Music of Cuba
Encyclopedia
The Caribbean island of Cuba
has developed a wide range of creolized musical styles, based on its cultural origins in Europe and Africa. Since the 19th century its music has been hugely popular and influential throughout the world. It has been perhaps the most popular form of world music
since the introduction of recording technology.
The music of Cuba, including the instruments and the dances, is mostly of European (Spanish) and African origin. Most forms of the present day are creolized fusions and mixtures of these two sources. Almost nothing remains of the original Indian traditions.
, fandango, paso doble and retambico. Later, northern European forms like minuet
, gavotte
, mazurka
, contradanza
, and the waltz
appeared among urban whites. There was also an immigration of Chinese indentured laborers later in the 19th century.
Fernando Ortiz
, the first great Cuban folklorist, described Cuba's musical innovations as arising from the interplay ('transculturation') between African slaves settled on large sugar
plantation
s and Spaniards or Canary Island
ers who grew tobacco
on small farms. The African slaves and their descendants made many percussion instruments and preserved rhythms they had known in their homeland. The most important instruments were the drums, of which there were originally about fifty different types; today only the bongos, congas and batá
drums are regularly seen (the timbales
are descended from kettle drums in Spanish military bands). Also important are the claves
, two short hardwood batons, and the cajón
, a wooden box, originally made from crates. Claves are still used often, and cajons (cajones) were used widely during periods when the drum was banned. In addition, there are other percussion instruments in use for African-origin religious ceremonies. Chinese immigrants contributed the corneta china (Chinese cornet), a Chinese reed instrument still played in the comparsa
s, or carnival
groups, of Santiago de Cuba
.
The great instrumental contribution of the Spanish was their guitar
, but even more important was the tradition of European musical notation
and techniques of musical composition
. Hernando de la Parra's archives give some of our earliest available information on Cuban music. He reported instruments including the clarinet
, violin
and vihuela
. There were few professional musicians at the time, and fewer still of their songs survive. One of the earliest is Ma Teodora, by a freed slave, Teodora Gines of Santiago de Cuba, who was famous for her compositions. The piece is said to be similar to ecclesiastic European forms and 16th century folk songs.
Cuban music has its principal roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time has been influenced by diverse genres from different countries. Important among these are France (and its colonies in the Americas), and the United States.
Cuban music has been immensely influential in other countries. It contributed not only to the development of jazz
and salsa
, but also to the Argentinian tango
, Ghanaian high-life
, West African Afrobeat
, Dominican Bachata and Merengue, Colombian Cumbia
and Spanish Nuevo flamenco
.
The African beliefs and practices certainly influenced Cuba's music. Polyrhythmic percussion
is an inherent part of African music, as melody is part of European music. Also, in African tradition, percussion is always joined to song and dance, and to a particular social setting. The result of the meeting of European and African cultures is that most Cuban popular music is creolized. This creolization of Cuban life has been happening for a long time, and by the 20th century, elements of African belief, music and dance were well integrated into popular and folk forms.
(1725–1803), who spent much of his life teaching and writing music for the Church. He was followed in the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba by the priest Juan París
(1759–1845). París was an exceptionally industrious man, and an important composer. He encouraged continuous and diverse musical events.p181 Aside from rural music and Afro-Cuban folk music, the most popular kind of urban creole dance music in the 19th century was the contradanza, which commenced as a local form of the English country dance and the derivative French contredanse and Spanish contradanza. While many contradanzas were written for dance, from the mid-century several were written as light-classical parlor pieces for piano. The first distinguished composer in this style was Manuel Saumell
(1818–1870), who is sometimes accordingly hailed as the father of Cuban creole musical development. In the hands of his successor, Ignacio Cervantes
(1847–1905), the danza (as it was more typically called in the latter 1800s), achieved even greater sophistication as a piano idiom.
In the 1840s, the habanera emerged as a languid vocal song using the contradanza rhythm. (Non-Cubans sometimes called Cuban contradanzas "habaneras.") The habanera went on to become popular in Spain and elsewhere. The Cuban contradanza/danza was also an important influence on the Puerto Rican danza, which went on to enjoy its own dynamic and distinctive career lasting through the 1930s. In Cuba, in the 1880s the contradanza/danza gave birth to the danzón, which effectively superseded it in popularity.
Laureano Fuentes
(1825–1898) came from a family of musicians and wrote the first opera to be composed on the island, La hija de Jéfe (the Chief's daughter). This was later lengthened and staged under the title Seila. His numerous works spanned all genres. Gaspar Villate
(1851–1891) produced abundant and wide-ranging work, all centered on opera.p239 José White (1836–1918), a mulatto of a Spanish father and an Afrocuban mother, was a composer and a violinist of international merit. He learnt to play sixteen instruments, and lived, variously, in Cuba, Latin America and Paris. His most famous work is La bella cubana, a habanera.
During the middle years of the 19th century, a young American musician came to Havana: Louis Moreau Gottschalk
(1829–1869), whose father was a Jewish businessman from London, and his mother a white creole of French Catholic background. Gottschalk was brought up mostly by his black grandmother and nurse Sally, both from Dominique
. He was a piano prodigy who had listened to the music and seen the dancing in Congo Square
, New Orleans from childhood. His period in Cuba lasted from 1853 to 1862, with visits to Puerto Rico
and Martinique
squeezed in. He composed many creollized pieces, such as the habanera Bamboula (Danse de negres) (1844/5), the title referring to a bass Afro-Caribbean drum; El cocoye (1853), a version of a rhythmic melody already present in Cuba; the contradanza Ojos criollos (Danse cubaine) (1859) and a version of María de la O, which refers to a Cuban mulatto singer. These numbers made use of typical Cuban rhythmic patterns. At one of his farewell concerts he played his Adiós a Cuba to huge applause and shouts of 'bravo!' Unfortunately his score for the work has not survived. In February 1860 Gottschalk produced a huge work La nuit des tropiques in Havana. The work used about 250 musicians and a choir of 200 singers plus a tumba francesa group from Santiago de Cuba
. He produced another huge concert the following year, with new material. These shows probably dwarfed anything seen in the island before or since, and no doubt were unforgettable for those who attended.p147
(1900–1939) and Alejandro García Caturla
(1906–1940) were Cuba's symphonic revolutionaries [though] their music is rarely played today".p354 They both played a part in Afrocubanismo
: the movement in black-themed Cuban culture with origins in the 1920s, and extensively analysed by Fernando Ortiz
. Roldan, born in Paris to a Cuban mulatta and a Spanish father, came to Cuba in 1919 and became the concert-master (first-chair violin) of the new Orquesta Sinfonica de La Habana in 1922. There he met Caturla, at sixteen a second violin. Roldan's compositions included Overture on Cuban themes (1925), and two ballets: La Rebambaramba (1928) and El milagro de Anaquille (1929). There followed a series of Ritmicas and Poema negra (1930) and Tres toques (march, rites, dance) (1931). In Motivos de son (1934) he wrote eight pieces for voice and instruments based on the poet Nicolás Guillén
's set of poems with the same title. His last composition was two Piezas infantiles for piano (1937). Roldan died young, at 38, of a disfiguring facial cancer (he had been an inveterate smoker).
After his student days, Caturla lived all his life in the small central town of Remedios, where he became a lawyer to support his growing family. He had relationships with a number of black women and fathered eleven children by them, which he adopted and supported. His Tres danzas cubanas for symphony orchestra was first performed in Spain in 1929. Bembe was premiered in Havana the same year. His Obertura cubana won first prize in a national contest in 1938. Caturla was a fine man, and an example of a universal musician, happily combining classical and folkloric themes with modern musical ideas. He was murdered at 34 by a young gambler who was due to be sentenced only hours later.
Gonzalo Roig
(1890–1970), was a major force in the first half of the century. A composer and orchestral director, he qualified in piano, violin and composition theory. In 1922 he was one of the founders of the National Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted. In 1927 he was appointed Director of the Havana School of Music. As a composer he specialized in the zarzuela
, a musical theatre form, very popular up to World War II. In 1931 he co-founded a Bufo company (comic theatre) at the Marti Theatre in Havana. He was the composer of the most well-known Cuban zarzuela, Cecilia Valdés
, based on the famous 19th century novel about a Cuban mulata. It was premiered in 1932. He founded various organizations and wrote frequently on musical topics.
One of the greatest Cuban pianist/composers of the 20th century was Ernesto Lecuona
(1895–1963). Lecuona composed over six hundred pieces, mostly in the Cuban vein, and was a pianist of exceptional quality. He was a prolific composer of songs and music for stage and film. His works consisted of zarzuela
, Afro-Cuban and Cuban rhythms, suites and many songs that became latin standards. They include Siboney, Malagueña and The Breeze And I
(Andalucía). In 1942 his great hit Always in my heart (Siempre en mi Corazon) was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song; it lost out to White Christmas. The Ernesto Lecuona Symphonic Orchestra performed the premiere of Lecuona's Black Rhapsody in the Cuban Liberation Day Concert at Carnegie Hall on 10 October 1943.
Although, in Cuba, many composers have written both classical and popular creole types of music, the distinction became clearer after 1960, when (at least initially) the regime frowned on popular music and closed most of the night-club venues, whilst providing financial support for classical music rather than creole forms. From then on most musicians have kept their careers on one side of the invisible line or the other. After the Cuban Revolution
in 1959, a new crop of classical musicians came onto the scene. The most important of these is guitarist Leo Brouwer
, who made significant innovations in classical guitar, and is currently the director of the Havana Symphonic Orchestra. His directorship in the early 1970s of the Cuban Institute of Instrumental and Cinematographic Arts (ICAIC) was instrumental in the formation and consolidation of the nueva trova
movement. Manuel Barrueco
is also a classical guitarist of international renown. Ernesto Tamayo
, a former student of Leo Brouwer, performs internationally.
Cuban-born classical pianists include many who have recorded with the world's greatest symphonies, including Jorge Bolet
(friend of Rachmaninoff and Liszt specialist), Horacio Gutiérrez
(former Tchaikovsky Competition silver medalist), and prize-winning pianist and owner of the "Elan" classical CD company, Santiago Rodriguez
, a Russian-music specialist. Cuban-born classical pianist Zeyda Ruga Suzuki has been recorded on labels in Japan and Canada.
was to be the couduit for Cuban music to reach the world. The most recorded artist in Cuba up to 1925 was a singer at the Alhambra, Adolfo Colombo
. Records show he recorded about 350 numbers between 1906 and 1917.
The first theatre in Havana opened in 1776. The first Cuban-composed opera
appeared in 1807. Theatrical music was hugely important in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century; its significance only began to wane with the change in political and social weather in the second part of the 20th century. Radio, which began in Cuba in 1922, helped the growth of popular music because it provided publicity and a new source of income for the artists.
format. Starting off with imported Spanish content (List of zarzuela composers), it developed into a running commentary on Cuba's social and political events and problems. Zarzuela has the distinction of providing Cuba's first recordings: the soprano Chalía Herrera
(1864–1968) made, outside Cuba, the first recordings by a Cuban artist. She recorded numbers from the zarzuela Cadíz in 1898 on unnumbered Bettini
cylinders.
Zarzuela reached its peak in the first half of the 20th century. A string of front-rank composers such as Gonzalo Roig
, Eliseo Grenet
, Ernesto Lecuona and Rodrigo Prats
produced a series of hits for the Regina and Martí theatres in Havana. Great stars like the vedette Rita Montaner
, who could sing, play the piano, dance and act, were the Cuban equivalents of Mistinguett
and Josephine Baker
in Paris. Some of the best known zarzuelas are La virgen morena (Grenet), La Niña Rita (Grenet and Lecuona), María la O, El batey, Rosa la China (all Lecuona); Gonzalo Roig with La Habana de noche; Rodrigo Prats with Amalia Batista and La perla del caribe; and above all, Cecilia Valdés
(the musical of the most famous Cuban novel of the 19th century, with music by Roig and script by Prats and Agustín Rodríguez). Artists who were introduced to the public in the lyric theatre include Caridad Suarez, María de los Angeles Santana, Esther Borja
and Ignacio Villa, who had such a round, black face that Rita Montaner called him Bola de Nieve
('Snowball').
, began to vanish from Havana. Francisco Covarrubias the 'caricaturist' (1775–1850) was its creator. Gradually, the comic types threw off their European models and became more and more creolized and Cuban. Alongside, the music followed. Argot from slave barracks and poor barrios found its way into lyrics that are those of the guaracha
:
So the bufo theatre became the birthplace of the typically Cuban musical form, the guaracha.
, or the American Vaudeville
, still occur, where an audience is treated to a pot-pourri
of singers, comedians, bands, sketches and speciality acts. Even in cinemas during the silent movies, singers and instrumentalists appeared in the interval, and a pianist played during the films. Bola de Nieve and María Teresa Vera
played in cinemas in their early days. Burlesque
was also common in Havana before 1960.
is a genre of rapid tempo and with lyrics. It originated in Bufo comic theatre in the mid-19th century, and during the early 20th century was often played in the brothels of Havana
. The lyrics were full of slang, and dwelt on events and people in the news. Rhythmically, guaracha exhibits a series of rhythm combinations, such as 6/8 with 2/4.
Many of the early trovadores, such as Manuel Corona
(who worked in a brothel area of Havana), composed and sung guarachas as a balance for the slower bolero
s and canción
es. The satirical lyric content also fitted well with the son, and many bands played both genres. In the mid-20th century the style was taken up by the conjunto
s and big bands as a type of up-tempo music. Today it seems no longer to exist as a distinct musical form; it has been absorbed into the vast maw of Salsa
. Singers who can handle the fast lyrics and are good improvisors are called guaracheros or guaracheras.
Pepe Sánchez
, born José Sánchez (1856–1918), is known as the father of the trova style and the creator of the Cuban bolero. He had no formal training in music. With remarkable natural talent, he composed numbers in his head and never wrote them down. As a result, most of these numbers are now lost for ever, though some two dozen or so survive because friends and disciples transcribed them. His first bolero, Tristezas, is still remembered today. He also created advertisement jingles before radio was born. He was the model and teacher for the great trovadores who followed him.
The first, and one of the longest-lived, was Sindo Garay
(1867–1968). He was an outstanding composer of trova songs, and his best have been sung and recorded many times. Garay was also musically illiterate – in fact, he only taught himself the alphabet
at 16 – but in his case not only were scores recorded by others, but there are recordings. Garay settled in Havana in 1906, and in 1926 joined Rita Montaner and others to visit Paris, spending three months there. He broadcast on radio, made recordings and survived into modern times. He used to say "Not many men have shaken hands with both José Martí
and Fidel Castro
!" p298
José 'Chicho' Ibáñez
(1875–1981) was even longer-lived than Garay. Ibáñez was the first trovador to specialize in the son; he also sung guaguancó
s and pieces from the abakuá
.
The composer Rosendo Ruiz
(1885–1983) was another long-lived trovador. He was the author of a well-known guitar manual. Alberto Villalón
(1882–1955), and Manuel Corona
(1880–1950) were of similar stature. Garay, Ruiz, Villalón and Corona are known as the four greats of the trova, though the following trovadores are also highly regarded.
Patricio Ballagas
(1879–1920); María Teresa Vera
(1895–1965), Lorenzo Hierrezuelo
(1907–1993), Ñico Saquito
(Antonio Fernandez: 1901–1982), Carlos Puebla
(1917–1989) and Compay Segundo
(Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz: 1907–2003) were all great trova musicians. El Guayabero (Faustino Oramas
: 1911–2007) was the last of the old trova.
Trova musicians often worked in pairs and trios, some of them exclusively so (Compay Segundo). As the sexteto/septeto/conjunto genre grew many of them joined in the larger groups. And let's not forget the Trio Matamoros
, who worked together for most of their lives. Matamoros was one of the greats.
This is a song and dance form quite different from its Spanish namesake. It originated in the last quarter of the 19th century with the founder of the traditional trova
, Pepe Sánchez. He wrote the first bolero, Tristezas, which is still sung today. The bolero has always been a staple part of the trova musician's repertoire.
Originally, there were two sections of 16 bars in 2/4 time separated by an instrumental section on the Spanish guitar called the pasacalle. The bolero proved to be exceptionally adaptable, and led to many variants. Typical was the introduction of sychopation leading to the bolero-moruno, bolero-beguine, bolero-mambo, bolero-cha. The bolero-son became for several decades the most popular rhythm for dancing in Cuba, and it was this rhythm that the international dance community picked up and taught as the wrongly-named 'rumba'.
The Cuban bolero was exported all over the world, and is still popular. Leading composers of the bolero were Sindo Garay
, Rosendo Ruiz
, Carlos Puebla
, Rafael Hernández
(Puerto Rico
) and Agustín Lara
(Mexico).
, particularly in Cuba
, where many of the compositions originate. Its roots lie in Spanish, French and Italian popular song forms. Originally highly stylized, with "intricate melodies and dark, enigmatic and elaborate lyrics" The canción was democratized by the trova movement in the latter part of the 19th century, when it became a vehicle for the aspirations and feelings of the population. Canción gradually fused with other forms of Cuban music, such as the bolero.
(El vals) arrived in Cuba by 1814. It was the first dance in which couples were not linked by a communal sequence pattern. It was, and still is, danced in 3/4 time with the accent on the first beat. It was originally thought scandalous because couples faced each other, held each other in the 'closed' hold, and, so to speak, ignored the surrounding community. The waltz entered all countries in the Americas; its relative popularity in 19th century Cuba is hard to estimate.
Indigenous Cuban dances did not use the closed hold with couples dancing independently until the danzón later in the century, though the guaracha
might be an earlier example. The waltz has another characteristic: it is a 'travelling' dance, with couples moving round the arena. In Latin dances, progressive movement of dancers is unusual, but does occur in the conga
, the samba
and the tango
.
(accordeón de botones). While it remained unchanged in its forms, there was a steady decline in interest among the Cuban youth. Later, some artists tried to renew música campesina with new styles, lyrics, themes and arrangements. The music of Celina González
is a successful modern version.
, guitar and güiro
, in combined 6/8 and 3/4 rhythm, accented on the first of every three quavers
.
and verso called punto guajiro
or punto cubano. It has been popularized by artists like Celina González, and has become an influence on modern son. Albita Rodríguez
, now in Miami, began her career as a punto singer.
poetry. Music a mixture of 3/4 and 6/8 rhythms. According to Sánchez de Fuentes
, its first section is in a minor key, its second section in a major key.
Secondly, it is now used mostly to describe slow dance music in 4/4 time, a fusion of the son and the guajira. Guillermo Portabales
was the outstanding singer-guitarist in this genre.
wrote over fifty contradanzas (in 2/4 or 6/8 time), in which his rhythmic and melodic inventiveness was astonishing.
The contradanza is a communal sequence dance, with the dance figures conforming to a set pattern. The selection of figures for a particular dance was usually set by a master of ceremonies or dance leader. There were two parts of 16 bars each, danced in a line or square format. The tempo and style of the music was bright and fairly fast. The earliest Cuban composition of a contradanza is San Pascual bailon, published in 1803. The Cubans developed a number of creolized version, such as the paseo, cadena, ostenido and cadazo. This creolization is an early example of the influence of the African traditions in the Caribbean. Most of the musicians were black or mulatto (even early in the 19th century there were many freed slaves and mixed race persons living in Cuban towns).
The contradanza supplanted the minuet as the most popular dance until from 1842 on, it gave way to the habanera, a quite different style.
, whose forty-one danzas cubanas were a landmark in musical nationalism. This type of dance was eventually replaced by the danzón, which was, like the habanera, much slower and more sedate.
developed out of the contradanza
in the early 19th century. Its great novelty was that it was sung, as well as played and danced. Its development was at least partly due to the influence of French-speaking immigrants. The Haitian revolution of 1791 led to many colonial French and their slaves fleeing to Oriente. The cinquillo
, an important rhythmical pattern, made its first appearance at this time.
The dance style of the habanera is slower and more stately than the danza. By the 1840s habaneras were written, sung, and danced in Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Spain. Since about 1900 the habanera has been a relic dance; but the music has a period charm, and there are some famous compositions, such as Tu, which has been recorded in many versions.
Versions of habanera-type compositions have appeared in the music of Ravel, Bizet, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Fauré
, Albeniz. The rhythm is similar to that of the tango
, and some believe the habanera is the musical father of the tango.
, an elegant musical form that was once more popular than the son in Cuba. It is a descendent of the creollized Cuban contradanza
. The danzón marks the change from the communal sequence dance style of the late 18th century to the couple dances of later times. The stimulus for this was the success of the once-scandalous walz
, where couples danced facing each other, independently from other couples and not as part of a pre-set structure. The danzón was the first Cuban dance to adopt such methods, though there is a difference between the two dances. The walz is a progressive ballroom dance where couples move round the floor in an anti-clockwise direction; the danzón is a 'pocket-handkerchief' dance where a couple stays within a small area of the floor.
The danzón
was developed, according to one's point of view, either by Manuel Saumell
p191 or by Miguel Faílde
in Matanzas
, the official date of origin being 1879. Failde's was an orquesta típica
, a form derived from military bands, using brass, kettle-drums &c. The later development of the charanga
was more suited to the indoor salon and is an orchestral format still popular today in Cuba and some other countries. The charanga uses double bass
, cello
, violin
s, flute
, piano
, paila criolla
and güiro
. This change in instrumental set-up is illustrated in Early Cuban bands
.
