Electric bass guitarist and upright bassist Salvador "Sal" Cuevas was for many years, a member of the salsa music

Salsa music

Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...

 group Fania All-Stars

Fania All-Stars

The Fania All-Stars was a musical ensemble established in 1968 by the composer, Johnny Pacheco, as a showcase for the musicians on the record label Fania Records, the leading salsa record company of the time.-Beginnings:...

, circa (1978–1985), as well as several other top name salsa groups of the time (Johnny Pacheco, Hector Lavoe, Pete Conde, etc.).
Sal also enjoyed the title of Musical Director to Willie Colon's orquestra both during Willie's collaborations with famed Panamanian singer/songwriter/actor Rubén Blades, and Willie's solo singing ventures. Sal was born in Manhattan on June 16, 1955 and raised in The Bronx

The Bronx

The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...

, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 by Puerto Rican parents. He grew up in the tough streets of the South Bronx

South Bronx

The South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of The Bronx. The neighborhoods of Tremont, University Heights, Highbridge, Morrisania, Soundview, Hunts Point, and Castle Hill are sometimes considered part of the South Bronx....

 yet from the age of five, where his dad helped him develop his deep love of music, Sal was able to stay away from the negative influences that those streets can bring. Musically speaking, the demographics of the 'City' during that time, provided Sal with a tremendous array of musical influences, which he wisely obsorbed and later incorporated into his bass playing technique and style.
Always in demand, he has recorded and performed with a long list of the giants of salsa, jazz, pop, rock and beyond, including; Willie Colón

Willie Colón

William Anthony Colón is a Nuyorican salsa musician. Primarily a trombonist, Colón also sings, writes, produces and acts. He is also involved in municipal politics in New York City.-Early years:...

, Rubén Blades

Rubén Blades

Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...

, Héctor Lavoe

Héctor Lavoe

Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez , better known as Héctor Lavoe, was a Puerto Rican salsa singer. Lavoe was born and raised in the Machuelito sector of Ponce, Puerto Rico. Early in his life, he attended a local music school and developed an interest inspired by Jesús Sánchez Erazo. He moved to New York...

, Ray Barretto

Ray Barretto

Ray Barretto was a Grammy Award-winning Puerto Rican jazz musician.-Early years:Barretto was born in New York City of Puerto Rican descent...

, Tito Puente

Tito Puente

Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...

, Machito

Machito

Machito , born as Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo, was an influential Latin jazz musician who helped refine Afro-Cuban jazz and create both Cubop and salsa music...

, Fania All-Stars

Fania All-Stars

The Fania All-Stars was a musical ensemble established in 1968 by the composer, Johnny Pacheco, as a showcase for the musicians on the record label Fania Records, the leading salsa record company of the time.-Beginnings:...

, Celia Cruz

Celia Cruz

Celia Cruz was a Cuban-American salsa singer, and was one of the most successful Salsa performers of the 20th century, having earned twenty-three gold albums...

, Larry Harlow, Ismael Miranda

Ismael Miranda

Ismael Miranda a.k.a. El niño bonito de la Salsa is a composer and a singer of salsa music.-Early years:...

, Eddie Palmieri

Eddie Palmieri

Eddie Palmieri , is a Grammy Award winning Puerto Rican pianist, bandleader and musician, best known for combining jazz piano and instrumental solos with Latin rhythms.-Early years:...

, Cheo Feliciano

Cheo Feliciano

José Feliciano, better known as Cheo Feliciano , is a composer and singer of salsa and bolero music.-Early years:...

, Johnny Pacheco

Johnny Pacheco

Johnny Pacheco is a Dominican producer, musician, bandleader, and one of the most influential figures in American salsa music.-Early life:...

, Tito Nieves

Tito Nieves

Humberto "Tito" Nieves became one of the leading Salsa singers of the 1980s and the early 1990s....

, Soledad Bravo

Soledad Bravo

Soledad Bravo , is a Venezuelan singer.Born in Logroño, La Rioja, Spain her father was a Spanish republican, moving to Venezuela with his family when his daughter was still at an early age. At 24, Soledad began studying architecture and philosophy at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, where she...

