The current owners of Fania Records:
http://www.fania.com/
have put up the funds to finally do some quality remastering. I downloaded "Acid," "Together" and
"Senior 007" by Ray Barretto, WAV files, and was universally impressed compared to all previous
remasters that I own (and also an original but admittedly worn "Acid" LP). These remasters don't
have the clearly audible digital artifacts of the early 2000's reissue CDs and also have a crispness
and clarity to the percussion and bass that make me think real-deal master tapes were used. I
checked out the sound samples of Barretto's "Hard Hands" at the website, and here they seem to have
had to use a somewhat scratchy LP. That's too bad if the master tape is lost, because it's a great
album.
According to Whacky Packia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tico_Records
Fania acquired Tico Records, which had been under the Roulette umbrella. If it had stayed with
Roulette, it would now be part of UMG via MCA. The Joe Cuba albums made for Tico are owned by the
current iteration of Fania, and sold at the website. Same story for Ray Barretto's United Artists
recordings.
-- Tom Fine
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