Pastrana’s “Rumbon Melón”. Disfruten!