, Sophy, Fernandito Villalona, Arturo Sandoval

Arturo Sandoval

Arturo Sandoval is a jazz trumpeter and pianist. He was born in Artemisa, in the newest renamed Artemisa Province, Cuba....

, Billy Idol

Billy Idol

William Michael Albert Broad , better known by his stage name Billy Idol, is an English rock musician. A member of the Bromley Contingent of Sex Pistols fans, Idol first achieved fame in the punk rock era as a member of the band Generation X...

, Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz

Leonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and arranger, whose "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, soul, R&B, funk, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, folk and ballads...

, Kirsty MacColl

Kirsty MacColl

Kirsty Anna MacColl was an English singer-songwriter.MacColl scored several pop hits from the early 1980s to the early 1990s...

, Jon Lucien

Jon Lucien

Jon Lucien was born on the island of Tortola, the main island of the British Virgin Islands. Born Lucien Harrigan, and raised in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands by his musician father, Lucien was best known for his song "Rashida", the title track of an album released in 1973, and one of two...

, Angela Bofill

Angela Bofill

Angela Bofill is an American R&B vocalist and songwriter.Bofill was born to a Cuban father and a Puerto Rican mother; one of the first Latina singers to find success in the R&B market.She performed with Ricardo Marrero & the Group and Dance Theater of Harlem chorus prior to her 1978 debut album,...

, Dave Valentin

Dave Valentin

Dave Valentin is a jazz flutist.He learned latin percussion first when he was a teenager, and then switched to flute. Valentin's teacher, Hubert Laws, suggested that he not double on saxophone because of his attractive sound on the flute. He studied at the Bronx Community College...

, Noel Pointer

Noel Pointer

Noel Pointer was an American jazz violinist and record producer.He was nominated for a Grammy award in 1981. Pointer's reputation as an outstanding jazz musician and literary advocate garnered him honorary citizenship in cities across the United States...

, Airto & Flora Purim, Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...

, Ricky Martin

Ricky Martin

Enrique "Ricky" Martín Morales , better known as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican and Spanish pop singer and actor who achieved prominence, first as a member of the Latin boy band Menudo, then as a solo artist since 1991.During his career he has sold more than 60 million album copies worldwide...

, Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...

, Marc Anthony

Marc Anthony

Marc Anthony is an American singer-songwriter, actor and producer. Anthony is the top selling tropical salsa artist of all time. The two-time Grammy and three-time Latin Grammy–winner has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. He is best known for his Latin salsa numbers and ballads...

, Gilberto Santarosa, Olga Tañon

Olga Tañón

Olga Tañón is a two-time Grammy Award and three-time Latin Grammy-winning Merengue and Latin Pop artist. Tañón has earned 5 Latin Grammy Awards and 19 Premios Lo Nuestro awards during her career.-Early years:...

, Jaci Velaquez, Mandy Moore

Mandy Moore

Amanda Leigh "Mandy" Moore is an American singer-songwriter, actress and fashion designer. Moore became famous as a teenager in the late 1990s, after the release of her teen pop albums So Real, I Wanna Be with You, and Mandy Moore. In 2007, she took an adult pop-folk direction with the release of...

, José Feliciano

José Feliciano

José Feliciano is a Puerto Rican singer, virtuoso guitarist and composer known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".-Childhood:...

, Oscar D'León

Oscar D'León

Oscar Emilio León Somoza, better known as Oscar D'León is a Venezuelan musician who became internationally famous for his salsa music. In Spanish, he is known as El Sonero del Mundo . His most famous song is perhaps "Llorarás," which he recorded in 1975 with his group La Dimensión Latina...

, Gloria Estefan

Gloria Estefan

Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...

, Jon Secada

Jon Secada

Jon Secada is a Cuban-American singer and songwriter. Secada was born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Hialeah, Florida. He has won two Grammy Awards and sold 20 million albums since his English-language debut album in 1992. His music fuses funk, soul, pop and Latin percussion...

