Before it was absorbed by the Fania empire in the '70s, the Tico label reigned supreme in tropical music. There is an epic scope to the Tico discography - from the seminal 78 rpm recordings of Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez, to Machito's excellent sessions of the '50s, the underrated albums that Celia Cruz recorded during the '60s in Mexico and New York and the 1964 Eddie Palmieri masterpiece Azúcar Pa'Ti. Puerto Rico's pioneering bandleader Rafael Cortijo, boogaloo visionary Joe Cuba and melodramatic Cuban diva La Lupe also recorded some of their best sessions for Tico. From the late '60s to the early '70s, the label created a stylistic bridge between the Latin big bands of the past and the emergence of the salsa explosion.