Willie Colón

About Willie Colón

Willie Colón is a trombonist, composer, and producer who became one of salsa's great architects, first as a teenage bandleader for Fania and then across a career of restless reinvention. His records with Héctor Lavoe and later Rubén Blades pushed salsa toward socially conscious storytelling, and El Gran Varón broke ground as a pop hit about AIDS and acceptance. His trombone-forward sound helped define the New York and Puerto Rican salsa canon.