From time to time in its 'career', the danzón acquired African influences in its musical structure. It became more syncopated
, especially in its third part. The credit for this is given to José Urfé
, who worked elements of the son into the last part of the danzón in his composition El bombin de Barreto (1910). Both the danzón and the charanga line-up have been strongly influential in later developments.
The danzón was exported to popular acclaim throughout Latin America, especially Mexico. It is now a relic, both in music and in dance, but its highly orchestrated descendents live on in charangas that Faílde and Urfé would likely not recognize. Juan Formell
has had a huge influence through his reorganization of first Orquesta Revé, and later Los Van Van
.
: Rompiendo la rutina. Later, the black singer Barbarito Diez joined the charanga of Antonio María Romeu
in 1935 and, over the years, recorded eleven albums of danzonetes. All later forms have included vocals.
The son, said Cristóbal Díaz, is the most important genre of Cuban music, and the least studied. It can fairly be said that son is to Cuba what the tango
is to Argentina
, or the samba to Brazil. In addition, it is perhaps the most flexible of all forms of Latin-American music. Its great strength is its fusion between European and African musical traditions. Its most characteristic instruments are the Cuban guitar known as the tres
, and the well-known double-headed bongó
; these are present from the start to the present day. Also typical are the claves
, the Spanish guitar
, the double bass
(replacing the early botija
or marímbula
), and early on, the cornet
or trumpet and finally the piano.
The son arose in Oriente, the eastern part of the island, merging the Spanish guitar and lyrical traditions with African percussion and rhythms. We now know that its history as a distinct form is relatively recent. There is no evidence that it goes back further than the end of the 19th century. It moved from Oriente to Havana in about 1909, carried by members of the Permanente (the Army), who were sent out of their areas of origin as a matter of policy. The first recordings were in 1918.
There are many types of son. Odilio Urfé recognised these variants:
and one can certainly add
In addition, the son has again and again changed the older danzón to make it more syncopated and creole in style, starting in 1910, through the danzón-mambo and the cha-cha-cha, to complex modern arrangements that defy categorization.
The son varies widely today, with the defining characteristic a syncopated
bass pulse that comes before the downbeat, giving son and its derivatives (including salsa) its distinctive rhythm; this is known as the anticipated bass. Son lyrics were originally decima (ten line), octosyllabic verse, and performed in 2/4 time, but diversified hugely from the 1920s. See clave
for the son's underpinning structure.
and Guantánamo
), formerly known as Oriente. Because these early groups did not write down and publish their music, it is unclear how the changuí originated, and whether it is a precursor to the mainstream son or not. Changuí has been characterised by its strong emphasis on the downbeat, and is often fast and very percussive.
Changuí exists today in the form of half-a-dozen small groups, mostly from Guantanamo. The instrumentation is similar to that of the early son groups who set up in Havana before 1920. These son groups, for example the early Sexteto Boloña and Sexteto Habanero
, used either marimbulas or botijas as bass instruments before they changed over to the double bass
, musically a more flexible instrument.
It is an open question whether the changui represents a genuinely distinctive music, or whether it is simply an archaic form of son artificially preserved by state support. Some modern orchestras, such as Orquesta Revé, have claimed changuí as their main influence. Whether this is accurate, or not, is unclear.
Much more is now known about early Cuban jazz bands, though a full assessment is plagued by the lack of recordings. Migrations and visits to and from the USA and the mutual exchange of recordings and sheet music kept musicians in the two countries in touch. In the first part of the 20th century there were close relations between musicians in Cuba and those in New Orleans. The orchestra leader in the famous Tropicana Club
, Armando Romeu Jr, was a leading figure in the post-World War II development of Cuban jazz. The phenomenon of cubop and the jam sessions in Havana and New York organized by Cachao created genuine fusions that influence musicians today.
A key historian of early Cuban jazz is Leonardo Acosta. Others have explored the history of jazz and latin jazz more from the U.S. perspective.
in 1914 by Pedro Stacholy (director & piano). Members: Hipólito Herrera (trumpet); Norberto Fabelo (cornet); Ernesto Ribalta (flute & sax); Humberto Domínguez (violin); Luciano Galindo (trombone); Antonio Temprano (tuba); Tomás Medina (drum kit); Marino Rojo (güiro). For fourteen years they played at the Teatro Principal de Sagua. Stacholy studed under Antonio Fabré in Sagua, and completed his studies in New York, where he stayed for three years.
The Cuban Jazz Band was founded in 1922 by Jaime Prats
in Havana. The personnel included his son Rodrigo Prats
on violin, the great flautist Alberto Socarrás
on flute and saxophone
and Pucho Jiménez on slide trombone. The line-up would probably have included double bass, kit drum, banjo
, cornet at least. Earlier works cited this as the first jazz band in Cuba, but evidently there were earlier groups.
In 1924 Moisés Simons
(piano) founded a group which played on the roof garden of the Plaza Hotel in Havana, and consisted of piano, violin, two saxes, banjo, double bass, drums and timbales. Its members included Virgilio Diego (violin); Alberto Soccarás (alto saz, flute); José Ramón Betancourt (tenor sax); Pablo O'Farrill (d. bass). In 1928, still at the same venue, Simons hired Julio Cueva
, a famous trumpeter, and Enrique Santiesteban, a future media star, as vocalist and drummer. These were top instrumentalists, attracted by top fees of $8 a day.p28
Although the exact number of slaves from each African culture will never be known, most came from one of these groups, which are listed in rough order of their cultural impact in Cuba:
1. The Congolese
from the Congo
basin and SW Africa. Many tribes were involved, all called Congos in Cuba. Their religion is called Palo
. Probably the most numerous group, with a huge influence on Cuban music.
2. The Oyó
or Yoruba
from modern Nigeria
, known in Cuba as Lucumí
. Their religion is known as Regla de Ocha (roughly, 'the way of the spirits') and its syncretic version known as Santería
. Culturally of great significance.
3. The Kalabars from part of Nigeria and Cameroon
. These semi-Bantú
groups are known in Cuba as Carabali, and their religious organization as Abakuá
. The street name for them in Cuba was Ñáñigos.
4. The Dahomey
, from Benin
. They were the Fon
, known as arará in Cuba. The Dahomeys were a powerful and terrible people who practised human sacrifice
and slavery
long before Europeans got involved, and even more so during the Atlantic slave trade.p100
5. Haiti
an immigrants to Cuba arrived at various times up to the present day. Leaving aside the French, who also came, the Africans from Haiti were a mixture of groups who usually spoke creolized French: and religion was known as vodú.
6. From part of modern Liberia
and the Ivory Coast came the Gangá.
7. Senegambian people (Senegal
, Gambia), but including many brought from Sudan
by the Arab slavers, were known by a catch-all word: Mandinga. The famous musical phrase Kikiribu Mandinga! refers to them.
s, self-organized social clubs for the African slaves, separate cabildos for separate cultures. The cabildos were formed mainly from four groups: the Yoruba (the Lucumi in Cuba); the Congolese
(Palo in Cuba); Dahomey
(the Fon or Arará). Other cultures were undoubtedly present, more even than listed above, but in smaller numbers, and they did not leave such a distinctive presence.
Cabildos preserved African cultural traditions, even after the abolition of slavery in 1886. At the same time, African religions were transmitted from generation to generation throughout Cuba, Haiti, other islands and Brazil. These religions, which had a similar but not identical structure, were known as Lucumi or Regla de Ocha if they derived from the Yoruba, Palo
from Central Africa
, Vodú from Haiti
, and so on. The term Santería was first introduced to account for the way African spirits were joined to Catholic saints, especially by people who were both baptized and initiated, and so were genuinely members of both groups. Outsiders picked up the word and have tended to use it somewhat indiscriminately. It has become a kind of catch-all word, rather like salsa in music.p171; p258
The ñáñigos in Cuba or Carabali in their secret Abakuá
societies, were one of the most terrifying groups; even other blacks were afraid of them:
Not until after the Second World War do we find detailed printed descriptions or recordings of African sacred music in Cuba. Inside the cults, music, song, dance and ceremony were (and still are) learnt by heart by means of demonstration, including such ceremonial procedures conducted in an African language. The experiences were private to the initiated, until the work of the ethnologist Fernándo Ortíz
, who devoted a large part of his life to investigating the influence of African culture in Cuba. The first detailed transcription of percussion, song and chants are to be found in his great works.
There are now many recordings offering a selection of pieces in praise of, or prayers to, the orisha
s. Much of the ceremonial procedures are still hidden from the eyes of outsiders, though some descriptions in words exist.
, as in palos del monte. There are also, in the Oriente region, forms of Haitian ritual together with its own instruments, music &c.
In Lucumi ceremonies, consecrated batá drums are played at ceremonies, and gourd
ensembles called abwe
. In the 1950s, a collection of Havana-area batá drummers called Santero helped bring Lucumí styles into mainstream Cuban music, while artists like Mezcla
, with the lucumí singer Lázaro Ros
, melded the style with other forms, including zouk
.
The Congo
cabildo uses yuka drums, as well as gallos (a form of song contest), makuta and mani dances. The latter is related to the Brazilian martial dance capoeira
.
ic pattern is used as a tool for temporal
organization in Afro-Cuban music, such as rumba, conga de comparsa
, son
, mambo (music), salsa
, Latin jazz
, songo
and timba
. The five-stroke clave pattern represents the structural core of many Afro-Cuban rhythms. Just as a keystone
holds an arch
in place, the clave pattern holds the rhythm together in Afro-Cuban music. The clave pattern originated in sub-Saharan African music traditions
, where it serves essentially the same function as it does in Cuba. The pattern is also found in the African diaspora
musics of Haitian vodou drumming
and Afro-Brazilian music. The clave pattern is used in North American popular music
as a rhythmic motif
or ostinato
, or simply a form of rhythmic decoration.
and Matanzas
. Rumba musicians use a trio of drums, similar in appearance to conga drums (they are called tumba, llamador and quinto) or, alternatively, wooden boxes (cajones
) may be used. Also used are claves
and, sometimes, spoons. There is always a vocal element, African in style, but sung in Spanish: call and response
vocals. There were three basic rumba forms in the last century: columbia, guaguancó
and yambú. The Columbia, played in 6/8 time, was danced only by men, often as a solo dance, and was swift, with aggressive and acrobatic moves. The guagancó was danced with one man and one woman. The dance simulates the man's pursuit of the woman. The yambú, now a relic, featured a burlesque of an old man walking with a stick. All forms of rumba are accompanied by song or chants.
Note also two other uses of the word, both technically incorrect:
Rumba is usually seen in Cuba in the performances of professional groups on set occasions. There are also amateur groups based on casas de cultura, and on work groups. Like all aspects of life in Cuba, dance and music are organised by the state through Ministries and their various committees.
refers to the neighbourhood groups that take part in carnival
. Conga
is of African origin, and derives from street celebrations of the African spirits. The distinction is blurred today, but in the past the congas have been prohibited from time to time. Carnival as a whole was banned by the revolutionary
government for many years, and still does not take place with the regularity of old. Conga drums
are played (along with other typical instruments) in comparsas of all kinds. Santiago de Cuba and Havana were the two main centers for street carnivals. Two types of dance music (at least) owe their origin to comparsa music:
Conga
: an adaptation of comparsa music and dance for social dances. Eliseo Grenet
may be the person who first created this music,p408 but it was the Lecuona Cuban Boys
who took it round the world. The conga became, and perhaps still is, the best-known Cuban music and dance style for non-latins.
Mozambique
: a comparsa-type dance music developed by Pello el Afrokan (Pedro Izquierdo) in 1963. It had a brief period of high popularity, peaked in 1965, and was soon forgotten. Apparently, to make it work properly, it needed 16 drums plus other percussion, dancers...
, probably early in the century. By the 1920s it was one of the most popular forms in Cuba: recordings of the Sexteto Boloña exist from 1918. In the 1930s recordings by famous groups like the Septeto Nacional
and the Trio Matamoros
went round the world. Son was urbanized, with trumpet
s and other new instruments, leading to its tremendous influence on most later forms of Cuban music. In Havana, influences such as American popular music and jazz via the radio were also popular.
The son sextetos gave way to the septetos, including guitar or tres
, marímbula
s or double bass, bongo
s, claves
and maracas. The trumpet
was introduced in the latter part of the 1920s to improve the sonority, that is, mainly to increase the sound. Lead singers improvised lyrics and embellished melody lines while the claves
laid down the basic clave rhythm
.
The son has always had a wide range of interpretations, from the Oriente style, where even the lyrics could be Afrocuban, with reference to various santos and rituals, to the silky salon style of groups like Conjunto Palmas y Canas. It was, and still is, played by individual trovadores, conjuntos and big bands.
had the first million-selling record of Cuban music: The Peanut Vendor
(El Manisero), with Antonio Machín
as the singer. This number had been orchestrated and included in N.Y. theatre by Azpiazú before recording, which no doubt helped with the publicity. The Lecuona Cuban Boys
became the best-known Cuban touring ensemble: they were the ones who first used the conga
drum in their conjunto, and popularized the conga as a dance. Xavier Cugat
at the Waldorf Astoria
was highly influential. In 1941 Desi Arnaz
popularized the comparsa
drum (similar to the conga) in the U.S with his performances of Babalú
. There was a real 'rumba craze' at the time.
Later, Mario Bauza
and Machito
set up in New York and Miguelito Valdés
also arrived there.
formed part of the bebop
revolution in jazz
, playing conga
with Dizzy Gillespie
and Machito
in New York City. Cuban jazz had started much earlier, in Havana, in the period 1910–1930.
Arsenio Rodríguez
, one of Cuba's most famous tres players and conjunto leaders, emphasised the sons African roots by adapting the guaguancó
style, and by adding a cowbell and conga
to the rhythm section. He also expanded the role of the tres as a solo instrument.
In the late 1930s and 40s, the danzoneria Arcaño y sus Maravillas incorporated more syncopation and added a montuno
(as in son), transforming the music played by charanga
orchestras.
Cabaret orchestra for 25 years, starting in 1941. He had experience playing with visiting American jazz groups as well as a complete mastery of Cuban forms of music. In his hands the Tropicana presented not only Afrocuban and other popular Cuban music, but also Cuban jazz and American big band compositions. Later he conducted the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna.
Damaso Perez Prado had a number of hits, and sold more 78s than any other latin music of the day. He took over the role of pianist/arranger for the Orquesta Casino de la Playa in 1944, and immediately began introducing new elements into its sound. The orchestra began to sound more Afrocuban, and at the same time Prado took influences from Stravinsky, Stan Kenton
and elsewhere. By the time he left the orchestra in 1946 he had put together the elements of his big band mambo.
Benny Moré
, considered by many as the greatest Cuban singer of all time, was in his heyday in the 1950s. He had an innate musicality and fluid tenor voice, which he colored and phrased with great expressivity. Although he could not read music, Moré was a master of all the genres, including son montuno, mambo, guaracha, guajira, cha cha cha, afro, canción, guaguancó, and bolero. His orchestra, the Banda Giganta, and his music, was a development – more flexible and fluid in style – of the Perez Prado
orchestra,which he sung with in 1949–1950.
fusion. In this, Mario Bauza
and the Machito
orchestra on the Cuban side and Dizzy Gillespie
on the American side were prime movers. The rumbustious conguero Chano Pozo
was also important, for he introduced jazz musicians to basic Cuban rhythms. Cuban jazz has continued to be a significant influence.
The mambo first entered the United States around 1950, though ideas had been developing in Cuba and Mexico City for some time. The mambo as understood in the United States and Europe was considerably different from the danzón-mambo of Orestes "Cachao" Lopez, which was a danzon with extra synchopation in its final part. The mambo—which became internationally famous—was a big band product, the work of Perez Prado
, who made some sensational recordings for RCA in their new recording studios in Mexico City in the late 1940s. About 27 of those recordings had Benny Moré
as the singer, though the best sellers were mainly instrumentals. The big hits included Que rico el mambo (Mambo Jambo); Mambo No. 5
; Mambo #8; Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)
. The later (1955) hit Patricia was a mambo/rock fusion. Mambo of the Prado kind was more a descendent of the son and the guaracha than the danzón. In the U.S. the mambo craze lasted from about 1950 to 1956, but its influence on the bugaloo and salsa that followed it was considerable.
Violin
ist Enrique Jorrín
invented the chachachá in the early 1950s. This was developed from the danzón by increased syncopation
. The chachachá became more popular outside Cuba when the big bands of Perez Prado and Tito Puente
produced arrangements that attracted American and European audiences.
Along with "Nuyoricans" Ray Barretto
and Tito Puente
and others, several waves of Cuban immigrants introduced their ideas into US music. Among these was Celia Cruz
, a guaracha
singer. Others were active in Latin jazz, such as percussionist Patato Valdés
of the Cuban-oriented "Tipíca '73", linked to the Fania All-Stars
. Several former members of Irakere
have also become highly successful in the USA, among them Paquito D'Rivera
and Arturo Sandoval
. Tata Güines
, a famous conguero, moved to New York City in 1957, playing with jazz players such as Dizzy Gillespie
, Maynard Ferguson
, and Miles Davis
at Birdland
. As a percussionist, he performed with Josephine Baker
and Frank Sinatra
. He returned to Cuba in 1959 after Fidel Castro
came to power in the Cuban Revolution
, which he helped fund with contributions from his earnings as a musician.
and Los Zafiros
, modelled themselves on U.S. close-harmony groups. Others were singers who had heard Ella Fitzgerald
, Sarah Vaughan
and Nat King Cole
. Filín singers included César Portillo de la Luz, José Antonio Méndez, who spent a decade in Mexico from 1949 to 1959, Frank Domínguez
, the blind pianist Frank Emilio Flynn, and the great singers of boleros Elena Burke
and the still-performing Omara Portuondo
, who both came from the Cuarteto d'Aida. The filín movement originally had a place every afternoon on Radio Mil Diez. Some of its most prominent singers, such as Pablo Milanés
, took up the banner of the nueva trova.
setting; this became known as son-batá or batá-rock. Later artists created the mozambique
, which mixed conga
and mambo, and batá-rumba
, which mixed rumba and batá drum music. Mixtures including elements of hip hop
, jazz
and rock and roll
are also common, like in Habana Abierta's rockoson.
in 1959 signalled the emigration of many musicians to Puerto Rico
, Florida
and New York, and in Cuba artists and their work came under the protection (and control) of the Socialist state, and the monopoly state-owned recording company EGREM
. The Castro government abolished copyright laws in Cuba, closed many of the venues where popular music used to be played (e.g. night clubs), and so indirectly threw many musicians out of work.p202 This undoubtedly had deleterious effects on the evolution of popular music and dance.
Many young musicians now studied classical music and not popular music. All musicians employed by the state were given college courses in music. In Cuba, the Nueva Trova
movement (including Pablo Milanés
) reflected the new leftist ideals. The state took over the lucrative Tropicana Club
, which continued as a popular attraction for foreign tourists until 1968, when it was closed along with many other music venues (and later reopened with the rebirth of tourism).p202 Tourism was almost non-existent for three decades. Traditional Cuban music could be found in local Casas de la Trova. Musicians, if in work, were full-time and paid by the state after graduating from a conservatory. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the loss of its support for Cuba changed the situation quite a bit. Tourism became respectable again, and so did popular music for their entertainment. Musicians were even allowed to tour abroad and earn a living outside the state-run system.
Famous artists from the Cuban exile
include Celia Cruz
and the whole conjunto she sang with, the Sonora Matancera
. 'Patato' (Carlos Valdes
), Cachao
, La Lupe
, Arturo Sandoval
, Willy Chirino
, La Palabra
, Paquito D'Rivera
and Gloria Estefan
are some others. Many of these musicians, especially Cruz, became closely associated with the anti-revolutionary movement, and as 'unpersons' have been omitted from the standard Cuban reference books, and their subsequent musical recordings are never on sale in Cuba.
became an international success. It was called a 'rumba' even though it really had nothing to do with genuine rumba: the number was obviously a son
pregon. The label 'rumba' was used outside Cuba for years as a catch-all for Cuban popular music.
The second occasion happened during the period 1965–1975 in New York
, as musicians of Cuban and Puerto-Rican origin combined to produce the great music of the post Cha-cha-cha period. This music acquired the label of 'salsa'. No-one really knows how this happened, but everyone recognised what a benefit it was to have a common label for son, mambo, guaracha, guijira, guaguanco &c. Cubans and non Cubans, such as Tito Puentes, Ruben Blades
and many experts of the Cuban music and salsa have always said "Salsa is just a another name for Cuban, music. Tito Puentes once said, now they call it Salsa, later they may call it Stir Fry, but to me it will alway be Cuban Music"; but over time salsa bands worked in other influences. For example, in the late 1960s Willie Colón
developed numbers that made use of Brazilian rhythms. N.Y. radio programmes offered 'salsarengue' as a further combination, like a good cook Willie Colon
You look at a band of the 1940s playing Cuban music and you will see the same exact instruments in Salsa Music. Later still 'Salsa romantica' was the label for an especially sugary type of bolero
. Even when, Benny Moré
, Perez Prado
the greatest Sonero that ever existed, was singing Boleros with a salsa cadence in the 1940s. It was not until 1950s that Cuban music became popular for Puerto Rican bands. Plena, Bomba an other styles or music were popular at the time in Puerto Rico. Many famous famous Puerto Rican musicians went to learn the music styles of Cubans in the 1930s and 1940s, and it was not until the arrival of Castro in 1959 and the Cuban music stopped its exportation to the world, that Puerto Ricans in New York were able to be greatly noticed, but what is known as Salsa today, was brought to New York in the 1920s and 1930s by Dizzy and Chano Pozo
, this last one was discovered by Dizzy as he was one of the greatest percussionist that ever lived.
