Family, friends and fans gathered at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral on Monday to remember Willie Col\u00f3n, a New Yorker and Grammy-nominated architect of urban salsa music who died last month at age 75.<\/p>\n
It was a sendoff fit for a king \u2014 a king of Salsa music.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Family, friends and fans gathered Monday morning in New York to pay tribute to Willie Col\u00f3n, the Grammy-nominated architect of\u00a0urban salsa music\u00a0and social activist\u00a0who died last month\u00a0at 75
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A public funeral Mass was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan, following a weekend of private and public visitations. His burial will be private
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The trombonist, composer, arranger and singer born William Anthony Col\u00f3n Roman died on Feb. 21. The cause was not publicly announced<\/p>\n
His family said he passed away peacefully surrounded by relatives at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Bronxville<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I was in the Puerto Rican Day parade, how about that,\u201d fan Mitchell Tolentino said.<\/p>\n
The rhythms of Willie Col\u00f3n echoed down Fifth Avenue Monday morning. His sons gave his eulogy and said it was their father\u2019s dream to have his funeral here.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone knows Willie \u2018El Malo,\u2019 Willie El Salsero, Willie the composer, even Willie the sheriff, but to us he was Papa,\u201d his son Diego Col\u00f3n said.<\/p>\n
Col\u00f3n was of Puerto Rican heritage, and he grew up in the South Bronx. He learned to play the trumpet at 12 years old, switching to a trombone two years later.<\/p>\n
He was a trombonist, composer, arranger and singer, and was revered as a pioneer of Latin music.<\/p>\n
One family traveled all the way from Canada to attend his funeral.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, we come from Montreal and we went to see Willie in October,\u201d Yani Re said. \u201cSo then, when we heard the news, we wanted to be physically here also.\u201d<\/p>\n
A band, including musicians who had played alongside him, serenaded his casket, and hundreds of devoted fans gathered to pay their respects.<\/p>\n
Ozzie Melendez played with Col\u00f3n for more than 35 years and was part of the sendoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an incredible learning experience. It was humbling as a trombonist the way he played, as well as producing and singing. He was one of my mentors, so it\u2019s a very sad day,\u201d Melendez said.<\/p>\n
Col\u00f3n produced 40 albums and sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, and even collaborated with artists like Celia Cruz.<\/p>\n
He was also a community leader who fought for civil rights and served as a special assistant to two New York City mayors. His album, \u201cEl Malo,\u201d featured a quintessential New York sound that drew renewed interest in Latin music during the 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a pioneer. He was a trailblazer. He was an architect of that music. He defined the sound for trombonists all over the world,\u201d trombonist Frank Cohen said.<\/p>\n
Col\u00f3n is survived by his wife of 49 years, Julia Col\u00f3n Craig, four sons, his sister and six grandchildren.<\/p>\n
The cause of his death was not publicly announced, but his family said on social media that he passed away peacefully, surrounded by relatives at a hospital in Westchester County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Family, friends and fans gathered at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral on Monday to remember Willie Col\u00f3n, a New Yorker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[472,2296,25,157,231,9,24,55,54,12,56,1174,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-158767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-app-arts-entertainment","9":"tag-app-human-interest","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-human-interest","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-city-news","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-olivia-leach","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}