Willie Colón, a Luminary of Salsa Music, Dies at 75

Willie Colón, a trombonist, singer, bandleader, composer and producer whose brassy arrangements and mischievous “El Malo” image helped define New York salsa, died on Saturday at 75. His family announced the death on Facebook but did not provide further details.

His 1978 collaboration with Rubén Blades, Siembra, became one of the top-selling salsa albums of all time. Raised in the South Bronx by his Puerto Rican grandmother, Colón was playing professionally by his early teens. He began on trumpet at 11, switched to valve trombone three years later and recorded his first album, El Malo, in 1967 at 17.

His early partnership with the singer Héctor Lavoe and his trombone-heavy arrangements propelled a career that stretched across nearly six decades. Colón was at the forefront of the mid-1960s shift that mixed American pop, funk and rock with R&B, jazz and Caribbean rhythms to create the emerging salsa sound.

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