The question of whether or not salsa is anything more than Cuban music has been argued over for more than thirty years. Initially, not much difference could be seen. Later it became clear that not only was New York salsa different from popular music in Cuba, but salsa in Venezuela, Colombia and other countries could also be distinguished. It also seems clear that salsa has receded from the great position it achieved in the late 1970s. The reasons for this are also much disputed.
Paralleling nueva canción
in Latin America is the Cuban Nueva trova
, which dates from about 1967/68, after the Cuban Revolution
. It differed from the traditional trova
, not because the musicians were younger, but because the content was, in the widest sense, political. Nueva trova is defined by its connection with Castro
's revolution, and by its lyrics, which attempt to escape the banalities of life by concentrating on socialism, injustice, sexism, colonialism, racism and similar issues. Silvio Rodríguez
and Pablo Milanés
became the most important exponents of this style. Carlos Puebla
and Joseíto Fernández
were long-time old trova singers who added their weight to the new regime, but of the two only Puebla wrote special pro-revolution songs.
Nueva Trova had its heyday in the 1970s, but was already declining before the fall of the Soviet Union. Examples of non-political styles in the Nueva Trova movement can be found, for example, Liuba María Hevia whose lyrics are focused on more traditional subjects such as love and solitude, sharing with the rest a highly poetical style. On the other side of the spectrum, Carlos Varela is famous in Cuba for his open criticism of some aspects of Castro's revolution.
The Nueva Trova, initially so popular, suffered both inside Cuba, perhaps from a growing disenchantment with one-party rule, and externally, from the vivid contrast with the Buena Vista Social Club
film and recordings. Audiences round the world have had their eyes opened to the extraordinary charm and musical quality of the older forms of Cuban music. By contrast, topical themes that seemed so relevant in the 1960s and 70s now seem dry and passé. Even Guantanamera
has been damaged by over-repetition in less skilled hands. All the same, those pieces of high musical and lyrical quality, among which Puebla's Hasta siempre
Comandante stands out, will probably last as long as Cuba lasts.
, which was re-established in 1985, Orquesta Aragón
, Orquesta Ritmo Oriental and Orquesta Original de Manzanillo. Sierra Maestra
, is famous for having sparked a revival in traditional son in the 1980s. Nueva trova
still has influence, but the overtly political themes of the 1960s are well out of fashion. Meanwhile, Irakere
fused traditional Cuban music with jazz
, and groups like NG La Banda
, Orishas
and Son 14 continued to add new elements to son, especially hip hop
and funk
, to form timba
music; this process was aided by the acquisition of imported electronic equipment. There are still many practitioners of traditional son montuno, such as Eliades Ochoa
, who have recorded and toured widely as a result of interest in the son montuno after the Buena Vista Social Club success.
In the 1990s, increased interest in world music
coincided with the post-Soviet Union periodo especial in Cuba, during which the economy began opening up to tourism. Orquesta Aragón
, Charanga Habanera and Cándido Fabré y su Banda have been long-time players in the charanga scene, and helped form the popular timba
scene of the late 1990s. The biggest award in modern Cuban music is the Beny Moré Award.
(1997), a recording of veteran Cuban musicians organized by the American musician and producer, Ry Cooder
. Buena Vista Social Club became an immense worldwide hit, selling millions of copies, and made stars of octogenarian Cuban musicians such Ibrahim Ferrer
, Rubén González, and Compay Segundo
.
Buena Vista resulted in several followup recordings and spawned a film of the same name
, as well as tremendous interest in other Cuban groups. In subsequent years, dozens of singers and conjuntos made recordings for foreign labels and toured internationally.
The huge international response stirred some resentment amongst younger musicians who felt that their work, and the evolution of forty years, was being ignored. The conclusion some have drawn is that the wholesale closure of popular music venues (after the revolution), which threw many musicians out of work, and subsequent control by state committees, damaged the development of Cuban popular music.
During the Special Period
, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban government then took steps to improve the economy. Tourism was mildly encouraged, and Havana's music venues started to cater for visitors as well as locals. Before then, tourists were quite a rareity. When hip-hop emerged, the Cuban government opposed the vulgar image that rappers portrayed, but later accepted (1999) that it might be better to have hip-hop under the influence of the Ministry of Culture as an "authentic expression of Cuban Culture".
Unlike salsa, which is an indigenous dance music, rap music in Cuba is culturally of foreign origin. Although some rap groups have prided themselves in remaining loyal to true hip hop essence, others (like the Orishas
, the only Cuban rap group to succeed in Latin America), have been criticized for using salsa rhythms to generate commercial appeal.
Like hip hop, Reggaeton
from Puerto Rico
is a new genre for the Cubans. The advent of web software helped to distribute music unofficially. Both lyrics and dance movements have been criticised. Reggaeton musicians responded by making songs that defended their music. Despite their efforts, the Ministry of Culture has ruled that reggaeton is not to be used in teaching intuitions, parties and at discos.
provided the Cuban rap scene, in 2002, with a state-sponsored record label, magazine, and Cuba's own hip-hop festival.
Under this scheme, the government gives rap and hip-hop groups time on mass media outlets in return for hip-hop artists limiting self expression and presenting the government in a positive way.
The hip-hop artists talk about everyday life in Cuba. However, most critics believe that the Cuban Rap Agency will hide rappers' opinions of the Cuban government. The government evidently recognises that rap and hip-hop is growing in Cuba, and would be difficult or impossible to eliminate.
made since the late 1980s by groups like "Vanito y La Lucha Almada" and "Habana Abierta".
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
has developed a wide range of creolized musical styles, based on its cultural origins in Europe and Africa. Since the 19th century its music has been hugely popular and influential throughout the world. It has been perhaps the most popular form of world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
since the introduction of recording technology.
The music of Cuba, including the instruments and the dances, is mostly of European (Spanish) and African origin. Most forms of the present day are creolized fusions and mixtures of these two sources. Almost nothing remains of the original Indian traditions.
Overview
Large numbers of African slaves and European (mostly Spanish) immigrants came to Cuba and brought their own forms of music to the island. European dances and folk musics included zapateoZapateo
Zapateo which literally means "shoe tapping", is rooted in the Spanish Flamenco and before that, in the ancient cultural influences imported in to Europe by the Gypsies....
, fandango, paso doble and retambico. Later, northern European forms like minuet
Minuet
A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...
, gavotte
Gavotte
The gavotte originated as a French folk dance, taking its name from the Gavot people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné, where the dance originated. It is notated in 4/4 or 2/2 time and is of moderate tempo...
, mazurka
Mazurka
The mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, and with accent on the third or second beat.-History:The folk origins of the mazurek are two other Polish musical forms—the slow machine...
, contradanza
Contradanza
The Cuban contradanza was a popular dance music genre of the 19th century.- Origins and Early Development:...
, and the waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
appeared among urban whites. There was also an immigration of Chinese indentured laborers later in the 19th century.
Fernando Ortiz
Fernando Ortiz
Fernando Ortiz Fernández was a Cuban essayist, ethnomusicologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban culture. Ortiz was a prolific polymath dedicated to exploring, recording, and understanding all aspects of indigenous Cuban culture...
, the first great Cuban folklorist, described Cuba's musical innovations as arising from the interplay ('transculturation') between African slaves settled on large sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
s and Spaniards or Canary Island
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
ers who grew tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
on small farms. The African slaves and their descendants made many percussion instruments and preserved rhythms they had known in their homeland. The most important instruments were the drums, of which there were originally about fifty different types; today only the bongos, congas and batá
Bata
Bata or Baťa or Baţa or Batá may refer to:* Bata Shoes , a multinational corporation-Places:* Bat, Afghanistan, a place in Afghanistan* Bata, a commune in Arad County, Romania...
drums are regularly seen (the timbales
Timbales
Timbales are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing, invented in Cuba. They are shallower in shape than single-headed tom-toms, and usually much higher tuned...
are descended from kettle drums in Spanish military bands). Also important are the claves
Claves
Claves are a percussion instrument , consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone), consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone),...
, two short hardwood batons, and the cajón
Cajón
A cajón is a box-shaped percussion instrument originally from Peru, played by slapping the front face with the hands.-Origins and evolution:...
, a wooden box, originally made from crates. Claves are still used often, and cajons (cajones) were used widely during periods when the drum was banned. In addition, there are other percussion instruments in use for African-origin religious ceremonies. Chinese immigrants contributed the corneta china (Chinese cornet), a Chinese reed instrument still played in the comparsa
Comparsa
A comparsa is the band which plays a conga during a Latin American Carnival celebration. It consists of a large group of dancers dancing and traveling on the streets, followed by a Carrosa where the musicians play...
s, or carnival
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
groups, of Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city of Cuba and capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province in the south-eastern area of the island, some south-east of the Cuban capital of Havana....
.
The great instrumental contribution of the Spanish was their guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, but even more important was the tradition of European musical notation
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
and techniques of musical composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
. Hernando de la Parra's archives give some of our earliest available information on Cuban music. He reported instruments including the clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and vihuela
Vihuela
Vihuela is a name given to two different guitar-like string instruments: one from 15th and 16th century Spain, usually with 12 paired strings, and the other, the Mexican vihuela, from 19th century Mexico with five strings and typically played in Mariachi bands.-History:The vihuela, as it was known...
. There were few professional musicians at the time, and fewer still of their songs survive. One of the earliest is Ma Teodora, by a freed slave, Teodora Gines of Santiago de Cuba, who was famous for her compositions. The piece is said to be similar to ecclesiastic European forms and 16th century folk songs.
Cuban music has its principal roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time has been influenced by diverse genres from different countries. Important among these are France (and its colonies in the Americas), and the United States.
Cuban music has been immensely influential in other countries. It contributed not only to the development of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and salsa
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...
, but also to the Argentinian tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
, Ghanaian high-life
Highlife
Highlife is a musical genre that originated in Ghana in the 1900s and spread to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other West African countries by 1920...
, West African Afrobeat
Afrobeat
Afrobeat is a combination of traditional Yoruba music, jazz, highlife, funk and chanted vocals, fused with percussion and vocal styles, popularised in Africa in the 1970s. Its main creator was the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who gave it its name, who used it to...
, Dominican Bachata and Merengue, Colombian Cumbia
Cumbia
Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...
and Spanish Nuevo flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
.
The African beliefs and practices certainly influenced Cuba's music. Polyrhythmic percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
is an inherent part of African music, as melody is part of European music. Also, in African tradition, percussion is always joined to song and dance, and to a particular social setting. The result of the meeting of European and African cultures is that most Cuban popular music is creolized. This creolization of Cuban life has been happening for a long time, and by the 20th century, elements of African belief, music and dance were well integrated into popular and folk forms.
18th/19th centuries
Among internationally heralded composers of the "serious" genre can be counted the Baroque composer Esteban Salas y CastroEsteban Salas y Castro
Esteban Salas y Castro was a Cuban composer of religious music. His compositions focused chiefly on vocal music, and are a fine representation of the late Baroque style...
(1725–1803), who spent much of his life teaching and writing music for the Church. He was followed in the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba by the priest Juan París
Juan París
Juan París was the priest who followed Esteban Salas y Castro in the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba. His election as Maestro de Capilla , after the death of Salas in 1803, was an extraordinary event. It had been a foregone conclusion that Francisco José Hierrezuelo, long-time assistant of Salas,...
(1759–1845). París was an exceptionally industrious man, and an important composer. He encouraged continuous and diverse musical events.p181 Aside from rural music and Afro-Cuban folk music, the most popular kind of urban creole dance music in the 19th century was the contradanza, which commenced as a local form of the English country dance and the derivative French contredanse and Spanish contradanza. While many contradanzas were written for dance, from the mid-century several were written as light-classical parlor pieces for piano. The first distinguished composer in this style was Manuel Saumell
Manuel Saumell
Manuel Saumell Robredo , was a Cuban composer of the highest importance for his invention and development of genuinely creolized forms of music...
(1818–1870), who is sometimes accordingly hailed as the father of Cuban creole musical development. In the hands of his successor, Ignacio Cervantes
Ignacio Cervantes
Ignacio Cervantes Kawanagh was a Cuban virtuoso pianist and composer. He was influential in the creolization of Cuban music....
(1847–1905), the danza (as it was more typically called in the latter 1800s), achieved even greater sophistication as a piano idiom.
- "After Saumell's visionary work, all that was left to do was to develop his innovations, all of which profoundly influenced the history of Cuban nationalist musical movements." Helio Orovio Cervantes was called by Aaron CoplandAaron CoplandAaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
a "Cuban Chopin" because of his Chopinesque piano compositions. Cervantes' reputation today rests almost solely upon his famous forty-one Danzas Cubanas, which Carpentier said, "...occupy the place that the Norwegian Dances of Grieg or the Slavic Dances of DvořákAntonín DvorákAntonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
occupy in the musics of their respective countries". Cervantes' never-finished opera, Maledetto, is forgotten.
In the 1840s, the habanera emerged as a languid vocal song using the contradanza rhythm. (Non-Cubans sometimes called Cuban contradanzas "habaneras.") The habanera went on to become popular in Spain and elsewhere. The Cuban contradanza/danza was also an important influence on the Puerto Rican danza, which went on to enjoy its own dynamic and distinctive career lasting through the 1930s. In Cuba, in the 1880s the contradanza/danza gave birth to the danzón, which effectively superseded it in popularity.
Laureano Fuentes
Laureano Fuentes
Laureano Fuentes Matons came from a family of musicians and wrote the first opera to be composed on the island, La hija de Jéfe . This was later lengthened and staged under the title Seila. His numerous works spanned all genres...
(1825–1898) came from a family of musicians and wrote the first opera to be composed on the island, La hija de Jéfe (the Chief's daughter). This was later lengthened and staged under the title Seila. His numerous works spanned all genres. Gaspar Villate
Gaspar Villate
Gaspar Villate was a Cuban composer who produced abundant and wide-ranging work, mostly centered on opera....
(1851–1891) produced abundant and wide-ranging work, all centered on opera.p239 José White (1836–1918), a mulatto of a Spanish father and an Afrocuban mother, was a composer and a violinist of international merit. He learnt to play sixteen instruments, and lived, variously, in Cuba, Latin America and Paris. His most famous work is La bella cubana, a habanera.
During the middle years of the 19th century, a young American musician came to Havana: Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works...
(1829–1869), whose father was a Jewish businessman from London, and his mother a white creole of French Catholic background. Gottschalk was brought up mostly by his black grandmother and nurse Sally, both from Dominique
Dominique
"Dominique" is a popular song in French by Sœur Sourire , of Belgium, also known as The Singing Nun. It is about Saint Dominic, a Spanish-born priest and founder of the Dominican Order, of which she was a member . The English version of the song was written by Noël Regney...
. He was a piano prodigy who had listened to the music and seen the dancing in Congo Square
Congo Square
Congo Square is an open space within Louis Armstrong Park, which is located in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, just across Rampart Street north of the French Quarter. The Tremé neighborhood is famous for its history of African American music....
, New Orleans from childhood. His period in Cuba lasted from 1853 to 1862, with visits to Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
and Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
squeezed in. He composed many creollized pieces, such as the habanera Bamboula (Danse de negres) (1844/5), the title referring to a bass Afro-Caribbean drum; El cocoye (1853), a version of a rhythmic melody already present in Cuba; the contradanza Ojos criollos (Danse cubaine) (1859) and a version of María de la O, which refers to a Cuban mulatto singer. These numbers made use of typical Cuban rhythmic patterns. At one of his farewell concerts he played his Adiós a Cuba to huge applause and shouts of 'bravo!' Unfortunately his score for the work has not survived. In February 1860 Gottschalk produced a huge work La nuit des tropiques in Havana. The work used about 250 musicians and a choir of 200 singers plus a tumba francesa group from Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city of Cuba and capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province in the south-eastern area of the island, some south-east of the Cuban capital of Havana....
. He produced another huge concert the following year, with new material. These shows probably dwarfed anything seen in the island before or since, and no doubt were unforgettable for those who attended.p147
20th century classical and art music
"Amadeo RoldánAmadeo Roldán
Amadeo Roldán y Gardes was a Cuban composer and violinist. Roldán was born in Paris to a Cuban mulatta and a Spanish father...
(1900–1939) and Alejandro García Caturla
Alejandro García Caturla
Alejandro García Caturla was a Cuban composer of art music and creolized Cuban themes.He was born in Remedios. At sixteen he became a second violin of the new Orquesta Sinfonica de La Habana in 1922, where Amadeo Roldán was concert-master . He also began composing at a young age, whilst studying...
(1906–1940) were Cuba's symphonic revolutionaries [though] their music is rarely played today".p354 They both played a part in Afrocubanismo
Afrocubanismo
Afrocubanismo: the movement in black-themed Cuban culture with origins in the 1920s, as in works by the cultural anthropologist Fernando Ortiz. The movement marks the time, between the two world wars, when white intellectuals in Cuba acknowledged openly the significance of African culture in Cuba....
: the movement in black-themed Cuban culture with origins in the 1920s, and extensively analysed by Fernando Ortiz
Fernando Ortiz
Fernando Ortiz Fernández was a Cuban essayist, ethnomusicologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban culture. Ortiz was a prolific polymath dedicated to exploring, recording, and understanding all aspects of indigenous Cuban culture...
. Roldan, born in Paris to a Cuban mulatta and a Spanish father, came to Cuba in 1919 and became the concert-master (first-chair violin) of the new Orquesta Sinfonica de La Habana in 1922. There he met Caturla, at sixteen a second violin. Roldan's compositions included Overture on Cuban themes (1925), and two ballets: La Rebambaramba (1928) and El milagro de Anaquille (1929). There followed a series of Ritmicas and Poema negra (1930) and Tres toques (march, rites, dance) (1931). In Motivos de son (1934) he wrote eight pieces for voice and instruments based on the poet Nicolás Guillén
Nicolás Guillén
Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista was a Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.Guillén was born in Camagüey, Cuba...
's set of poems with the same title. His last composition was two Piezas infantiles for piano (1937). Roldan died young, at 38, of a disfiguring facial cancer (he had been an inveterate smoker).
After his student days, Caturla lived all his life in the small central town of Remedios, where he became a lawyer to support his growing family. He had relationships with a number of black women and fathered eleven children by them, which he adopted and supported. His Tres danzas cubanas for symphony orchestra was first performed in Spain in 1929. Bembe was premiered in Havana the same year. His Obertura cubana won first prize in a national contest in 1938. Caturla was a fine man, and an example of a universal musician, happily combining classical and folkloric themes with modern musical ideas. He was murdered at 34 by a young gambler who was due to be sentenced only hours later.
Gonzalo Roig
Gonzalo Roig
Gonzalo Roig was a Cuban musician, composer, musical director and founder of several orchestras. He was a pioneer of the symphonic movement in Cuba....
(1890–1970), was a major force in the first half of the century. A composer and orchestral director, he qualified in piano, violin and composition theory. In 1922 he was one of the founders of the National Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted. In 1927 he was appointed Director of the Havana School of Music. As a composer he specialized in the zarzuela
Zarzuela
Zarzuela is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance...
, a musical theatre form, very popular up to World War II. In 1931 he co-founded a Bufo company (comic theatre) at the Marti Theatre in Havana. He was the composer of the most well-known Cuban zarzuela, Cecilia Valdés
Cecilia Valdés
Cecilia Valdés is both a novel by the Cuban Cirilo Villaverde , and a zarzuela based on the novel. It is a work of importance for its quality, and its revelation of the interaction of classes and races in Cuba.- The novel :...
, based on the famous 19th century novel about a Cuban mulata. It was premiered in 1932. He founded various organizations and wrote frequently on musical topics.
One of the greatest Cuban pianist/composers of the 20th century was Ernesto Lecuona
Ernesto Lecuona
Ernesto Lecuona y Casado was a Cuban composer and pianist of Canarian father and Cuban mother, and worldwide fame. He composed over six hundred pieces, mostly in the Cuban vein, and was a pianist of exceptional quality....
(1895–1963). Lecuona composed over six hundred pieces, mostly in the Cuban vein, and was a pianist of exceptional quality. He was a prolific composer of songs and music for stage and film. His works consisted of zarzuela
Zarzuela
Zarzuela is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance...
, Afro-Cuban and Cuban rhythms, suites and many songs that became latin standards. They include Siboney, Malagueña and The Breeze And I
The Breeze and I
"The Breeze and I" is a popular song.The song is based on a Spanish language song, "Andalucia." The music to the original song was written by Ernesto Lecuona, with Spanish lyrics by Emilio de Torre; the English language lyric was written by Al Stillman....
