Los Angeles , 22 February (H.S.): Salsa music pioneer Willie Colón, the Bronx-born trombonist, bandleader, singer, composer, arranger, and producer whose raw energy defined the genre, died peacefully on Saturday morning, at age 75, surrounded by family, his loved ones announced on Facebook.

It is with deep sorrow that we announce the departure of our cherished husband, father, and esteemed musician, Willie Colón, the family posted. While we grieve his absence, we also rejoice in the timeless gift of his music and the cherished memories he created that will live on forever. No cause of death was disclosed.

Longtime manager Pietro Carlos mourned him as an architect of the New York sound, crediting Colón with politicizing salsa, bridging Caribbean roots and urban grit, and taking it to unprecedented stages.

Born William Anthony Colón Román on April 28, 1950, in New York City's South Bronx to Puerto Rican parents, Colón immersed himself in street music amid Latin migration waves. Starting on trumpet at age 12, he switched to trombone, honing his craft on neighborhood corners before signing with Fania Records at 15. At 16, his 1967 debut El Malo—featuring Héctor Lavoe's vocals—exploded with over 300,000 sales, birthing the New York Sound blending jazz, mambo, jíbara, chachachá, rock, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms.

Colón's partnership with Lavoe yielded anthems like Che Ché Colé, Calle Luna Calle Sol, and Juana Peña. His 1970s fusion with Rubén Blades produced Siembra (1978), the best-selling salsa album ever at over 3 million copies, including Pedro Navaja and politically charged tracks on Metiendo Mano!, Maestra Vida, and Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos. With 40+ albums, 30 million sold, 15 gold records, five platinums, and 10 Grammy/Latin Grammy nods—including a 2004 Lifetime Achievement—he elevated salsa globally.

Billboard hailed Colón among the most influential Latinos; the Latin Recording Academy praised his era-defining aesthetic. An activist for AIDS awareness, UN immigrant causes, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, he graduated from a New York police academy in 2014 as a deputy sheriff.

Recently name-checked by Bad Bunny in Nuevayol (Willie Colón, me dicen el malo...), his trombone echoed Puerto Rican identity, resistance, and pride. Colón is survived by wife Julia Craig (married 1991) and children.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar