Jerry Masucci - Career

Career

Masucci became a partner in the law firm Pariser & Masucci. Masucci met Johnny Pacheco in 1962 when his firm handled Pacheco's divorce. In 1964 Masucci and Pacheco established Fania Records. They started out selling records out of the trunk of cars on the streets of Spanish Harlem, signing up young artists, creating new sounds, and eventually having hit records. Throughout his tenure as an impresario of the Salsa genre, Masucci was reportedly generous, sponsoring lavish parties and buying everyone lunch at rehearsals, while popularizing Salsa among Latin Jazz listeners. Over the next 15 years, Fania Records helped define the sound, culture, and language associated with the Salsa genre, a musical movement that arose partly from the unavailability in the United States of music produced in Cuba.

Masucci became a feature film maker, producing Our Latin Thing, Salsa, Vigilante, and The Last Fight. He became sole owner of the Fania Records label in 1977, and would own ten other recording companies, as well: Vaya, Cotique, Tico, Alegre, Mardi-Gras, Sonido, Exitos, International, Bronco, and Karen. He was also a part-owner of the "Fame" modeling agency.

Masucci had Pacheco directing stage shows and Harlow directing in the studio. Alex Masucci, Jerry's brother, was at the helm of the New York-based Fania Records for many years. Massucci first produced a concert at Yankee Stadium. The event, featuring his Fania-All-Stars, was attended by 45,000 people, and was included in the second set of 50 recordings in a list preserved in the National Recording Registry.

Massucci ventured into the world of boxing with Don King, with whom he promoted a Heavyweight Championship bout fought between Muhammad Ali and Jean-Pierre Coopman in Puerto Rico in 1976.

In 1993 Inspired by the many rock band reunions and country supergroups attracting attention at the time, Chino Rodriguez lobbied Jerry Masucci and Ralph Mercado for a Fania All-Stars reunion. Chino Rodriguez was already managing most of the Fania iconic artists and knew how eager they were to get back to playing regularly in front of larger audiences. Chino Rodriguez (an ex-artist himself and a booking agent) had already booked Larry Harlow as a solo artist at New York City venues like SOB's, Broadway II, and the old Club Broadway on 96th Street, and Jerry had been visiting during these events. Chino Rodriguez was managing and booking most of the former Fania All-Stars including Ismael Miranda. Prior to Masucci's death and the sale of Fania Records, Chino Rodriguez and Ismael Miranda convinced Larry Harlow and Ray Barretto to create the smaller supergroups called the Latin Legends of Fania and Salsa Legends, whom Chino Rodriguez booked at SOB's in New York City. Barretto had been considering such a group for years but never was able to ask Masucci for temporary rights to use the name. The first Latin Legends show sold out. "No one thought it would work but Chino Rodriguez", Harvey Averne said in an interview. "Even I didn't think it would work. He taught all of us that night including Jerry."

Masucci agreed to Chino's proposal and started with three Return of Fania All-Stars concerts in 1994 in New York and Puerto Rico, the first taking place at Madison Square Garden, with Chino Rodriguez acting as exclusive booking agent with Jerry's approval. With the Fania All-Star reunion show going on every 3 to 4 months Jerry had thought about re-vamping the Fania company. He started talking to some of the Major Labels and was fielding offers from Sony, and Universal.

Masucci had decided to have shares of Fania Records issued on Friday, 19 December 1997; Fania was going public. He had a master plan that would make those offers become more of a desire from the major labels to buy or take over FANIA Records, with the Fania All-Stars performing every 3 to 4 months all over the world again, Jerry was feeling as if he stepped back in time and his beloved Fania was once again becoming the leader in the Latin Music world. When Jerry Masucci died over the weekend of December 19, 1997 everything just stopped and the Fania Records shares were never offered. Chino Rodriguez had said Miles Kahn Esq. "Larry Harlow's son show me the prospective and it looked fantastic, it seemed like a share of Fania stock would have cost about the same amount as Universal or Sony at that time.