(Andalucía). In 1942 his great hit Always in my heart (Siempre en mi Corazon) was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song; it lost out to White Christmas. The Ernesto Lecuona Symphonic Orchestra performed the premiere of Lecuona's Black Rhapsody in the Cuban Liberation Day Concert at Carnegie Hall on 10 October 1943.
Although, in Cuba, many composers have written both classical and popular creole types of music, the distinction became clearer after 1960, when (at least initially) the regime frowned on popular music and closed most of the night-club venues, whilst providing financial support for classical music rather than creole forms. From then on most musicians have kept their careers on one side of the invisible line or the other. After the Cuban Revolution
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
in 1959, a new crop of classical musicians came onto the scene. The most important of these is guitarist Leo Brouwer
Leo Brouwer
Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor and guitarist. He is the grandson of Cuban composer Ernestina Lecuona Casado.-Biography:...
, who made significant innovations in classical guitar, and is currently the director of the Havana Symphonic Orchestra. His directorship in the early 1970s of the Cuban Institute of Instrumental and Cinematographic Arts (ICAIC) was instrumental in the formation and consolidation of the nueva trova
Nueva trova
Nueva trova is a movement in Cuban music that emerged around 1967/68 after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the consequent political and social changes....
movement. Manuel Barrueco
Manuel Barrueco
Manuel Barrueco is a Cuban virtuoso classical guitarist. He was born in 1952 in Santiago de Cuba, on Cuba's southeastern shore. He has toured in the U.S., Europe and Japan, and serves on the faculty of Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland.-Biography:...
is also a classical guitarist of international renown. Ernesto Tamayo
Ernesto Tamayo
Ernesto Tamayo was the first prize winner of the 1995 NGWS in New Milford, Connecticut. He has toured extensively throughout North and South America and Europe.- Biography :...
, a former student of Leo Brouwer, performs internationally.
Cuban-born classical pianists include many who have recorded with the world's greatest symphonies, including Jorge Bolet
Jorge Bolet
Jorge Bolet was a Cuban-born but mostly American-resident pianist and teacher.-Life:Bolet was born in Havana, and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he himself taught from 1939 to 1942...
(friend of Rachmaninoff and Liszt specialist), Horacio Gutiérrez
Horacio Gutiérrez
Horacio Gutiérrez is a Cuban-American virtuoso classical pianist.-Early life and education:Gutiérrez was born in Havana, Cuba, the eldest of four children, to Tomás V. Gutiérrez and Josefina Fernandez Gutiérrez. His mother was his first piano teacher, and was herself, an accomplished pianist. His...
(former Tchaikovsky Competition silver medalist), and prize-winning pianist and owner of the "Elan" classical CD company, Santiago Rodriguez
Santiago Rodriguez (pianist)
Santiago Rodriguez is a Cuban-American pianist. Rodriguez is an exclusive recording artist for Élan Recordings. His Rachmaninov recordings received the Rosette award in The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music and he is a Silver Medalist in the Van Cliburn International Piano...
, a Russian-music specialist. Cuban-born classical pianist Zeyda Ruga Suzuki has been recorded on labels in Japan and Canada.
Musical theatre
From the 18th century (at least) to modern times, popular theatrical formats used, and gave rise to, music and dance. Many famous composers and musicians had their careers launched in the theatres, and many famous compositions got their first airing on the stage. In addition to staging some European operas and operettas, Cuban composers gradually developed ideas that better suited their audience. Recorded musicSound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
was to be the couduit for Cuban music to reach the world. The most recorded artist in Cuba up to 1925 was a singer at the Alhambra, Adolfo Colombo
Adolfo Colombo
Adolfo Columbo was a leading singer in the Alhambra Theatre in Havana, and also an actor and a leading personality in the theatre...
. Records show he recorded about 350 numbers between 1906 and 1917.
The first theatre in Havana opened in 1776. The first Cuban-composed opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
appeared in 1807. Theatrical music was hugely important in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century; its significance only began to wane with the change in political and social weather in the second part of the 20th century. Radio, which began in Cuba in 1922, helped the growth of popular music because it provided publicity and a new source of income for the artists.
Zarzuela
Zarzuela is a small-scale light operettaOperetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
format. Starting off with imported Spanish content (List of zarzuela composers), it developed into a running commentary on Cuba's social and political events and problems. Zarzuela has the distinction of providing Cuba's first recordings: the soprano Chalía Herrera
Chalía Herrera
Chalía Herrera, born Rosalía Gertrudis de la Concepción Díaz de Herrera y de Fonseca , was a Cuban soprano. She had the distinction of being the first Cuban musical artist to be recorded. She recorded, outside Cuba, numbers from the zarzuela Cadíz in 1898 on unnumbered Bettini cylinders...
(1864–1968) made, outside Cuba, the first recordings by a Cuban artist. She recorded numbers from the zarzuela Cadíz in 1898 on unnumbered Bettini
Gianni Bettini
Gianni Bettini was an early audiophile. He made a number of high-end phonographs that are highly sought after today. He invented a playback device which improves the sound quality of recordings; The Micro-reproducer...
cylinders.
Gonzalo Roig
Gonzalo Roig was a Cuban musician, composer, musical director and founder of several orchestras. He was a pioneer of the symphonic movement in Cuba....
, Eliseo Grenet
Eliseo Grenet
Eliseo Grenet Sánchez was a Cuban pianist and a leading composer/arranger of the day. He composed music for stage shows and films, and some famous Cuban dance music. Eliseo was one of three musical brothers, all composers, the others being Emilio and Ernesto...
, Ernesto Lecuona and Rodrigo Prats
Rodrigo Prats
Rodrigo Prats was a Cuban composer, violinist, pianist and orchestral director. The son of a musician, Jaime Prats, Rodrigo began to study music at the age of nine...
produced a series of hits for the Regina and Martí theatres in Havana. Great stars like the vedette Rita Montaner
Rita Montaner
Rita Montaner, born Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda , was a Cuban singer, pianist, actress and star of stage, film, radio and television. In Cuban parlance, she was a vedette , and she was well known in Mexico City, Paris, Miami and New York, where she performed, filmed and recorded on...
, who could sing, play the piano, dance and act, were the Cuban equivalents of Mistinguett
Mistinguett
Mistinguett was a French actress and singer, whose birth name was Jeanne Bourgeois. She was at one time the best-paid female entertainer in the world...
and Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
in Paris. Some of the best known zarzuelas are La virgen morena (Grenet), La Niña Rita (Grenet and Lecuona), María la O, El batey, Rosa la China (all Lecuona); Gonzalo Roig with La Habana de noche; Rodrigo Prats with Amalia Batista and La perla del caribe; and above all, Cecilia Valdés
Cecilia Valdés
Cecilia Valdés is both a novel by the Cuban Cirilo Villaverde , and a zarzuela based on the novel. It is a work of importance for its quality, and its revelation of the interaction of classes and races in Cuba.- The novel :...
(the musical of the most famous Cuban novel of the 19th century, with music by Roig and script by Prats and Agustín Rodríguez). Artists who were introduced to the public in the lyric theatre include Caridad Suarez, María de los Angeles Santana, Esther Borja
Esther Borja
Esther Borja Lima is a Cuban soprano.Borja was trained in solfége and music theory by Juan Elósegui, and in singing by Rubén Lepchutz. She graduated as a teacher in 1934, and began her career in 1935; that year she performed, with Ernesto Lecuona on piano, at the National Theatre , and at the...
and Ignacio Villa, who had such a round, black face that Rita Montaner called him Bola de Nieve
Bola de Nieve
Bola de Nieve , born Ignacio Jacinto Villa, was a successful Cuban singer-pianist and songwriter, whose round, black face earned him the nickname by which he was always known....
('Snowball').
Bufo
Cuban Bufo theatre is an example: a form of comedy, ribald and satirical, with stock figures imitating types that might be found anywhere in the country. Bufo had its origin around 1800-15 as an older form, tonadillaTonadilla
Tonadilla was a Spanish musical song form of theatrical origin; not danced. The genre was a type of short, satirical musical comedy popular in 18th-century Spain, and later in Cuba and other Spanish colonial countries. It originated as a song type, then dialogue for characters was written into the...
, began to vanish from Havana. Francisco Covarrubias the 'caricaturist' (1775–1850) was its creator. Gradually, the comic types threw off their European models and became more and more creolized and Cuban. Alongside, the music followed. Argot from slave barracks and poor barrios found its way into lyrics that are those of the guaracha
Guaracha
The guaracha is a genre of Cuban popular music, of rapid tempo and with lyrics. The word had been used in this sense at least since the late 18th and early 19th century. Guarachas were played and sung in musical theatres and in low-class dance salons. They became an integral part of Bufo comic...
:
-
- Una mulata me ha muerto!
- Y no prendan a esa mulata?
- Como ha de quedar hombre vivo
- si no prendan a quien matar!
-
- La mulata es como el pan;
- se deber como caliente,
- que en dejandola enfriar
- ni el diablo le mete el diente! p218
-
-
- (A mulata's done for me!
- What's more, they don't arrest her!
- How can any man live
- If they don't take this killer?
-
-
-
- A mulatta is like fresh bread
- You gotta eat it while it's hot
- If you leave it till it's cool
- Even the devil can't get a bite!)
-
So the bufo theatre became the birthplace of the typically Cuban musical form, the guaracha.
Other theatrical forms
Vernacular theatre of various types often includes music. Formats rather like the British Music HallMusic hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
, or the American Vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
, still occur, where an audience is treated to a pot-pourri
Potpourri
Potpourri is a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant material, used to provide a gentle natural scent in houses. It is usually placed in a decorative wooden bowl, or tied in small sachet made from sheer fabric....
of singers, comedians, bands, sketches and speciality acts. Even in cinemas during the silent movies, singers and instrumentalists appeared in the interval, and a pianist played during the films. Bola de Nieve and María Teresa Vera
María Teresa Vera
María Teresa Vera was a Cuban singer, guitarist and composer. She was an outstanding example of the Cuban trova movement....
played in cinemas in their early days. Burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
was also common in Havana before 1960.
Guaracha
The guarachaGuaracha
The guaracha is a genre of Cuban popular music, of rapid tempo and with lyrics. The word had been used in this sense at least since the late 18th and early 19th century. Guarachas were played and sung in musical theatres and in low-class dance salons. They became an integral part of Bufo comic...
is a genre of rapid tempo and with lyrics. It originated in Bufo comic theatre in the mid-19th century, and during the early 20th century was often played in the brothels of Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
. The lyrics were full of slang, and dwelt on events and people in the news. Rhythmically, guaracha exhibits a series of rhythm combinations, such as 6/8 with 2/4.
Many of the early trovadores, such as Manuel Corona
Manuel Corona
Manuel Corona Raimundo was a Cuban trova musician, and a long-term professional rival of Sindo Garay....
(who worked in a brothel area of Havana), composed and sung guarachas as a balance for the slower bolero
Bolero
Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...
s and canción
Canción
Canción is a popular genre of Latin American music, particularly in Cuba, where many of the compositions originate. Its roots lie in Spanish popular song forms, including tiranas, polos and boleros; also in Italian light operetta, French romanza, and the slow waltz...
es. The satirical lyric content also fitted well with the son, and many bands played both genres. In the mid-20th century the style was taken up by the conjunto
Conjunto
Conjunto literally translates as "group," and is regionally accepted in Texas as defining a genre of music that was born out of south Texas at the end of the 19th Century, after German settlers introduced the button accordion. The bajo sexto has come to accompany the button accordion and is...
s and big bands as a type of up-tempo music. Today it seems no longer to exist as a distinct musical form; it has been absorbed into the vast maw of Salsa
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...
. Singers who can handle the fast lyrics and are good improvisors are called guaracheros or guaracheras.
Trova
In the 19th century here grew up in Santiago de Cuba a group of itinerant musicians, troubadors, who moved around earning their living by singing and playing the guitar. They were of great importance as composers, and their songs have been transcribed for all genres of Cuban musicPepe Sánchez
Pepe Sánchez (trova)
Pepe Sánchez, born José Sánchez , was a Cuban musician, singer and composer. He is known as the father of the trova style and the creator of the Cuban bolero....
, born José Sánchez (1856–1918), is known as the father of the trova style and the creator of the Cuban bolero. He had no formal training in music. With remarkable natural talent, he composed numbers in his head and never wrote them down. As a result, most of these numbers are now lost for ever, though some two dozen or so survive because friends and disciples transcribed them. His first bolero, Tristezas, is still remembered today. He also created advertisement jingles before radio was born. He was the model and teacher for the great trovadores who followed him.
The first, and one of the longest-lived, was Sindo Garay
Sindo Garay
Sindo Garay was born Antonio Gumersindo Garay Garcia . He was the first, the smallest, and perhaps the longest-lived, of the trova artists taught by Pepe Sánchez. Garay was one of the four greats of the trova. Sindo Garay was Spanish & Arawkan descendant...
(1867–1968). He was an outstanding composer of trova songs, and his best have been sung and recorded many times. Garay was also musically illiterate – in fact, he only taught himself the alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
at 16 – but in his case not only were scores recorded by others, but there are recordings. Garay settled in Havana in 1906, and in 1926 joined Rita Montaner and others to visit Paris, spending three months there. He broadcast on radio, made recordings and survived into modern times. He used to say "Not many men have shaken hands with both José Martí
José Martí
José Julián Martí Pérez was a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. He was also a part of the Cuban...
and Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
!" p298
José 'Chicho' Ibáñez
Chicho Ibáñez
Chicho Ibáñez, born José Ibáñez Noriega was the longest-lived and one of the most important members of the Cuban trova. He was significant because, unlike most of the others, he specialized in Afro-Cuban genres...
(1875–1981) was even longer-lived than Garay. Ibáñez was the first trovador to specialize in the son; he also sung guaguancó
Guaguancó
Guaguancó is a sub-genre of Cuban rumba, a complex rhythmic music and dance style. The traditional line-up consists of:* three drums, similar to conga drums: the tumba , llamador , and quinto...
s and pieces from the abakuá
Abakuá
Abakua or Abakuá is an Afro-Cuban men's initiatory fraternity, or secret society, which originated from fraternal associations in the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon...
.
The composer Rosendo Ruiz
Rosendo Ruiz
Rosendo Ruiz Suárez was one of the founders of the trova movement in Cuban music. He was originally a tailor, who became a singer, guitarist and composer...
(1885–1983) was another long-lived trovador. He was the author of a well-known guitar manual. Alberto Villalón
Alberto Villalón
Alberto Villalón Morales was one of the greatest musicians in the Cuban trova style....
(1882–1955), and Manuel Corona
Manuel Corona
Manuel Corona Raimundo was a Cuban trova musician, and a long-term professional rival of Sindo Garay....
(1880–1950) were of similar stature. Garay, Ruiz, Villalón and Corona are known as the four greats of the trova, though the following trovadores are also highly regarded.
Patricio Ballagas
Patricio Ballagas
Patricio Balagas Palacio was an important innovator in trova music. His compositions were written in 4/4 time when most others were composing in 2/4 time; and more important, he invented 'double text', where the melody is superimposed over the lead vocal, which then becomes the second voice...
(1879–1920); María Teresa Vera
María Teresa Vera
María Teresa Vera was a Cuban singer, guitarist and composer. She was an outstanding example of the Cuban trova movement....
(1895–1965), Lorenzo Hierrezuelo
Lorenzo Hierrezuelo
Lorenzo Hierrezuelo was a Cuban trova musician, a singer, guitarist and composer. His face showed clear signs of Indian descent: he was an indo-mulatto . He was the son and nephew of soneros, and he grew up in the ambiance of this type of Cuban music and dance...
(1907–1993), Ñico Saquito
Ñico Saquito
Ñico Saquito was a Cuban musician. He was a trova composer, guitarist and singer....
(Antonio Fernandez: 1901–1982), Carlos Puebla
Carlos Puebla
Carlos Manuel Puebla was a Cuban singer, guitarist, and composer. He was a member of the old trova movement who specialized in boleros and nationalistic songs.- Biography :...
(1917–1989) and Compay Segundo
Compay Segundo
Compay Segundo was a Cuban trova guitarist, singer and composer.-Biography:...
(Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz: 1907–2003) were all great trova musicians. El Guayabero (Faustino Oramas
Faustino Oramas
Faustino Oramas Osorío, El Guayabero, was a Cuban singer, tres guitarist and composer, the last surviving member of the traditional Cuban trova. Most of his repertoire consisted of sons and guaracha-sons, many with double entendres in the lyrics...
: 1911–2007) was the last of the old trova.
Trova musicians often worked in pairs and trios, some of them exclusively so (Compay Segundo). As the sexteto/septeto/conjunto genre grew many of them joined in the larger groups. And let's not forget the Trio Matamoros
Trio Matamoros
The Trio Matamoros were one of the most popular Cuban trova groups. Formed in 1925 by Miguel Matamoros , Rafael Cueto and Siro Rodriguez...
, who worked together for most of their lives. Matamoros was one of the greats.
Bolero
This is a song and dance form quite different from its Spanish namesake. It originated in the last quarter of the 19th century with the founder of the traditional trova
Trova
Trova is one of the great roots of the Cuban music tree. In the 19th century a group of itinerant musicians known as trovadores moved around Oriente, especially Santiago de Cuba, earning their living by singing and playing the guitar...
, Pepe Sánchez. He wrote the first bolero, Tristezas, which is still sung today. The bolero has always been a staple part of the trova musician's repertoire.
Originally, there were two sections of 16 bars in 2/4 time separated by an instrumental section on the Spanish guitar called the pasacalle. The bolero proved to be exceptionally adaptable, and led to many variants. Typical was the introduction of sychopation leading to the bolero-moruno, bolero-beguine, bolero-mambo, bolero-cha. The bolero-son became for several decades the most popular rhythm for dancing in Cuba, and it was this rhythm that the international dance community picked up and taught as the wrongly-named 'rumba'.
The Cuban bolero was exported all over the world, and is still popular. Leading composers of the bolero were Sindo Garay
Sindo Garay
Sindo Garay was born Antonio Gumersindo Garay Garcia . He was the first, the smallest, and perhaps the longest-lived, of the trova artists taught by Pepe Sánchez. Garay was one of the four greats of the trova. Sindo Garay was Spanish & Arawkan descendant...
, Rosendo Ruiz
Rosendo Ruiz
Rosendo Ruiz Suárez was one of the founders of the trova movement in Cuban music. He was originally a tailor, who became a singer, guitarist and composer...
, Carlos Puebla
Carlos Puebla
Carlos Manuel Puebla was a Cuban singer, guitarist, and composer. He was a member of the old trova movement who specialized in boleros and nationalistic songs.- Biography :...
, Rafael Hernández
Rafael Hernández Marín
Rafael Hernández , was one of the most important composers of Puerto Rican popular music during the 20th century.-Early years:...
(Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
) and Agustín Lara
Agustín Lara
Agustín Lara was a Mexican singer and songwriter.-Biography:Lara was born in Tlacotalpan, Veracruz. Later, the Lara family had to move again to Mexico City, establishing their house in the borough of Coyoacán. After Lara's mother died, Agustín and his siblings lived in a hospice run by their...
(Mexico).
Canción
Canción means 'song' in Spanish. It is a popular genre of Latin American musicLatin American music
Latin American music, found within Central and South America, is a series of musical styles and genres that mixes influences from Spanish, African and indigenous sources, that has recently become very famous in the US.-Argentina:...
, particularly in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, where many of the compositions originate. Its roots lie in Spanish, French and Italian popular song forms. Originally highly stylized, with "intricate melodies and dark, enigmatic and elaborate lyrics" The canción was democratized by the trova movement in the latter part of the 19th century, when it became a vehicle for the aspirations and feelings of the population. Canción gradually fused with other forms of Cuban music, such as the bolero.
Waltz
The waltzWaltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
(El vals) arrived in Cuba by 1814. It was the first dance in which couples were not linked by a communal sequence pattern. It was, and still is, danced in 3/4 time with the accent on the first beat. It was originally thought scandalous because couples faced each other, held each other in the 'closed' hold, and, so to speak, ignored the surrounding community. The waltz entered all countries in the Americas; its relative popularity in 19th century Cuba is hard to estimate.
Indigenous Cuban dances did not use the closed hold with couples dancing independently until the danzón later in the century, though the guaracha
Guaracha
The guaracha is a genre of Cuban popular music, of rapid tempo and with lyrics. The word had been used in this sense at least since the late 18th and early 19th century. Guarachas were played and sung in musical theatres and in low-class dance salons. They became an integral part of Bufo comic...
might be an earlier example. The waltz has another characteristic: it is a 'travelling' dance, with couples moving round the arena. In Latin dances, progressive movement of dancers is unusual, but does occur in the conga
Conga (comparsa)
Congas and comparsas are different parts of the carnivals of Santiago de Cuba., and by extension, similar groups may be found in carnivals in Havana. The congas are formed by a cornet china and a group of percussionists, playing drums and other instruments, together with the people who move to...
, the samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...
and the tango
Tango (dance)
Tango dance originated in the area of the Rio de la Plata , and spread to the rest of the world soon after....
.
Música campesina
The rural music of Cuba as was played and sung by peasants. All forms of música campesina make use of the guitar, and its variations. There is usually some percussion, and on occasion the accordionAccordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
(accordeón de botones). While it remained unchanged in its forms, there was a steady decline in interest among the Cuban youth. Later, some artists tried to renew música campesina with new styles, lyrics, themes and arrangements. The music of Celina González
Celina González
Celina González Zamora is a Cuban singer and songwriter of musica campesina, the traditional music of the Cuban countryside. She is best known for co-authoring A Santa Bárbara with her partner Reutilio Domínguez. Her recording of it was a hit, as was Celia Cruz's version...
is a successful modern version.
Zapateo
Typical dance of the Cuban campesino or guajiro, of Spanish origin. A dance of pairs, involving tapping of the feet, mostly by the man. Illustrations exist from previous centuries, but the dance is now defunct. It was accompanied by tipleTiple
Tiple is the Spanish word for treble or soprano, is often applied to specific instruments, generally to refer to a small chordophone of the guitar family. A tiple player is called a tiplista.-Colombian tiple:...
, guitar and güiro
Güiro
The güiro is a Latin-American percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines along the notches to produce a ratchet-like sound. The güiro is commonly used in Latin-American music, and plays a key role...
, in combined 6/8 and 3/4 rhythm, accented on the first of every three quavers
Quavers
Quavers are a British snack, originally made by Smiths, and now produced by Walkers. Walkers, part of the Pepsico family, purchased the Quavers brand in 1997 where it became one of the Frito Lay International brand names.- History :...
.
Punto guajiro
Punto is a rural form of music derived from a local form of décimaDécima
A décima refers to a ten-line stanza of poetry, and the song form generally consists of forty-four lines...
and verso called punto guajiro
Punto guajiro
Punto guajiro or punto cubano – or simply punto – is a sung genre of Cuban music, a poetic art with music. It emerged in the western and central regions of Cuba in the 17th century...
or punto cubano. It has been popularized by artists like Celina González, and has become an influence on modern son. Albita Rodríguez
Albita Rodríguez
Albita Rodríguez , known in her music career simply as Albita, is a Grammy-winning Cuban-American singer, producer and composer.Albita was born in Havana, Cuba...
, now in Miami, began her career as a punto singer.
Guajira
First, a genre of Cuban song similar to the punto and the criolla. It contains bucolic countryside lyrics, rhyming, similar to décimaDécima
A décima refers to a ten-line stanza of poetry, and the song form generally consists of forty-four lines...
poetry. Music a mixture of 3/4 and 6/8 rhythms. According to Sánchez de Fuentes
Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes
Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes was a Cuban composer, and an author of books on the history of Cuban folk music.The outstanding habanera Tú, written when he was sixteen, was his best-known composition...
, its first section is in a minor key, its second section in a major key.
Secondly, it is now used mostly to describe slow dance music in 4/4 time, a fusion of the son and the guajira. Guillermo Portabales
Guillermo Portabales
Guillermo Portabales was a Cuban singer-songwriter and guitarist who popularized the guajira style of Cuban music from the 1930s through the 1960s...
was the outstanding singer-guitarist in this genre.
Criolla
Criolla is a type of Cuban music and song; the term is said to derive from canción criolla, or creole song. This genre developed in the late 19th century, and is similar to some other forms of that period, such as the canción, the guajira and the bolero. Criollas usually consist of a short introduction, followed by two sections of sixteen bars each. They are written in a slow tempo in 6/8 time. Many criollas were first heard in the bufo theatre.Contradanza
The contradanza is an important precursor of several later popular dances. It arrived in Cuba in the late 18th century from Europe where it had been developed first as the English country dance, and then as the French contradanse. The origin of the word is a corruption of the English term. Manuel SaumellManuel Saumell
Manuel Saumell Robredo , was a Cuban composer of the highest importance for his invention and development of genuinely creolized forms of music...
wrote over fifty contradanzas (in 2/4 or 6/8 time), in which his rhythmic and melodic inventiveness was astonishing.
The contradanza is a communal sequence dance, with the dance figures conforming to a set pattern. The selection of figures for a particular dance was usually set by a master of ceremonies or dance leader. There were two parts of 16 bars each, danced in a line or square format. The tempo and style of the music was bright and fairly fast. The earliest Cuban composition of a contradanza is San Pascual bailon, published in 1803. The Cubans developed a number of creolized version, such as the paseo, cadena, ostenido and cadazo. This creolization is an early example of the influence of the African traditions in the Caribbean. Most of the musicians were black or mulatto (even early in the 19th century there were many freed slaves and mixed race persons living in Cuban towns).
- "The women of Havana have a furious taste for dancing; they spend entire nights elevated, agitated, crazy and pouring sweat until they fall spent."
The contradanza supplanted the minuet as the most popular dance until from 1842 on, it gave way to the habanera, a quite different style.
Danza
This, the child of the contradanza, was also danced in lines or squares. It was also a brisk form of music and dance in double or triple time. A repeated 8-bar paseo was followed by two 16-bar sections called the primera and segunda. One famous composer of danzas was Ignacio CervantesIgnacio Cervantes
Ignacio Cervantes Kawanagh was a Cuban virtuoso pianist and composer. He was influential in the creolization of Cuban music....
, whose forty-one danzas cubanas were a landmark in musical nationalism. This type of dance was eventually replaced by the danzón, which was, like the habanera, much slower and more sedate.
Habanera
The habaneraHabanera (music)
The habanera is a genre of Cuban popular dance music of the 19th century. It is a creolized form which developed from the contradanza. It has a characteristic "Habanera rhythm", and is performed with sung lyrics...
developed out of the contradanza
Contradanza
The Cuban contradanza was a popular dance music genre of the 19th century.- Origins and Early Development:...
in the early 19th century. Its great novelty was that it was sung, as well as played and danced. Its development was at least partly due to the influence of French-speaking immigrants. The Haitian revolution of 1791 led to many colonial French and their slaves fleeing to Oriente. The cinquillo
Cinquillo
A cinquillo is a typical Cuban/Caribbean rhythmic cell, derived from the contradanza and the danzón. It consists of an eighth, a sixteenth, an eighth, a sixteenth, and an eighth note. Placing this rhythm in a 2/4 measure, it obtains a strongly syncopated character from the sustained note which...
, an important rhythmical pattern, made its first appearance at this time.
The dance style of the habanera is slower and more stately than the danza. By the 1840s habaneras were written, sung, and danced in Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Spain. Since about 1900 the habanera has been a relic dance; but the music has a period charm, and there are some famous compositions, such as Tu, which has been recorded in many versions.
Versions of habanera-type compositions have appeared in the music of Ravel, Bizet, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Fauré
Faure
Faure or Fauré is a French family name and may refer to:People:* Edgar Faure, French politician* Élie Faure, French art historian and essayist* Émile Alphonse Faure, lead battery pioneer* Cédric Fauré, French football striker...
, Albeniz. The rhythm is similar to that of the tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
, and some believe the habanera is the musical father of the tango.
Danzón
The European influence on Cuba's later musical development is represented by danzónDanzón
Danzón is the official dance of Cuba. It is also an active musical form in Mexico and is still beloved in Puerto Rico where Verdeluz, a modern danzón by Puerto Rican composer Antonio Cabán Vale is considered the unofficial national anthem...
, an elegant musical form that was once more popular than the son in Cuba. It is a descendent of the creollized Cuban contradanza
Contradanza
The Cuban contradanza was a popular dance music genre of the 19th century.- Origins and Early Development:...
. The danzón marks the change from the communal sequence dance style of the late 18th century to the couple dances of later times. The stimulus for this was the success of the once-scandalous walz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
, where couples danced facing each other, independently from other couples and not as part of a pre-set structure. The danzón was the first Cuban dance to adopt such methods, though there is a difference between the two dances. The walz is a progressive ballroom dance where couples move round the floor in an anti-clockwise direction; the danzón is a 'pocket-handkerchief' dance where a couple stays within a small area of the floor.
The danzón
Danzón
Danzón is the official dance of Cuba. It is also an active musical form in Mexico and is still beloved in Puerto Rico where Verdeluz, a modern danzón by Puerto Rican composer Antonio Cabán Vale is considered the unofficial national anthem...
was developed, according to one's point of view, either by Manuel Saumell
Manuel Saumell
Manuel Saumell Robredo , was a Cuban composer of the highest importance for his invention and development of genuinely creolized forms of music...
p191 or by Miguel Faílde
Miguel Faílde
Miguel Faílde Pérez , was a Cuban musician and bandleader. He was the official originator of the danzón, and the founder of the Orquesta Faílde....
in Matanzas
Matanzas
Matanzas is the capital of the Cuban province of Matanzas. It is famed for its poets, culture, and Afro-Cuban folklore.It is located on the northern shore of the island of Cuba, on the Bay of Matanzas , east of the capital Havana and west of the resort town of Varadero.Matanzas is called the...
, the official date of origin being 1879. Failde's was an orquesta típica
Orquesta típica
Orquesta típica, or simply a típica, is a Latin-American term for a band which plays popular music. The details vary from country to country. The term tends to be used for groups of medium size in some well-defined instrumental set-up.- Argentina :In Argentina, a típica is a tango orchestra...
, a form derived from military bands, using brass, kettle-drums &c. The later development of the charanga
Charanga
Charanga is a term given to traditional ensembles of Cuban dance music. They made Cuban dance music popular in the 1940s and their music consisted of heavily son-influenced material, performed on European instruments such as violin and flute by a Charanga orchestra....
was more suited to the indoor salon and is an orchestral format still popular today in Cuba and some other countries. The charanga uses double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s, flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, paila criolla
Paila criolla
Paila criolla is the term given to a shallow single-headed drum with metal casing, invented in Cuba, and initially used by street bands in the 19th century. They are shallower in shape than single-headed tom-toms, and come in double sets, tuned an octave apart...
and güiro
Güiro
The güiro is a Latin-American percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines along the notches to produce a ratchet-like sound. The güiro is commonly used in Latin-American music, and plays a key role...
. This change in instrumental set-up is illustrated in Early Cuban bands
Early Cuban bands
Early Cuban bands played popular music for dances and theatres during the period 1780–1930. During this period Cuban music became creolized, and its European and African origins gradually changed to become genuinely Cuban. Instrumentation and music continually developed during this period...
.
From time to time in its 'career', the danzón acquired African influences in its musical structure. It became more syncopated
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
, especially in its third part. The credit for this is given to José Urfé
José Urfé
José Urfé González was a Cuban clarinetist and composer. He introduced a new musical element from the son into the danzón in 1910....
, who worked elements of the son into the last part of the danzón in his composition El bombin de Barreto (1910). Both the danzón and the charanga line-up have been strongly influential in later developments.
The danzón was exported to popular acclaim throughout Latin America, especially Mexico. It is now a relic, both in music and in dance, but its highly orchestrated descendents live on in charangas that Faílde and Urfé would likely not recognize. Juan Formell
Juan Formell
Juan Formell is a Cuban musician, bassist, composer, and arranger, best known as the director of Los Van Van Orchestra. He is a creator of popular danceable music and credited with bringing electronic instrumentation into the Cuban musical form.His professional activity started in 1957 as musician...
has had a huge influence through his reorganization of first Orquesta Revé, and later Los Van Van
Los Van Van
Los Van Van is a Cuban band led by bassist Juan Formell, it is one of the most recognized post-revolution Cuban bands, while Juan Formell has arguably become the most important figure in contemporary Cuban music....
.
Danzonete
Early danzons were purely instrumental. The first to introduce a vocal part was Aniceto Diaz in 1927 in MatanzasMatanzas
Matanzas is the capital of the Cuban province of Matanzas. It is famed for its poets, culture, and Afro-Cuban folklore.It is located on the northern shore of the island of Cuba, on the Bay of Matanzas , east of the capital Havana and west of the resort town of Varadero.Matanzas is called the...
: Rompiendo la rutina. Later, the black singer Barbarito Diez joined the charanga of Antonio María Romeu
Antonio María Romeu
Antonio María Romeu Marrero was a Cuban pianist, composer and bandleader. His orchestra was Cuba's leading charanga for over thirty years, specializing in the danzón.- Life & work :...
in 1935 and, over the years, recorded eleven albums of danzonetes. All later forms have included vocals.
Son
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
is to Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, or the samba to Brazil. In addition, it is perhaps the most flexible of all forms of Latin-American music. Its great strength is its fusion between European and African musical traditions. Its most characteristic instruments are the Cuban guitar known as the tres
Tres
The tres is a 3-course, 6-string chordophone which was created in Cuba. A tres player is called a tresero in Cuba and a tresista in Puerto Rico.-Cuban tres:In Cuba, the son was created as a song and a salon dance genre...
, and the well-known double-headed bongó
Bongo
Bongo may refer to:In nature:*Bongo , a species of forest antelope from AfricaIn geography:*Bongo Country, the name of several places in Africa*Bongo , Ivory CoastIn entertainment:...
; these are present from the start to the present day. Also typical are the claves
Claves
Claves are a percussion instrument , consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone), consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone),...
, the Spanish guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, the double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
(replacing the early botija
Botija
The botija is a Caribbean musical instrument of the aerophone type. It was used in the early son sextetos in Cuba. The botija is a potbellied earthenware jug or jar with two openings. The player creates sound across a hole in the side whilst controlling the sound with his fingers in the mouth of...
or marímbula
Marímbula
A marímbula is a folk musical instrument of the Caribbean Islands . The marímbula is usually classified as part of the lamellophone family of musical instruments. With its roots in African instruments, marimbula originated in the province of Oriente, Cuba in the 19th century...
), and early on, the cornet
Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
or trumpet and finally the piano.
The son arose in Oriente, the eastern part of the island, merging the Spanish guitar and lyrical traditions with African percussion and rhythms. We now know that its history as a distinct form is relatively recent. There is no evidence that it goes back further than the end of the 19th century. It moved from Oriente to Havana in about 1909, carried by members of the Permanente (the Army), who were sent out of their areas of origin as a matter of policy. The first recordings were in 1918.
There are many types of son. Odilio Urfé recognised these variants:
- son montuno
- changuí
- sucu-sucu
- pregónPregónPregón, a Spanish word meaning announcement or street-seller's cry, has a particular meaning in Cuban music, and Latin American music generally...
- bolero-son
- afro-son
- son guaguancó
- mambo
and one can certainly add
- salsa (in large part)
- timba
In addition, the son has again and again changed the older danzón to make it more syncopated and creole in style, starting in 1910, through the danzón-mambo and the cha-cha-cha, to complex modern arrangements that defy categorization.
The son varies widely today, with the defining characteristic a syncopated
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
bass pulse that comes before the downbeat, giving son and its derivatives (including salsa) its distinctive rhythm; this is known as the anticipated bass. Son lyrics were originally decima (ten line), octosyllabic verse, and performed in 2/4 time, but diversified hugely from the 1920s. See clave
Clave (rhythm)
The clave rhythmic pattern is used as a tool for temporal organization in Afro-Cuban music, such as rumba, conga de comparsa, son, son montuno, mambo, salsa, Latin jazz, songo and timba. The five-stroke clave pattern represents the structural core of many Afro-Cuban rhythms...
for the son's underpinning structure.
Changuí
Changuí is a type of son from the eastern provinces (area of Santiago de CubaSantiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city of Cuba and capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province in the south-eastern area of the island, some south-east of the Cuban capital of Havana....
and Guantánamo
Guantánamo
Guantánamo is a municipality and city in southeast Cuba and capital of Guantánamo Province.Guantánamo is served by the Caimanera port and the site of a famous U.S. Naval base. The area produces sugarcane and cotton wool...
), formerly known as Oriente. Because these early groups did not write down and publish their music, it is unclear how the changuí originated, and whether it is a precursor to the mainstream son or not. Changuí has been characterised by its strong emphasis on the downbeat, and is often fast and very percussive.
Changuí exists today in the form of half-a-dozen small groups, mostly from Guantanamo. The instrumentation is similar to that of the early son groups who set up in Havana before 1920. These son groups, for example the early Sexteto Boloña and Sexteto Habanero
Sexteto Habanero
The Sexteto Habanero was a famous Cuban musical group which was founded in 1920. It played an important part in the early history of the son.In 1917 four musicians from Oriente, calling themselves Cuarteto Oriental, recorded four numbers for Columbia Records in Havana. The numbers are listed in a...
, used either marimbulas or botijas as bass instruments before they changed over to the double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, musically a more flexible instrument.
It is an open question whether the changui represents a genuinely distinctive music, or whether it is simply an archaic form of son artificially preserved by state support. Some modern orchestras, such as Orquesta Revé, have claimed changuí as their main influence. Whether this is accurate, or not, is unclear.
Jazz
The history of jazz in Cuba was obscured for many years; however it has become clear that its history in Cuba is virtually as long as its history in the USA.Much more is now known about early Cuban jazz bands, though a full assessment is plagued by the lack of recordings. Migrations and visits to and from the USA and the mutual exchange of recordings and sheet music kept musicians in the two countries in touch. In the first part of the 20th century there were close relations between musicians in Cuba and those in New Orleans. The orchestra leader in the famous Tropicana Club
Tropicana Club
Tropicana is a world known cabaret and club in Havana, Cuba. It was launched in 1939 at Villa Mina, a six-acre suburban estate with lush tropical gardens in Havana's Marianao neighborhood.-Influence:...
, Armando Romeu Jr, was a leading figure in the post-World War II development of Cuban jazz. The phenomenon of cubop and the jam sessions in Havana and New York organized by Cachao created genuine fusions that influence musicians today.
A key historian of early Cuban jazz is Leonardo Acosta. Others have explored the history of jazz and latin jazz more from the U.S. perspective.
Early Cuban jazz bands
The Jazz Band Sagua was founded in Sagua la GrandeSagua La Grande
Sagua La Grande is a municipality and city located on the north coast of the province of Villa Clara in central Cuba, on the Sagua la Grande River. The city is close to Mogotes de Jumagua, limestone cliffs...
in 1914 by Pedro Stacholy (director & piano). Members: Hipólito Herrera (trumpet); Norberto Fabelo (cornet); Ernesto Ribalta (flute & sax); Humberto Domínguez (violin); Luciano Galindo (trombone); Antonio Temprano (tuba); Tomás Medina (drum kit); Marino Rojo (güiro). For fourteen years they played at the Teatro Principal de Sagua. Stacholy studed under Antonio Fabré in Sagua, and completed his studies in New York, where he stayed for three years.
Jaime Prats
Jaime Prats was a Cuban flautist, composer and orchestral director...
in Havana. The personnel included his son Rodrigo Prats
Rodrigo Prats
Rodrigo Prats was a Cuban composer, violinist, pianist and orchestral director. The son of a musician, Jaime Prats, Rodrigo began to study music at the age of nine...
on violin, the great flautist Alberto Socarrás
Alberto Socarras
Alberto Socarrás Estacio, , was a Cuban-American flautist who played both Cuban music and jazz....
on flute and saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
and Pucho Jiménez on slide trombone. The line-up would probably have included double bass, kit drum, banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
, cornet at least. Earlier works cited this as the first jazz band in Cuba, but evidently there were earlier groups.
In 1924 Moisés Simons
Moisés Simons
Moisés Simons , was a leading Cuban composer, pianist and orchestra leader. He was the composer of the Peanut Vendor, possibly the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician...
(piano) founded a group which played on the roof garden of the Plaza Hotel in Havana, and consisted of piano, violin, two saxes, banjo, double bass, drums and timbales. Its members included Virgilio Diego (violin); Alberto Soccarás (alto saz, flute); José Ramón Betancourt (tenor sax); Pablo O'Farrill (d. bass). In 1928, still at the same venue, Simons hired Julio Cueva
Julio Cueva
Julio Cueva was a Cuban trumpeter, composer and band leader. He was an important figure in the spread of Cuban popular music in the 1930s.- Life and career :...
, a famous trumpeter, and Enrique Santiesteban, a future media star, as vocalist and drummer. These were top instrumentalists, attracted by top fees of $8 a day.p28
Origins of Cuba's African groups
Clearly, the origin of African groups in Cuba is due to the island's long history of slavery. Compared to the USA, slavery started in Cuba much earlier and continued for decades afterwards. Cuba was the last country in the Americas to abolish the importation of slaves, and the second last to free the slaves. In 1807 the British Parliament outlawed slavery, and from then on the British Navy acted to intercept Portuguese and Spanish slave ships. By 1860 the trade with Cuba was almost extinguished; the last slave ship to Cuba was in 1873. The abolition of slavery was announced by the Spanish Crown in 1880, and put into effect in 1886. Two years later, Brazil abolished slavery.Although the exact number of slaves from each African culture will never be known, most came from one of these groups, which are listed in rough order of their cultural impact in Cuba:
1. The Congolese
Kongo people
The Bakongo or the Kongo people , also sometimes referred to as Kongolese or Congolese, is a Bantu ethnic group which lives along the Atlantic coast of Africa from Pointe-Noire to Luanda, Angola...
from the Congo
Congo River
The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...
basin and SW Africa. Many tribes were involved, all called Congos in Cuba. Their religion is called Palo
Palo (religion)
Palo, or Las Reglas de Congo are a group of closely related religions or denominations, which developed in the Spanish colonies of the Caribbean amongst Central African slaves of mostly Bantu ancestry...
. Probably the most numerous group, with a huge influence on Cuban music.
2. The Oyó
Oyo Empire
The Oyo Empire was a Yoruba empire of what is today southwestern Nigeria. The empire was established before the 14th century and grew to become one of the largest West African states encountered by European explorers. It rose to preeminence through its possession of a powerful cavalry and wealth...
or Yoruba
Yoruba people
The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...
from modern Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, known in Cuba as Lucumí
Lucumi people
The Lucumi people are an Afro-Cuban, Afro-Puerto Rican, and Afro-Dominican ethnic group. Many Lucumi claim to be of Yoruba ancestry....
. Their religion is known as Regla de Ocha (roughly, 'the way of the spirits') and its syncretic version known as Santería
Santería
Santería is a syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin influenced by Roman Catholic Christianity, also known as Regla de Ocha, La Regla Lucumi, or Lukumi. Its liturgical language, a dialect of Yoruba, is also known as Lucumi....
. Culturally of great significance.
3. The Kalabars from part of Nigeria and Cameroon
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
. These semi-Bantú
Bantu
Bantu is used as a general label for 300-600 ethnic groups in Africa of speakers of Bantu languages, distributed from Cameroon east across Central Africa and Eastern Africa to Southern Africa...
groups are known in Cuba as Carabali, and their religious organization as Abakuá
Abakuá
Abakua or Abakuá is an Afro-Cuban men's initiatory fraternity, or secret society, which originated from fraternal associations in the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon...
. The street name for them in Cuba was Ñáñigos.
4. The Dahomey
Dahomey
Dahomey was a country in west Africa in what is now the Republic of Benin. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a powerful west African state that was founded in the seventeenth century and survived until 1894. From 1894 until 1960 Dahomey was a part of French West Africa. The independent Republic of Dahomey...
, from Benin
Benin
Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
. They were the Fon
Fon people
The Fon people, or Fon nu, are a major West African ethnic and linguistic group in the country of Benin, and southwest Nigeria, made up of more than 3,500,000 people. The Fon language is the main language spoken in Southern Benin, and is a member of the Gbe language group...
, known as arará in Cuba. The Dahomeys were a powerful and terrible people who practised human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
and slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
long before Europeans got involved, and even more so during the Atlantic slave trade.p100
5. Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
an immigrants to Cuba arrived at various times up to the present day. Leaving aside the French, who also came, the Africans from Haiti were a mixture of groups who usually spoke creolized French: and religion was known as vodú.
6. From part of modern Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
and the Ivory Coast came the Gangá.
7. Senegambian people (Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, Gambia), but including many brought from Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
by the Arab slavers, were known by a catch-all word: Mandinga. The famous musical phrase Kikiribu Mandinga! refers to them.
Subsequent organization
The roots of most Afro-Cuban musical forms lie in the cabildoCabildo (Cuba)
Cabildos de nación were African ethnic associations created in Cuba in the late 16th century based on the Spanish cofradías that were organized in Seville for the first time around the 14th century...
s, self-organized social clubs for the African slaves, separate cabildos for separate cultures. The cabildos were formed mainly from four groups: the Yoruba (the Lucumi in Cuba); the Congolese
Kongo people
The Bakongo or the Kongo people , also sometimes referred to as Kongolese or Congolese, is a Bantu ethnic group which lives along the Atlantic coast of Africa from Pointe-Noire to Luanda, Angola...
(Palo in Cuba); Dahomey
Dahomey
Dahomey was a country in west Africa in what is now the Republic of Benin. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a powerful west African state that was founded in the seventeenth century and survived until 1894. From 1894 until 1960 Dahomey was a part of French West Africa. The independent Republic of Dahomey...
(the Fon or Arará). Other cultures were undoubtedly present, more even than listed above, but in smaller numbers, and they did not leave such a distinctive presence.
Cabildos preserved African cultural traditions, even after the abolition of slavery in 1886. At the same time, African religions were transmitted from generation to generation throughout Cuba, Haiti, other islands and Brazil. These religions, which had a similar but not identical structure, were known as Lucumi or Regla de Ocha if they derived from the Yoruba, Palo
Palo (religion)
Palo, or Las Reglas de Congo are a group of closely related religions or denominations, which developed in the Spanish colonies of the Caribbean amongst Central African slaves of mostly Bantu ancestry...
from Central Africa
Central Africa
Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....
, Vodú from Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, and so on. The term Santería was first introduced to account for the way African spirits were joined to Catholic saints, especially by people who were both baptized and initiated, and so were genuinely members of both groups. Outsiders picked up the word and have tended to use it somewhat indiscriminately. It has become a kind of catch-all word, rather like salsa in music.p171; p258
The ñáñigos in Cuba or Carabali in their secret Abakuá
Abakuá
Abakua or Abakuá is an Afro-Cuban men's initiatory fraternity, or secret society, which originated from fraternal associations in the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon...
societies, were one of the most terrifying groups; even other blacks were afraid of them:
- "Girl, don't tell me about the ñáñigos! They were bad. The carabali was evil down to his guts. And the ñáñigos from back in the day when I was a chick, weren't like the ones today... they kept their secret, like in Africa."
African sacred music in Cuba
All these African cultures had musical traditions, which survive erratically to the present day, not always in detail, but in general style. The best preserved are the African polytheistic religions, where, in Cuba at least, the instruments, the language, the chants, the dances and their interpretations are quite well preserved. In what other American countries are the religious ceremonies conducted in the old language(s) of Africa? They certainly are in Lucumí ceremonies, though of course, back in Africa the language has moved on. What unifies all genuine forms of African music is the unity of polyrhythmic percussion, voice (call-and-response) and dance in well-defined social settings, and the absence of melodic instruments of an Arabic or European kind.Not until after the Second World War do we find detailed printed descriptions or recordings of African sacred music in Cuba. Inside the cults, music, song, dance and ceremony were (and still are) learnt by heart by means of demonstration, including such ceremonial procedures conducted in an African language. The experiences were private to the initiated, until the work of the ethnologist Fernándo Ortíz
Fernando Ortiz
Fernando Ortiz Fernández was a Cuban essayist, ethnomusicologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban culture. Ortiz was a prolific polymath dedicated to exploring, recording, and understanding all aspects of indigenous Cuban culture...
, who devoted a large part of his life to investigating the influence of African culture in Cuba. The first detailed transcription of percussion, song and chants are to be found in his great works.
There are now many recordings offering a selection of pieces in praise of, or prayers to, the orisha
Orisha
An Orisha is a spirit or deity that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system....
s. Much of the ceremonial procedures are still hidden from the eyes of outsiders, though some descriptions in words exist.
Yoruban and Congolese rituals
Religious traditions of African origin have survived in Cuba, and are the basis of ritual music, song and dance quite distinct from the secular music and dance. The religion of Yoruban origin is known as Lucumí or Regla de Ocha; the religion of Congolese origin is known as PaloPalo (religion)
Palo, or Las Reglas de Congo are a group of closely related religions or denominations, which developed in the Spanish colonies of the Caribbean amongst Central African slaves of mostly Bantu ancestry...
, as in palos del monte. There are also, in the Oriente region, forms of Haitian ritual together with its own instruments, music &c.
In Lucumi ceremonies, consecrated batá drums are played at ceremonies, and gourd
Gourd
A gourd is a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae. Gourd is occasionally used to describe crops like cucumbers, squash, luffas, and melons. The term 'gourd' however, can more specifically, refer to the plants of the two Cucurbitaceae genera Lagenaria and Cucurbita or also to their hollow dried out shell...
ensembles called abwe
Abwe
An abwe or chekeré is a musical ensemble of Cuba that uses gourds. It is a product of cabildos, historical congregations of African slaves brought to Cuba....
. In the 1950s, a collection of Havana-area batá drummers called Santero helped bring Lucumí styles into mainstream Cuban music, while artists like Mezcla
Mezcla
-MEZCLA:Mezcla has been a part of the soundtrack of the Cuban music scene for the past twenty-five years. The ensemble has constantly reinvented itself, highlighting it's members' musical strengths and interests...
, with the lucumí singer Lázaro Ros
Lázaro Ros
Lázaro Ros was an Afro-Cuban singer. His music borrowed much from Africa, as he performed music of the Lucumí culture, of the Yoruba people from modern-day Nigeria, and of the Arará culture of the Dahomeyan people from modern-day Benin...
, melded the style with other forms, including zouk
Zouk
Zouk is a style of rhythmic music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe & Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local Antillean Creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish dance, the...
.
The Congo
Kongo people
The Bakongo or the Kongo people , also sometimes referred to as Kongolese or Congolese, is a Bantu ethnic group which lives along the Atlantic coast of Africa from Pointe-Noire to Luanda, Angola...
cabildo uses yuka drums, as well as gallos (a form of song contest), makuta and mani dances. The latter is related to the Brazilian martial dance capoeira
Capoeira
Capoeira is a Brazilian art form that combines elements of martial arts, sports, and music. It was created in Brazil mainly by descendants of African slaves with Brazilian native influences, probably beginning in the 16th century...
.
Clave
The clave rhythmRhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
ic pattern is used as a tool for temporal
Meter (music)
Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
organization in Afro-Cuban music, such as rumba, conga de comparsa
Comparsa
A comparsa is the band which plays a conga during a Latin American Carnival celebration. It consists of a large group of dancers dancing and traveling on the streets, followed by a Carrosa where the musicians play...
, son
Son (music)
The Son cubano is a style of music that originated in Cuba and gained worldwide popularity in the 1930s. Son combines the structure and elements of Spanish canción and the Spanish guitar with African rhythms and percussion instruments of Bantu and Arará origin...
, mambo (music), salsa
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...
, Latin jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
, songo
Songo music
Songo is a type of Cuban music originating in Havana which combines elements from the rumba, son Cubano, and other contemporary afro-American styles like jazz and funk...
and timba
Timba
Timba is a Cuban genre of music sometimes referred as salsa cubana . However, the historical development of timba has been quite independent of the development of salsa in the United States and Puerto Rico and the music has its own trademark aspects due to the Cuban embargo and strong Afro-Cuban...
. The five-stroke clave pattern represents the structural core of many Afro-Cuban rhythms. Just as a keystone
Keystone (architecture)
A keystone is the wedge-shaped stone piece at the apex of a masonry vault or arch, which is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, allowing the arch to bear weight. This makes a keystone very important structurally...
holds an arch
Arch
An arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.-Technical aspects:The...
in place, the clave pattern holds the rhythm together in Afro-Cuban music. The clave pattern originated in sub-Saharan African music traditions
Sub-Saharan African music traditions
Sub-Saharan African music traditions exhibit so many common features that they may in some respects be thought of as constituting a single musical system. While some African music is clearly contemporary-popular music and some is art-music, still a great deal is communal and orally transmitted...
, where it serves essentially the same function as it does in Cuba. The pattern is also found in the African diaspora
African diaspora
The African diaspora was the movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world—predominantly to the Americas also to Europe, the Middle East and other places around the globe...
musics of Haitian vodou drumming
Haitian vodou drumming
In Haiti, Vodou ceremonies and drumming are inextricably linked. While drumming does exist in other contexts in the country, by far the richest traditions come from this distinctly Haitian religion. As such, before one can come to play, appreciate, and understand this music one should view it in...
and Afro-Brazilian music. The clave pattern is used in North American popular music
American popular music
American popular music had a profound effect on music across the world. The country has seen the rise of popular styles that have had a significant influence on global culture, including ragtime, blues, jazz, swing, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno,...
as a rhythmic motif
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
or ostinato
Ostinato
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...
, or simply a form of rhythmic decoration.
Rumba
Rumba is a music of Cuban origin, but entirely African in style, using only voice, percussion and dance. It is a secular musical style from the docks and the less prosperous areas of HavanaHavana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
and Matanzas
Matanzas
Matanzas is the capital of the Cuban province of Matanzas. It is famed for its poets, culture, and Afro-Cuban folklore.It is located on the northern shore of the island of Cuba, on the Bay of Matanzas , east of the capital Havana and west of the resort town of Varadero.Matanzas is called the...
. Rumba musicians use a trio of drums, similar in appearance to conga drums (they are called tumba, llamador and quinto) or, alternatively, wooden boxes (cajones
Cajón
A cajón is a box-shaped percussion instrument originally from Peru, played by slapping the front face with the hands.-Origins and evolution:...
) may be used. Also used are claves
Claves
Claves are a percussion instrument , consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone), consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone),...
and, sometimes, spoons. There is always a vocal element, African in style, but sung in Spanish: call and response
Call and response (music)
In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first...
vocals. There were three basic rumba forms in the last century: columbia, guaguancó
Guaguancó
Guaguancó is a sub-genre of Cuban rumba, a complex rhythmic music and dance style. The traditional line-up consists of:* three drums, similar to conga drums: the tumba , llamador , and quinto...
and yambú. The Columbia, played in 6/8 time, was danced only by men, often as a solo dance, and was swift, with aggressive and acrobatic moves. The guagancó was danced with one man and one woman. The dance simulates the man's pursuit of the woman. The yambú, now a relic, featured a burlesque of an old man walking with a stick. All forms of rumba are accompanied by song or chants.
Note also two other uses of the word, both technically incorrect:
- Rumba as a cover-all term for faster Cuban music. This usage started in the early 1930s with The Peanut VendorThe Peanut VendorThe Peanut Vendor is a Cuban song based on a street-seller's cry, and known as a pregón. It is possibly the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician...
. In this sense it has been replaced by salsa, which is also a cover-all term for marketing the music to non-Cubans. - Rumba in the international Latin-American dance syllabus is a misnomer for the slow Cuban rhythm more accurately called the bolero-son.
Rumba is usually seen in Cuba in the performances of professional groups on set occasions. There are also amateur groups based on casas de cultura, and on work groups. Like all aspects of life in Cuba, dance and music are organised by the state through Ministries and their various committees.
Comparsa
In Cuba, the word comparsaComparsa
A comparsa is the band which plays a conga during a Latin American Carnival celebration. It consists of a large group of dancers dancing and traveling on the streets, followed by a Carrosa where the musicians play...
refers to the neighbourhood groups that take part in carnival
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
. Conga
Conga (comparsa)
Congas and comparsas are different parts of the carnivals of Santiago de Cuba., and by extension, similar groups may be found in carnivals in Havana. The congas are formed by a cornet china and a group of percussionists, playing drums and other instruments, together with the people who move to...
is of African origin, and derives from street celebrations of the African spirits. The distinction is blurred today, but in the past the congas have been prohibited from time to time. Carnival as a whole was banned by the revolutionary
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
government for many years, and still does not take place with the regularity of old. Conga drums
Conga
The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...
are played (along with other typical instruments) in comparsas of all kinds. Santiago de Cuba and Havana were the two main centers for street carnivals. Two types of dance music (at least) owe their origin to comparsa music:
Conga
Conga (music)
Conga music is a style of Cuban music used to dance Conga. The most known Conga song is "Conga" of Gloria Estefan.-Parodies:*In Sesame Street, this type of music is titled "The Monster Clubhouse Conga" where the purple monster with pigtails named Googel, green monster Phoebe and blue monster Mel...
: an adaptation of comparsa music and dance for social dances. Eliseo Grenet
Eliseo Grenet
Eliseo Grenet Sánchez was a Cuban pianist and a leading composer/arranger of the day. He composed music for stage shows and films, and some famous Cuban dance music. Eliseo was one of three musical brothers, all composers, the others being Emilio and Ernesto...
may be the person who first created this music,p408 but it was the Lecuona Cuban Boys
Lecuona Cuban Boys
The Lecuona Cuban Boys was a popular Cuban orchestra which toured the world for over forty years.The band was founded by Ernesto Lecuona, whose role was that of a patron-entrepreneur. He did not actually play with the band, but sometimes gave a piano recital before the band played. The core of the...
who took it round the world. The conga became, and perhaps still is, the best-known Cuban music and dance style for non-latins.
Mozambique
Mozambique (music)
Mozambique is a vigorous style of Cuban music and dance derived, like the conga, from music of Cuban street carnivals or comparsas. It was invented or developed by Pello el Afrokan in 1963...
: a comparsa-type dance music developed by Pello el Afrokan (Pedro Izquierdo) in 1963. It had a brief period of high popularity, peaked in 1965, and was soon forgotten. Apparently, to make it work properly, it needed 16 drums plus other percussion, dancers...
Other forms
Black immigrants from Haiti have settled in Oriente and established their own style of music, called the tumba francesa, which uses its own type of drum, dance and song. This survives to the present day in Santiago de Cuba.Diversification and Popularization
1920s and '30s
Son music came to HavanaHavana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, probably early in the century. By the 1920s it was one of the most popular forms in Cuba: recordings of the Sexteto Boloña exist from 1918. In the 1930s recordings by famous groups like the Septeto Nacional
Septeto Nacional
Septeto Nacional , or the Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Piñeiro, is a group credited with expanding the Son musical style before Arsenio Rodríguez. It added the trumpet to percussion, vocals, and strings. The group started as a sextet in 1927 in Central Havana...
and the Trio Matamoros
Trio Matamoros
The Trio Matamoros were one of the most popular Cuban trova groups. Formed in 1925 by Miguel Matamoros , Rafael Cueto and Siro Rodriguez...
went round the world. Son was urbanized, with trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s and other new instruments, leading to its tremendous influence on most later forms of Cuban music. In Havana, influences such as American popular music and jazz via the radio were also popular.
The son sextetos gave way to the septetos, including guitar or tres
Tres
The tres is a 3-course, 6-string chordophone which was created in Cuba. A tres player is called a tresero in Cuba and a tresista in Puerto Rico.-Cuban tres:In Cuba, the son was created as a song and a salon dance genre...
, marímbula
Marímbula
A marímbula is a folk musical instrument of the Caribbean Islands . The marímbula is usually classified as part of the lamellophone family of musical instruments. With its roots in African instruments, marimbula originated in the province of Oriente, Cuba in the 19th century...
s or double bass, bongo
Bongo drum
Bongo or bongos are a Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of single-headed, open-ended drums attached to each other. The drums are of different size: the larger drum is called in Spanish the hembra and the smaller the macho...
s, claves
Claves
Claves are a percussion instrument , consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone), consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone),...
and maracas. The trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
was introduced in the latter part of the 1920s to improve the sonority, that is, mainly to increase the sound. Lead singers improvised lyrics and embellished melody lines while the claves
Claves
Claves are a percussion instrument , consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone), consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone),...
laid down the basic clave rhythm
Clave (rhythm)
The clave rhythmic pattern is used as a tool for temporal organization in Afro-Cuban music, such as rumba, conga de comparsa, son, son montuno, mambo, salsa, Latin jazz, songo and timba. The five-stroke clave pattern represents the structural core of many Afro-Cuban rhythms...
.
The son has always had a wide range of interpretations, from the Oriente style, where even the lyrics could be Afrocuban, with reference to various santos and rituals, to the silky salon style of groups like Conjunto Palmas y Canas. It was, and still is, played by individual trovadores, conjuntos and big bands.
Cuban music enters the United States
In the 1930 Don AzpiazúDon Azpiazu
Don Azpiazú was a leading Cuban orchestral director in the 1920s and 30s. His band introduced authentic Cuban dance music and Cuban musical instruments to a wide audience in the USA...
had the first million-selling record of Cuban music: The Peanut Vendor
The Peanut Vendor
The Peanut Vendor is a Cuban song based on a street-seller's cry, and known as a pregón. It is possibly the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician...
(El Manisero), with Antonio Machín
Antonio Machín
Antonio Machín was a Cuban singer and musician. His version of El Manisero, recorded in New York, 1930, with Don Azpiazú's orchestra, was the first million record seller for a Cuban artist...
as the singer. This number had been orchestrated and included in N.Y. theatre by Azpiazú before recording, which no doubt helped with the publicity. The Lecuona Cuban Boys
Lecuona Cuban Boys
The Lecuona Cuban Boys was a popular Cuban orchestra which toured the world for over forty years.The band was founded by Ernesto Lecuona, whose role was that of a patron-entrepreneur. He did not actually play with the band, but sometimes gave a piano recital before the band played. The core of the...
became the best-known Cuban touring ensemble: they were the ones who first used the conga
Conga
The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...
drum in their conjunto, and popularized the conga as a dance. Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...
at the Waldorf Astoria
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
was highly influential. In 1941 Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...
popularized the comparsa
Comparsa
A comparsa is the band which plays a conga during a Latin American Carnival celebration. It consists of a large group of dancers dancing and traveling on the streets, followed by a Carrosa where the musicians play...
drum (similar to the conga) in the U.S with his performances of Babalú
Babalu (song)
Babalu is the title of a Cuban song, written by Margarita Lecuona, the cousin of composers Ernestina and Ernesto Lecuona. The song title is either a reference to the Santería deity Babalu Aye or to Babalawo, the title of a Santería priest and diviner....
. There was a real 'rumba craze' at the time.
Later, Mario Bauza
Mario Bauza
Mario Bauzá was an important Cuban musician. He was one of the first to introduce Latin music to the United States by bringing Cuban musical styles into the New York jazz scene...
and 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...
set up in New York and Miguelito Valdés
Miguelito Valdés
Miguelito Valdés, born Miguel Ángel Eugenio Lázaro Zacarias Izquierdo Valdés Hernández , also called Mr. Babalú, was a Cuban popular singer of high quality...
also arrived there.
1940s and '50s
In the 1940s, Chano PozoChano Pozo
Chano Pozo was a percussionist, singer, dancer and composer who played a major role in the founding of Latin jazz...
formed part of the bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
revolution in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, playing conga
Conga
The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...
with Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and 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...
in New York City. Cuban jazz had started much earlier, in Havana, in the period 1910–1930.
Arsenio Rodríguez
Arsenio Rodríguez
Arsenio Rodríguez was a Cuban musician who played the tres , reorganized the conjunto and developed the son montuno, and other Afro-Cuban rhythms in the 1940s and 50s...
, one of Cuba's most famous tres players and conjunto leaders, emphasised the sons African roots by adapting the guaguancó
Guaguancó
Guaguancó is a sub-genre of Cuban rumba, a complex rhythmic music and dance style. The traditional line-up consists of:* three drums, similar to conga drums: the tumba , llamador , and quinto...
style, and by adding a cowbell and conga
Conga
The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...
to the rhythm section. He also expanded the role of the tres as a solo instrument.
In the late 1930s and 40s, the danzoneria Arcaño y sus Maravillas incorporated more syncopation and added a montuno
Montuno
Montuno has several meanings pertaining to Cuban music and its derivatives. Literally, montuno means 'comes from the mountain', and so Son montuno may refer to the older type of son played in the mountainous rural areas of Oriente...
(as in son), transforming the music played by charanga
Charanga
Charanga is a term given to traditional ensembles of Cuban dance music. They made Cuban dance music popular in the 1940s and their music consisted of heavily son-influenced material, performed on European instruments such as violin and flute by a Charanga orchestra....
orchestras.
The big band era
The big band era arrived in Cuba in the 1940s, and became a dominant format that survives. Two great arranger-bandleaders deserve special credit for this, Armando Romeu Jr. and Damaso Perez Prado. Armando Romeu Jr. led the TropicanaTropicana Club
Tropicana is a world known cabaret and club in Havana, Cuba. It was launched in 1939 at Villa Mina, a six-acre suburban estate with lush tropical gardens in Havana's Marianao neighborhood.-Influence:...
Cabaret orchestra for 25 years, starting in 1941. He had experience playing with visiting American jazz groups as well as a complete mastery of Cuban forms of music. In his hands the Tropicana presented not only Afrocuban and other popular Cuban music, but also Cuban jazz and American big band compositions. Later he conducted the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna.
Damaso Perez Prado had a number of hits, and sold more 78s than any other latin music of the day. He took over the role of pianist/arranger for the Orquesta Casino de la Playa in 1944, and immediately began introducing new elements into its sound. The orchestra began to sound more Afrocuban, and at the same time Prado took influences from Stravinsky, Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and elsewhere. By the time he left the orchestra in 1946 he had put together the elements of his big band mambo.
- "Above all, we must point out the work of Perez Prado as an arranger, or better yet, composer and arranger, and his clear influence on most other Cuban arrangers from then on." p86
Benny Moré
Benny Moré
Benny Moré , or Beny, was a Cuban singer. He is often thought of as the greatest Cuban popular singer of all time. He was gifted with an innate musicality and fluid tenor voice which he colored and phrased with great expressivity...
, considered by many as the greatest Cuban singer of all time, was in his heyday in the 1950s. He had an innate musicality and fluid tenor voice, which he colored and phrased with great expressivity. Although he could not read music, Moré was a master of all the genres, including son montuno, mambo, guaracha, guajira, cha cha cha, afro, canción, guaguancó, and bolero. His orchestra, the Banda Giganta, and his music, was a development – more flexible and fluid in style – of the Perez Prado
Perez Prado
Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, musician , and composer. He is often referred to as the 'King of the Mambo'.His orchestra was the most popular in mambo...
orchestra,which he sung with in 1949–1950.
Cuban music in the US
Three great innovations based on Cuban music hit the USA after World War II: the first was Cubop, the latest latin jazzLatin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
fusion. In this, Mario Bauza
Mario Bauza
Mario Bauzá was an important Cuban musician. He was one of the first to introduce Latin music to the United States by bringing Cuban musical styles into the New York jazz scene...
and the 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...
orchestra on the Cuban side and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
on the American side were prime movers. The rumbustious conguero Chano Pozo
Chano Pozo
Chano Pozo was a percussionist, singer, dancer and composer who played a major role in the founding of Latin jazz...
was also important, for he introduced jazz musicians to basic Cuban rhythms. Cuban jazz has continued to be a significant influence.
The mambo first entered the United States around 1950, though ideas had been developing in Cuba and Mexico City for some time. The mambo as understood in the United States and Europe was considerably different from the danzón-mambo of Orestes "Cachao" Lopez, which was a danzon with extra synchopation in its final part. The mambo—which became internationally famous—was a big band product, the work of Perez Prado
Perez Prado
Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, musician , and composer. He is often referred to as the 'King of the Mambo'.His orchestra was the most popular in mambo...
, who made some sensational recordings for RCA in their new recording studios in Mexico City in the late 1940s. About 27 of those recordings had Benny Moré
Benny Moré
Benny Moré , or Beny, was a Cuban singer. He is often thought of as the greatest Cuban popular singer of all time. He was gifted with an innate musicality and fluid tenor voice which he colored and phrased with great expressivity...
as the singer, though the best sellers were mainly instrumentals. The big hits included Que rico el mambo (Mambo Jambo); Mambo No. 5
Mambo No. 5
"Mambo No. 5" is a mambo and jive dance song originally recorded and composed by Pérez Prado in 1949.The song's popularity was renewed by Lou Bega's sampling of the original, released under the same name on Bega's 1999 debut album A Little Bit of Mambo....
; Mambo #8; Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)
Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)
"Cereza rosa", or "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" or "Gummy Mambo" is the English version of "Cerisier rose et pommier blanc", a popular song with music by Louiguy written in 1950. French lyrics to the song by Jacques Larue and English lyrics by Mack David both exist and recordings of both...
. The later (1955) hit Patricia was a mambo/rock fusion. Mambo of the Prado kind was more a descendent of the son and the guaracha than the danzón. In the U.S. the mambo craze lasted from about 1950 to 1956, but its influence on the bugaloo and salsa that followed it was considerable.
Violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist Enrique Jorrín
Enrique Jorrín
Enrique Jorrín was a Cuban composer, violinist and band director. He is famous as the inventor of a style of Cuban dance music called cha-cha-chá.-Biography:...
invented the chachachá in the early 1950s. This was developed from the danzón by increased syncopation
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
. The chachachá became more popular outside Cuba when the big bands of Perez Prado and 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"...
produced arrangements that attracted American and European audiences.
Along with "Nuyoricans" 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...
and 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"...
and others, several waves of Cuban immigrants introduced their ideas into US music. Among these was 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...
, a guaracha
Guaracha
The guaracha is a genre of Cuban popular music, of rapid tempo and with lyrics. The word had been used in this sense at least since the late 18th and early 19th century. Guarachas were played and sung in musical theatres and in low-class dance salons. They became an integral part of Bufo comic...
singer. Others were active in Latin jazz, such as percussionist Patato Valdés
Carlos Valdes
Carlos Valdes was a Cuban-born American conga player. In 1955 he emigrated from Cuba to New York City where he played with Willie Bobo in Harlem. He was also known by the name "Patato". He invented and patented the tunable conga drum which revolutionized use of the instrument...
of the Cuban-oriented "Tipíca '73", linked to the Fania All-Stars
Fania Records
Fania Records was a New York based record label founded by Dominican-born composer and bandleader Johnny Pacheco and Italian-American lawyer Jerry Masucci in 1964. The label took its name from an old Cuban song by the singer Reinaldo Bolaño. Fania is known for its promotion of what has become...
. Several former members of Irakere
Irakere
Irakere is a Cuban band founded by Armando de Sequeira Romeu Music Director and composer, and by pianist Chucho Valdés in 1973...
have also become highly successful in the USA, among them Paquito D'Rivera
Paquito D'Rivera
Paquito D'Rivera is a Cuban alto saxophonist, clarinetist and soprano saxophonist. The winner of multiple Grammys and other awards, D'Rivera has lived in the United States since the early 1980s. He has worked in a variety of contexts, but is perhaps best known for playing Latin...
and Arturo Sandoval
Arturo Sandoval
Arturo Sandoval is a jazz trumpeter and pianist. He was born in Artemisa, in the newest renamed Artemisa Province, Cuba....
. Tata Güines
Tata Güines
Tata Güines was a Cuban percussionist on the tumbadora, or conga drum, as well as a composer. He was important in the first generation of Afro-Cuban jazz....
, a famous conguero, moved to New York City in 1957, playing with jazz players such as Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson was a Canadian jazz musician and bandleader. He came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957...
, and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
at Birdland
Birdland (jazz club)
Birdland is a jazz club started in New York City on December 15, 1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan, was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979...
. As a percussionist, he performed with Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
. He returned to Cuba in 1959 after Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
came to power in the Cuban Revolution
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
, which he helped fund with contributions from his earnings as a musician.
Filín
Filín was a Cuban fashion of the 1940s and 1950s, influenced by popular music in the USA. The word is derived from feeling. It describes a style of post-microphone jazz-influenced romantic song (crooning). Its Cuban roots were in the bolero and the canción. Some Cuban quartets, such as Cuarteto d'AidaCuarteto d'Aida
The Cuarteto d'Aida was a famous Cuban female singing group. It was founded and directed by the pianist Aida Diestro in 1952. Diestro picked four brilliant young singers to form the group: Elena Burke, Moraima Secada and the sisters Omara and Haydée Portuondo...
and Los Zafiros
Los Zafiros
Los Zafiros were a Cuban close-harmony vocal group working from 1961–1970. The group was part of the filín movement, inspired by American doo-wop groups such as The Platters...
, modelled themselves on U.S. close-harmony groups. Others were singers who had heard Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
and Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
. Filín singers included César Portillo de la Luz, José Antonio Méndez, who spent a decade in Mexico from 1949 to 1959, Frank Domínguez
Frank Domínguez
Frank Domínguez is a famous Cuban composer and a pianist from Cuba, of the filin movement...
, the blind pianist Frank Emilio Flynn, and the great singers of boleros Elena Burke
Elena Burke
Elena Burke was a revered and popular Cuban singer of boleros and romantic ballads....
and the still-performing Omara Portuondo
Omara Portuondo
Omara Portuondo Peláez is a Cuban singer and dancer whose career has spanned over half a century. She was one of the original members of the Cuarteto d'Aida, and has performed with Ignacio Piñeiro, Orquesta Anacaona, Orquesta Aragón, Nat King Cole, Adalberto Álvarez, Los Van Van, the Buena Vista...
, who both came from the Cuarteto d'Aida. The filín movement originally had a place every afternoon on Radio Mil Diez. Some of its most prominent singers, such as Pablo Milanés
Pablo Milanés
Pablo Milanés Arias is a Cuban singer-songwriter and guitar player. He studied at a conservatory in Havana. He is considered one of the founders of the Cuban nueva trova, along with Silvio Rodríguez and Noel Nicola...
, took up the banner of the nueva trova.
1960s and '70s
Modern Cuban music is known for its relentless mixing of genres. For example, the 1970s saw Los Irakere use batá in a big bandBig band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
setting; this became known as son-batá or batá-rock. Later artists created the mozambique
Mozambique (music)
Mozambique is a vigorous style of Cuban music and dance derived, like the conga, from music of Cuban street carnivals or comparsas. It was invented or developed by Pello el Afrokan in 1963...
, which mixed conga
Conga
The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...
and mambo, and batá-rumba
Batá-rumba
Batá-rumba is a form of Rumba music popular mainly in Cuba. Only very recently developed as a sub-genre, it incorporates Caribbean Batá drum styles with more traditional African Rumba music. Its popularity is largely attributed to the group Afro-Cuba De Matanzas....
, which mixed rumba and batá drum music. Mixtures including elements of hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
are also common, like in Habana Abierta's rockoson.
Revolutionary Cuba and Cuban exiles
The triumph of the Cuban RevolutionCuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
in 1959 signalled the emigration of many musicians to Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and New York, and in Cuba artists and their work came under the protection (and control) of the Socialist state, and the monopoly state-owned recording company EGREM
EGREM
is the oldest Cuban record label, it is located in Havana. It was founded in 1964 following the Cuban Revolution...
. The Castro government abolished copyright laws in Cuba, closed many of the venues where popular music used to be played (e.g. night clubs), and so indirectly threw many musicians out of work.p202 This undoubtedly had deleterious effects on the evolution of popular music and dance.
Many young musicians now studied classical music and not popular music. All musicians employed by the state were given college courses in music. In Cuba, the Nueva Trova
Nueva trova
Nueva trova is a movement in Cuban music that emerged around 1967/68 after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the consequent political and social changes....
movement (including Pablo Milanés
Pablo Milanés
Pablo Milanés Arias is a Cuban singer-songwriter and guitar player. He studied at a conservatory in Havana. He is considered one of the founders of the Cuban nueva trova, along with Silvio Rodríguez and Noel Nicola...
) reflected the new leftist ideals. The state took over the lucrative Tropicana Club
Tropicana Club
Tropicana is a world known cabaret and club in Havana, Cuba. It was launched in 1939 at Villa Mina, a six-acre suburban estate with lush tropical gardens in Havana's Marianao neighborhood.-Influence:...
, which continued as a popular attraction for foreign tourists until 1968, when it was closed along with many other music venues (and later reopened with the rebirth of tourism).p202 Tourism was almost non-existent for three decades. Traditional Cuban music could be found in local Casas de la Trova. Musicians, if in work, were full-time and paid by the state after graduating from a conservatory. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the loss of its support for Cuba changed the situation quite a bit. Tourism became respectable again, and so did popular music for their entertainment. Musicians were even allowed to tour abroad and earn a living outside the state-run system.
Famous artists from the Cuban exile
Cuban exile
The term "Cuban exile" refers to the many Cubans who have sought alternative political or economic conditions outside the island, dating back to the Ten Years' War and the struggle for Cuban independence during the 19th century...
include 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...
and the whole conjunto she sang with, the Sonora Matancera
Sonora Matancera
La Sonora Matancera is a long-time band. Led by guitarist and vocalist Rogelio Martínez, La Sonora Matancera has been called, by the Guinness Book of World Records, "the group with the longest duration."...
. 'Patato' (Carlos Valdes
Carlos Valdes
Carlos Valdes was a Cuban-born American conga player. In 1955 he emigrated from Cuba to New York City where he played with Willie Bobo in Harlem. He was also known by the name "Patato". He invented and patented the tunable conga drum which revolutionized use of the instrument...
), Cachao
Cachao López
Israel "Cachao" López , often known as Cachao, was a Cuban musician and composer who helped popularize mambo in the United States in the early 1950s....
, La Lupe
La Lupe
La Lupe , was a Cuban-American singer of several musical genres: boleros, guarachas and Latin soul in particular...
, Arturo Sandoval
Arturo Sandoval
Arturo Sandoval is a jazz trumpeter and pianist. He was born in Artemisa, in the newest renamed Artemisa Province, Cuba....
, Willy Chirino
Willy Chirino
Willy Chirino, born April 5, 1947 in Consolación del Sur, Pinar del Río, Cuba, is an entertainer and singer in the salsa style.-Early Family Life:...
, La Palabra
La Palabra (musician)
La Palabra is a well-respected bandleader, singer-songwriter, pianist, record producer, and arranger, known for his versatile approach to music, particularly his invention of the Salsa romantica Latin music genre and his signature style of Afro-Cuban-influenced, sensual Latin jazz.-Early...
, Paquito D'Rivera
Paquito D'Rivera
Paquito D'Rivera is a Cuban alto saxophonist, clarinetist and soprano saxophonist. The winner of multiple Grammys and other awards, D'Rivera has lived in the United States since the early 1980s. He has worked in a variety of contexts, but is perhaps best known for playing Latin...
and 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...
are some others. Many of these musicians, especially Cruz, became closely associated with the anti-revolutionary movement, and as 'unpersons' have been omitted from the standard Cuban reference books, and their subsequent musical recordings are never on sale in Cuba.
Salsa
Salsa was the fourth innovation based on Cuban music to hit the USA, and differed in that it was initially developed in the USA, not in Cuba. Because Cuba has so many indigenous types of music there has always been a problem in marketing the 'product' abroad to people who did not understand the differences between rhythms that, to a Cuban, are quite distinct. So, twice in the 20th century, a kind of product label was developed to solve this problem. The first occasion was in the 1930s after The Peanut VendorThe Peanut Vendor
The Peanut Vendor is a Cuban song based on a street-seller's cry, and known as a pregón. It is possibly the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician...
became an international success. It was called a 'rumba' even though it really had nothing to do with genuine rumba: the number was obviously a son
Son (music)
The Son cubano is a style of music that originated in Cuba and gained worldwide popularity in the 1930s. Son combines the structure and elements of Spanish canción and the Spanish guitar with African rhythms and percussion instruments of Bantu and Arará origin...
pregon. The label 'rumba' was used outside Cuba for years as a catch-all for Cuban popular music.
The second occasion happened during the period 1965–1975 in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, as musicians of Cuban and Puerto-Rican origin combined to produce the great music of the post Cha-cha-cha period. This music acquired the label of 'salsa'. No-one really knows how this happened, but everyone recognised what a benefit it was to have a common label for son, mambo, guaracha, guijira, guaguanco &c. Cubans and non Cubans, such as Tito Puentes, Ruben 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...
and many experts of the Cuban music and salsa have always said "Salsa is just a another name for Cuban, music. Tito Puentes once said, now they call it Salsa, later they may call it Stir Fry, but to me it will alway be Cuban Music"; but over time salsa bands worked in other influences. For example, in the late 1960s 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:...
developed numbers that made use of Brazilian rhythms. N.Y. radio programmes offered 'salsarengue' as a further combination, like a good cook Willie Colon
Willie Colon
Willie Colon may refer to:*Willie Colón, Puerto Rican salsa musician*Willie Colon , American football tackle...
You look at a band of the 1940s playing Cuban music and you will see the same exact instruments in Salsa Music. Later still 'Salsa romantica' was the label for an especially sugary type of bolero
Bolero
Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...
. Even when, Benny Moré
Benny Moré
Benny Moré , or Beny, was a Cuban singer. He is often thought of as the greatest Cuban popular singer of all time. He was gifted with an innate musicality and fluid tenor voice which he colored and phrased with great expressivity...
, Perez Prado
Perez Prado
Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, musician , and composer. He is often referred to as the 'King of the Mambo'.His orchestra was the most popular in mambo...
the greatest Sonero that ever existed, was singing Boleros with a salsa cadence in the 1940s. It was not until 1950s that Cuban music became popular for Puerto Rican bands. Plena, Bomba an other styles or music were popular at the time in Puerto Rico. Many famous famous Puerto Rican musicians went to learn the music styles of Cubans in the 1930s and 1940s, and it was not until the arrival of Castro in 1959 and the Cuban music stopped its exportation to the world, that Puerto Ricans in New York were able to be greatly noticed, but what is known as Salsa today, was brought to New York in the 1920s and 1930s by Dizzy and Chano Pozo
Chano Pozo
Chano Pozo was a percussionist, singer, dancer and composer who played a major role in the founding of Latin jazz...
, this last one was discovered by Dizzy as he was one of the greatest percussionist that ever lived.
The question of whether or not salsa is anything more than Cuban music has been argued over for more than thirty years. Initially, not much difference could be seen. Later it became clear that not only was New York salsa different from popular music in Cuba, but salsa in Venezuela, Colombia and other countries could also be distinguished. It also seems clear that salsa has receded from the great position it achieved in the late 1970s. The reasons for this are also much disputed.
Nueva trova
Nueva canción
Nueva canción is a movement and genre within Latin American and Iberian music of folk music, folk-inspired music and socially committed music...
in Latin America is the Cuban Nueva trova
Nueva trova
Nueva trova is a movement in Cuban music that emerged around 1967/68 after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the consequent political and social changes....
, which dates from about 1967/68, after the Cuban Revolution
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
. It differed from the traditional trova
Trova
Trova is one of the great roots of the Cuban music tree. In the 19th century a group of itinerant musicians known as trovadores moved around Oriente, especially Santiago de Cuba, earning their living by singing and playing the guitar...
, not because the musicians were younger, but because the content was, in the widest sense, political. Nueva trova is defined by its connection with Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
's revolution, and by its lyrics, which attempt to escape the banalities of life by concentrating on socialism, injustice, sexism, colonialism, racism and similar issues. Silvio Rodríguez
Silvio Rodríguez
Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez is a Cuban musician, and a leader of the nueva trova movement.He is considered Cuba's best known folk singer and known for his highly eloquent and symbolic lyrics. Many of his songs have become classics in Latin American music, such as Ojalá, Playa Girón, Unicornio and...
and Pablo Milanés
Pablo Milanés
Pablo Milanés Arias is a Cuban singer-songwriter and guitar player. He studied at a conservatory in Havana. He is considered one of the founders of the Cuban nueva trova, along with Silvio Rodríguez and Noel Nicola...
became the most important exponents of this style. Carlos Puebla
Carlos Puebla
Carlos Manuel Puebla was a Cuban singer, guitarist, and composer. He was a member of the old trova movement who specialized in boleros and nationalistic songs.- Biography :...
and Joseíto Fernández
Joseíto Fernández
José Fernández Diaz, September 5, 1908 - October 11, 1979 , commonly known as Joseíto Fernández was a Cuban singer and songwriter. He is the writer of well-known songs, including: "Elige tú, que canto yo", "Amor de madre", Demuéstrame tú, and Así son, boncó, as well as the more famous "Guajira...
were long-time old trova singers who added their weight to the new regime, but of the two only Puebla wrote special pro-revolution songs.
Nueva Trova had its heyday in the 1970s, but was already declining before the fall of the Soviet Union. Examples of non-political styles in the Nueva Trova movement can be found, for example, Liuba María Hevia whose lyrics are focused on more traditional subjects such as love and solitude, sharing with the rest a highly poetical style. On the other side of the spectrum, Carlos Varela is famous in Cuba for his open criticism of some aspects of Castro's revolution.
The Nueva Trova, initially so popular, suffered both inside Cuba, perhaps from a growing disenchantment with one-party rule, and externally, from the vivid contrast with the Buena Vista Social Club
Buena Vista Social Club
The Buena Vista Social Club was a members club in Havana, Cuba that held dances and musical activities, becoming a popular location for musicians to meet and play during the 1940s...
film and recordings. Audiences round the world have had their eyes opened to the extraordinary charm and musical quality of the older forms of Cuban music. By contrast, topical themes that seemed so relevant in the 1960s and 70s now seem dry and passé. Even Guantanamera
Guantanamera
"Guantanamera" is perhaps the best known Cuban song and that country's most noted patriotic song.-Music:The music for the song is sometimes attributed to José Fernández Diaz, known as Joseíto Fernández, who claimed to have written it at various dates , and who used it regularly in one of his radio...
has been damaged by over-repetition in less skilled hands. All the same, those pieces of high musical and lyrical quality, among which Puebla's Hasta siempre
Hasta Siempre
"Hasta Siempre, Comandante, or simply "Hasta Siempre", is a 1965 Spanish song by Cuban composer Carlos Puebla. The song's lyrics are a reply to revolutionary Che Guevara's farewell letter when he left Cuba, in order to foster revolution in the Congo and later Bolivia, where he would be captured and...
Comandante stands out, will probably last as long as Cuba lasts.
1980s to the present
Son remains the basis of most popular forms of modern Cuban music. Son is represented by long-standing groups like Septeto NacionalSepteto Nacional
Septeto Nacional , or the Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Piñeiro, is a group credited with expanding the Son musical style before Arsenio Rodríguez. It added the trumpet to percussion, vocals, and strings. The group started as a sextet in 1927 in Central Havana...
, which was re-established in 1985, Orquesta Aragón
Orquesta Aragón
Orquesta Aragón was formed on 30 September 1939, by Orestes Aragón Cantero in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The band originally had the name Ritmica 39, then Ritmica Aragón before settling on its final form. Though they did not create the Cha-cha-cha, they were arguably the best charanga in Cuba during 1950s...
, Orquesta Ritmo Oriental and Orquesta Original de Manzanillo. Sierra Maestra
Sierra Maestra
Sierra Maestra is a mountain range that runs westward across the south of the old Oriente Province from what is now Guantánamo Province to Niquero in southeast Cuba, rising abruptly from the coast. Some view it as a series of connecting ranges , which joins with others extending to the west...
, is famous for having sparked a revival in traditional son in the 1980s. Nueva trova
Nueva trova
Nueva trova is a movement in Cuban music that emerged around 1967/68 after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the consequent political and social changes....
still has influence, but the overtly political themes of the 1960s are well out of fashion. Meanwhile, Irakere
Irakere
Irakere is a Cuban band founded by Armando de Sequeira Romeu Music Director and composer, and by pianist Chucho Valdés in 1973...
fused traditional Cuban music with jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, and groups like NG La Banda
NG La Banda
NG La Banda is a Cuban musical group founded by flutist José Luis Cortés. NG stands for "nueva generación" - next generation.In the late 1980s this group was founded with musicians like Elpidio Chapottin , Feliciano Arango, Rodolfo Argudin-Peruchin , Tony Cala , Issac Delgado , German Velasco , and...
, Orishas
Orishas (band)
Orishas was a Cuban hip hop group The group was first called "Amenaza", "threat" or "menace" in Spanish, and appealed to the Cuban youth who were hungry for African-American culture consisting of hip hop and rap. Orishas delved into a realm of music that created a black identity to which some...
and Son 14 continued to add new elements to son, especially hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, to form timba
Timba
Timba is a Cuban genre of music sometimes referred as salsa cubana . However, the historical development of timba has been quite independent of the development of salsa in the United States and Puerto Rico and the music has its own trademark aspects due to the Cuban embargo and strong Afro-Cuban...
music; this process was aided by the acquisition of imported electronic equipment. There are still many practitioners of traditional son montuno, such as Eliades Ochoa
Eliades Ochoa
Eliades Ochoa is a Cuban guitarist and singer from Loma de la Avispa, Songo La Maya in the east of the country near Santiago de Cuba....
, who have recorded and toured widely as a result of interest in the son montuno after the Buena Vista Social Club success.
In the 1990s, increased interest in world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
coincided with the post-Soviet Union periodo especial in Cuba, during which the economy began opening up to tourism. Orquesta Aragón
Orquesta Aragón
Orquesta Aragón was formed on 30 September 1939, by Orestes Aragón Cantero in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The band originally had the name Ritmica 39, then Ritmica Aragón before settling on its final form. Though they did not create the Cha-cha-cha, they were arguably the best charanga in Cuba during 1950s...
, Charanga Habanera and Cándido Fabré y su Banda have been long-time players in the charanga scene, and helped form the popular timba
Timba
Timba is a Cuban genre of music sometimes referred as salsa cubana . However, the historical development of timba has been quite independent of the development of salsa in the United States and Puerto Rico and the music has its own trademark aspects due to the Cuban embargo and strong Afro-Cuban...
scene of the late 1990s. The biggest award in modern Cuban music is the Beny Moré Award.
Timba
Cubans have never been content to hear their music described as salsa, even though it is crystal clear that this was a label for their music. For the most part, timba equals salsa cubana, though there are claims that it is something more. Since the early 1990s timba has been used to describe popular dance music in Cuba, rivalled only lately by Reggaetón. Though derived from the same roots as salsa, timba has its own characteristics, and is intimately tied to the life and culture of Cuba, and especially Havana.Buena Vista Social Club
A true watershed event was the release of Buena Vista Social ClubBuena Vista Social Club (album)
- Music :"Chan Chan", the first song on the album, is a Cuban song composition by Compay Segundo, revolving around two central characters, Juanita and Chan Chan. The song was one of Segundo's last compositions and was written in 1987, already having been recorded by Segundo himself various...
(1997), a recording of veteran Cuban musicians organized by the American musician and producer, Ry Cooder
Ry Cooder
Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
. Buena Vista Social Club became an immense worldwide hit, selling millions of copies, and made stars of octogenarian Cuban musicians such Ibrahim Ferrer
Ibrahim Ferrer
Ibrahim Ferrer was a popular Afro-Cuban singer and musician in Cuba. He performed with many musical groups including the Conjunto Sorpresa, Orquesta Chepin-Choven and Afro-Cuban All Stars...
, Rubén González, and Compay Segundo
Compay Segundo
Compay Segundo was a Cuban trova guitarist, singer and composer.-Biography:...
.
Buena Vista resulted in several followup recordings and spawned a film of the same name
Buena Vista Social Club (film)
Buena Vista Social Club is a documentary film by Wim Wenders about the music of Cuba. It is named for a danzón that became the title piece of the album Buena Vista Social Club.-Synopsis:...
, as well as tremendous interest in other Cuban groups. In subsequent years, dozens of singers and conjuntos made recordings for foreign labels and toured internationally.
The huge international response stirred some resentment amongst younger musicians who felt that their work, and the evolution of forty years, was being ignored. The conclusion some have drawn is that the wholesale closure of popular music venues (after the revolution), which threw many musicians out of work, and subsequent control by state committees, damaged the development of Cuban popular music.
Rap/Hip-Hop/Reggaeton
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban economy went into decline. Poverty became more widespread and visible in Cuba. In the 1990s, some Cubans start to protest this situation by means of rap and hip-hop. The rappers become a 'revolution within a revolution'. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/22/hln.hot.hit.cuban.hip.hop/. In Cuba, hip hop is used to describe life and aspirations.During the Special Period
Special Period
The Special Period in Time of Peace in Cuba was an extended period of economic crisis that began in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and, by extension, the Comecon. The economic depression of the Special Period was at its most severe in the early-to-mid 1990s before slightly declining...
, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban government then took steps to improve the economy. Tourism was mildly encouraged, and Havana's music venues started to cater for visitors as well as locals. Before then, tourists were quite a rareity. When hip-hop emerged, the Cuban government opposed the vulgar image that rappers portrayed, but later accepted (1999) that it might be better to have hip-hop under the influence of the Ministry of Culture as an "authentic expression of Cuban Culture".
Unlike salsa, which is an indigenous dance music, rap music in Cuba is culturally of foreign origin. Although some rap groups have prided themselves in remaining loyal to true hip hop essence, others (like the Orishas
Orishas (band)
Orishas was a Cuban hip hop group The group was first called "Amenaza", "threat" or "menace" in Spanish, and appealed to the Cuban youth who were hungry for African-American culture consisting of hip hop and rap. Orishas delved into a realm of music that created a black identity to which some...
, the only Cuban rap group to succeed in Latin America), have been criticized for using salsa rhythms to generate commercial appeal.
Like hip hop, Reggaeton
Reggaeton
Reggaeton is a form of Puerto Rican and Latin American urban and Caribbean music. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences. Reggaeton originated in Puerto Rico but is also has roots from Reggae en Español from Panama and Puerto Rico and...
from Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
is a new genre for the Cubans. The advent of web software helped to distribute music unofficially. Both lyrics and dance movements have been criticised. Reggaeton musicians responded by making songs that defended their music. Despite their efforts, the Ministry of Culture has ruled that reggaeton is not to be used in teaching intuitions, parties and at discos.
Government and Hip-Hop
Hip-hop being tolerated by the government of Cuba is something out of the ordinary, because performers are provided with venues and equipment by the government. The Cuban rap and hip-hop scene sought out the involvement of the Ministry of Culture in the production and promotion of their music, which would otherwise have been impossible to accomplish. After the Cuban government provided luke-warm endorsement, the Cuban Rap AgencyCuban Rap Agency
The Cuban Rap Agency is an organization subsidized by the Cuban government aimed at aiding Cuban hip hop artists in attaining radio exposure and recording contracts...
provided the Cuban rap scene, in 2002, with a state-sponsored record label, magazine, and Cuba's own hip-hop festival.
Under this scheme, the government gives rap and hip-hop groups time on mass media outlets in return for hip-hop artists limiting self expression and presenting the government in a positive way.
The hip-hop artists talk about everyday life in Cuba. However, most critics believe that the Cuban Rap Agency will hide rappers' opinions of the Cuban government. The government evidently recognises that rap and hip-hop is growing in Cuba, and would be difficult or impossible to eliminate.
Rockoson
Rockoson is a form made with elements of timba, nueva trova and rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
made since the late 1980s by groups like "Vanito y La Lucha Almada" and "Habana Abierta".
External links
- BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): Santiago de Cuba and Son Music. Accessed November 25, 2010.
- BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): Changai and Decimas Music. Accessed November 25, 2010.
- BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): Matanzas, birthplace of rumba and danzon. Accessed November 25, 2010. Audio clips: Traditional music of Cuba. Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève. Accessed November 25, 2010.
Sources
The works below are reliable sources for all aspects of traditional Cuban popular music. Spanish titles indicate those that have not been translated into English. The intention is that these sources help contributors rely less on transient web sources, and help them to locate sources in their community libraries.- Acosta, Leonardo 1987. From the drum to the synthesiser. Martí, Havana, Cuba. Articles written from 1976 to 1982.
- Acosta, Leonardo 2003. Cubano be, cubano bop: one hundred years of jazz in Cuba. Transl. Daniel S. Whitesell. Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.. Outstanding review by former conjunto trumpeter.
- Betancur Alvarez, Fabio 1993. Sin clave y bongó no hay son: música afrocubano y confluencias musicales de Colombia y Cuba. Antioqia, Medellín, Colombia.
- Blanco, Jesús 1992. 80 años del son y soneros en el Caribe. Caracas.
- Cabrera, Lydia 1958. La sociedád secreta Abakuá. Colección del Chicerekú, La Habana.
- Calderon, Jorge 1983. Maria Teresa Vera. La Habana.
- Calvo Ospina, Hernando 1995. Salsa! Havana heat, Bronx beat. Latin American Bureau.
- Cañizares, Dulcila 1995. La trova tradicional. 2nd ed, La Habana.
- Cañizares, Dulcila 1999. Gonzalo Roig, hombre y creador.
- Carpentier, Alejo 2001 [1945]. Music in Cuba. Minniapolis MN. A standard work on the history of Cuban music up to 1940.
- Chediak, Natalio 1998. Diccioanrio del jazz latino. Fundacion Autor, Barcelona.
- Collazo, Bobby 1987. La ultima noche que pase contigo: 40 anos de fanandula Cubana. Cubanacan, Puerto Rico.
- Depestre Catony, Leonardo 1989. Homenaje a la musica cubana. Oriente, Santiago de Cuba. Biographies of Abelardo BarrosoAbelardo BarrosoThe singer Abelardo Barroso Dargeles was the first sonero mayor to be recognized as such by the Cuban public. He was the lead singer of the Sexteto Habanero from 1925, recorded with the Sexteto Boloña in 1926, and joined the Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Piñeiro in 1927...
, Joseíto FernándezJoseíto FernándezJosé Fernández Diaz, September 5, 1908 - October 11, 1979 , commonly known as Joseíto Fernández was a Cuban singer and songwriter. He is the writer of well-known songs, including: "Elige tú, que canto yo", "Amor de madre", Demuéstrame tú, and Así son, boncó, as well as the more famous "Guajira...
, Paulina Alvarez, Roberto FazRoberto FazRoberto Faz was a Cuban musician born in Regla who reached the height of his popularity from the 1950s to 1960s. He was a singer and conductor of the Cuban band Conjunto Roberto Faz.Previously, he was a singer of Conjunto Casino. He specialized in many forms of Cuban music, like his contemporary...
and Pacho Alonzo. - Depestre Catony, Leonardo 1990. Cuatro musicos de una villa. Letras Cubanas, La Habana. Biographies of four musicians from Guanabacoa: Ernesto LecuonaErnesto LecuonaErnesto Lecuona y Casado was a Cuban composer and pianist of Canarian father and Cuban mother, and worldwide fame. He composed over six hundred pieces, mostly in the Cuban vein, and was a pianist of exceptional quality....
, Rita MontanerRita MontanerRita Montaner, born Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda , was a Cuban singer, pianist, actress and star of stage, film, radio and television. In Cuban parlance, she was a vedette , and she was well known in Mexico City, Paris, Miami and New York, where she performed, filmed and recorded on...
, Bola de NieveBola de NieveBola de Nieve , born Ignacio Jacinto Villa, was a successful Cuban singer-pianist and songwriter, whose round, black face earned him the nickname by which he was always known....
and Juan Arrondo. - Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal 1981. Música cubana del Areyto a la Nueva Trova. 2nd rev ed, Cubanacan, San Juan P.R. Excellent history up to 1960s, with a chapter on Cuban music in the USA.
- Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal 1988. Si te quieres por el pico divertir: historia del pregón musical latinoamericano. Cubanacan, San Juan P.R. Music based on street-sellers cries; title is taken from lyricof Peanut Vendor.
- Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal 1994. Cuba canta y baila: discografía de la música cubana 1898–1925. Fundación Musicalia, San Juan P.R. A vital research tool.
- Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal 1998. Cuando sali de la Habana 1898-1997: cien anos de musica cubana por el mundo. Cubanacan, San Juan P.R.
- Failde, Osvalde Castillo 1964. Miguel Faílde: créador musical del Danzón. Consejo Nacional de Cultura, La Habana.
- Fairley, Jan. 2000. Troubadours old and new, and ¡Que rico bailo yo! How well I dance. In S. Broughton and M. Ellingham, with J. McConnachie and O. Duane, (eds) World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific p386-413. Rough Guides, Penguin. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
- Fajardo, Ramon 1993. Rita Montaner. La Habana.
- Fajardo, Ramon 1997. Rita Montaner: testimonio de una epoca. La Habana.
- Fernandez Robaina, Tomas 1983. Recuerdos secretos de los mujeres publicas. La Habana.
- Galan, Natalio 1983. Cuba y sus sones. Pre-Textos, Valencia.
- Giro, Radamés (ed) 1993. El mambo. La Habana. Nine essays by Cuban musicians and musicologists.
- Giro, Radamés (ed) 1998. Panorama de la musica popular Cubana. Letras Cubanas, La Habana. Reprints some important essays on Cuban popular music.
- Giro, Radamés 2007. Diccionario enciclopédico de la música en Cuba. 4 vols, La Habana. A invaluable source.
- Grenet, Emilio 1939. Popular Cuban music. Havana.
- Leal, Rine 1986. Teatro del siglo XIX. La Habana.
- Leon, Carmela de 1990. Sindo Garay: memoria de un trovador. La Habana.
- Leon, Argeliers 1964. Musica folklorica cubana. Biblioteca Nacional José Martí, La Habana.
- Leymarie, Isabelle 2002. Cuban fire: the story of salsa and Latin jazz. Continuum, London; orig. publ. Paris 1997.
- Linares, María Teresa 1970. La música popular. La Habana, Cuba. Illustrated introduction.
- Linares, María Teresa 1981. La música y el pueblo. La Habana, Cuba.
- Lowinger, Rosa and Ofelia Fox 2005. Tropicana nights: the life and times of the legendary Cuban nightclub. Harcourt, Orlando FL. Fox (1924–2006) was the wife of the owner.
- Loyola Fernandez, Jose 1996. El ritmo en bolero: el bolero en la musica bailable cubana. Huracan, Rio Piedras.
- Manuel, Peter (ed) 1991. Essays on Cuban music: North America and Cuban perspectives. Lanham MD.
- Manuel, Peter, with K. Bilby and M. Largey. 2006. Caribbean currents: Caribbean music from rumba to reggae 2nd ed. Temple University. ISBN 1-59213-463-7
- Martinez, Orlando 1989. Ernesto Lecuona. La Habana, Cuba.
- Naser, Amín E. 1985. Benny Moré: perfil libre. La Habana, Cuba.
- Orovio, Helio 1995. El bolero latino. La Habana.
- Orovio, Helio 2004. Cuban music from A to Z. Revised by Sue Steward. ISBN 0-8223-3186-1 A biographical dictionary of Cuban music, artists, composers, groups and terms. Duke University, Durham NC; Tumi, Bath.
- Ortiz, Fernando 1950. La Afrocania de la musica folklorica de Cuba. La Habana, revised ed 1965.
- Ortiz, Fernando 1951. Los bailes y el teatro de los negros en el folklore de Cuba. Letras Cubanas, La Habana. Continuation of the previous book; contains transcriptions of percussion innotation and lyrics of toques and cantos a los santos variously in Lucumi and Spanish.
- Ortiz, Fernando 1952. Los instrumentos de la musica Afrocubana. 5 volumes, La Habana.
- Padura Fuentes, Leonardo 2003. Faces of salsa: a spoken history of the music. Translated by Stephen J. Clark. Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. Interviews with top musicians, recorded in the 1989–1993 era.
- Peñalosa, David 2009. The clave matrix; Afro-Cuban rhythm: its principles and African origins. Redway, CA: Bembe Inc. ISBN 1-886502-80-3.
- Pérez Sanjuro, Elena 1986. Historia de la música cubana. Miami.
- Pichardo, Esteban 1835 (repr 1985). Diccionario provincial casi razionado de voces y frases cubanos. La Habana. Includes contemporary explanations of musical and dance names.
- Roberts, John Storm 1979. The Latin tinge: the impact of Latin American music on the United States. Oxford. One of the first on this theme; still excellent.
- Roberts, John Storm 1999. Latin jazz: the first of the fusions, 1880s to today. Schirmer, N.Y.
- Rodrígeuz Domíngues, Ezequiel. El Trio Matamoros: trienta y cinco anos de música popular. La Habana.
- Rondon, César Miguel 2008. The book of salsa: a chronicle of urban music from the Caribbean to New York City. University of North Carolina Press.
- Roy, Maya 2002. Cuban music: from son and rumba to the Buena Vista Social Club and timba cubana. Latin American Bureau/Wiener.
- Steward, Sue 1991. Salsa: musical heartbeat of Latin America. Thames & Hudson, London. Highly illustrated.
- Sublette, Ned 2004. Cuba and its music: from the first drums to the mambo. Chicago. ISBN 1-55652-516-8 First of two planned volumes, covers up to March 1952.
- Sweeney, Philip 2001. The Rough Guide to Cuban music: the history, the artists, the best CDs. Rough Guides, London. Small format.
- Thomas, Hugh 1971. Cuba, or the pursuit of freedom. Eyre & Spottiswoode, London. Revised and abridged edition 2001, Picador, London. The abridged edition, a slim-line 1151 pages, has shortened the section of Cuba's early history. The standard work in English.
- Thomas, Hugh 1997. The slave trade: the history of the Atlantic slave trade 1440-1870. Picador, London. 925 pages.
- Urfé, Odilio 1965. El danzón. La Habana.