, Franco DeVita, Ricardo Montaner

Ricardo Montaner

Ricardo Montaner is an Argentine-Venezuelan singer and songwriter. Starting his career in the early 80s, he has already released more than 15 albums with numerous successful singles and has sold over 22 million record worldwide.-Early years:Montaner was born as Héctor Eduardo Reglero Montaner, in...

, Amaury Gutierrez

Amaury Gutiérrez

Amaury Gutiérrez is a Cuban artist.His first album Amaury Gutiérrez was nominated for a Latin Grammy and sold more than 600 thousand copies...

, Christian Castro, David Bisbal

David Bisbal

David Bisbal Ferré is a Grammy-winning Spanish pop singer. He gained his initial fame as a runner up on the interactive reality television show Operación Triunfo produced by TJ Hall....

, Thalía

Thalía

Ariadna Thalía Sodi Miranda , known simply by the mononym Thalía , is a Mexican singer and actress. She has sold over 40 million albums worldwide...

, La India

La India

La India , known also as "La Princesa de la Salsa" , is a singer of salsa. She has been nominated for both Grammy and Latin Grammy awards.-Early years:...

, Obie Bermúdez

Obie Bermúdez

Obie Bermúdez , is a Puerto Rican-American R&B/Salsa singer and composer.-Early years:Bermúdez was born in Aibonito, Puerto Rico into a family who loved music. His father and grandfather were both musicians. He received his primary education in the town of Aibonito, however in 1992 the family...

, Los Ilegales, Gaitanes

Gaitanes

Ricardo Gaitan and Alberto Gaitan are musical producers, singers and songwriters.- Biography :...

, Gian Marco, Hector 'El Father', Don Omar

Don Omar

Don Omar, also known as El Rey Don Omar, also known as El Rey Don Omar, also known as El Rey (born William Omar Landrón Rivera; February 10, 1978, is a Puerto Rican Reggaetón singer and actor.-Early life:...

, and the list, (much too long to list here), goes on and on with hundreds of other world famous artist, both Latin and/or American. He was also heavily involved (thanks to friend and fellow bassist Francisco Centeno) in the "Jingle" business of New York.
The early to mid 1970s was a time when the electric bass guitar came of age with the likes of world famous jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius

Jaco Pastorius

John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....

 and Stanley Clarke

Stanley Clarke

Stanley Clarke is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass guitar as well as for his numerous film and television scores...

, and in the Latin music world, Sal kept pace with those guys by taking the instrument to the "next level" within Latin music. Just listen to him seduce you with tradition while also giving the horn players a run for their money on the Ray Barreto album "Ricanstruction".
On a couple of tracks, he also uses sound modifying effects and foot pedals to add a different "color" to the sound of the bass. Sal is credited as being the innovator of Latin music bass playing when he first incorporated never before heard, nor utilized, Funk/Jazz/R&B/Rock styles and techniques on the instrument.
While maintaining the traditional flavor and concepts of authencity within Latin music, he managed to fuse all those other "worlds" into his bass playing technique, resulting in the creation of a completely unique style. On some recordings, he would include playing very intricate horn section lines or phrases on the bass, in unison with the horn section, which until then, was virtually unheard of within the genre, as was his funky bass slapping, and string snapping technique which has today become a norm for bassist within Latin salsa music thanks to Sal.
On the electric upright bass, Sal managed to incorporate techniques which until then were completely unheard of in Latin music, such as slides, (Glisandos), and utilizing the very upper ranges of the instrument, (Check out Sal with Papo Lucca/Celia Cruz on Sonora Poncena's "La Ceiba Y La Siguaraya"). Internet searches on Sal are sometimes incomplete, but he is currently living in South Florida, yet he stays very active doing recordings, songwriting, and productions. Sal plays a couple of other instruments as well.
An outstanding example of his playing is on Arturo Sandoval's Danzon recording, a brilliant rethinking of Dizzy Gillespie's "Groovin' High".