I bought a few LPs today that are pretty banged up including this one from 1961
As far as I can tell this is the point where Cuban music from Cuba and Cuban style music in the US begin to split on the way to full fledged salsa… initially the new US variant - at first very similar to Cuban-is called charanga and is typified by a flute and string instrument backing
Johnny Pacheco is instrumental in the development of salsa… in fact he sets up Fania a few years later (think US Latin music equivalent to Blue Note) and even puts out first record on it…
All of this early America Latin music seems to have come out of the Bronx