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Gato and The Palenke Music CO April 9, 2010 at Strathmore
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| History of Salsa |
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Raíces/ Roots
The history of the Latin popular music known worldwide as "salsa" began centuries ago in the islands of the Spanish Caribbean, in a context of slavery and colonialism. Yet, it is inextricably tied to twentieth-century New York City and the growth of a thriving Latino community here. Its distinctive polyrhythm and vocal and instrumental call-and-response identify the Afro-Caribbean roots of Latin music -traditional and contemporary, sacred and secular.
The colonial Era
The story of Latin popular music reveals the triumph of the human spirit over the crushing forces of slavery and colonialism. For centuries, men, women, and children from West and Central Africa-the lands of the great nations of the Yoruba, Efik, and Bantu peoples, among others-were brought in chains to Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti). Thrown into encounters with diverse and heretofore unknown African, European, and indigenous peoples and cultures, they carved out ways to ensure their own survival and that of their cultural expressions. Though plantation life was harsh under Spanish rule, it allowed for the establishment of sacred and secular cultural institutions, such as religious houses and brotherhoods, in which tradition could be maintained and adapted and new traditions created. "Cimarron" (escaped slave) communities also provided a context for the preservation of traditional musical forms.
By the late nineteenth century, slavery had come to an end throughout the Caribbean region. The euphoria of freedom soon gave way to the reality of making a new life in the midst of economic and political upheaval. The Spanish American war of 1898 resulted in the end of Spanish colonial rule and the emergence of the United States as the dominant imperial power in the region. With the transformation of plantation economies into agribusiness, displaced agricultural workers migrated from countryside into town, and from island to island. Blacks, whites, and "criollos" arrived in Havana, bringing the rhythms of "Rumba" and "Changui". To San Juan they brought "Bomba" and "Seis", and to Santo Domingo, "Merengue" and "Carabiné".
Transplanted and transformed in the urban settings, these and other sounds and styles were selectively brought to New York City in successive migrations.
New York City beginnings
While Puerto Rican settlement in New York began before 1898, migration increased once the island came under USA control. The first Puerto Rican "colonia" (neighborhood) developed in the area around the Brooklyn Navy Yard. By 1917, when the Jones Act made Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens, east Harlem's "El Barrio" had become the "colonia" of choice for new arrivals. An unforeseen result of citizenship was the earliest collaboration between African-American and Puerto Rican musicians and the earliest documented presence of Puerto Rican musicians in New York City, brought about by James Reese Europe (1881-1919), founder of the first booking agency for African-American musicians and director of the first African-American band to play in the Carnegie Hall.
With the outbreak of World War I, Europe enlisted in a black regiment of New York National Guard. When asked to organize "the best damn brass band in the United States Army", Europe traveled to Puerto Rico to audition Island black musicians trained in municipal bands. The eighteenth men recruited included Rafael Hernández (1891-1965), who was to become one of Puerto Rico's most famous and beloved composers. Europe's band (later known as the 369th infantry "Harlem Hellfighters" band) is credited with introducing European audiences to Jazz. Back in New York City, its Puerto Rican members were the first Latinos to record and perform with African-American jazz in the city's clubs and theater orchestras.
Other Island musicians and workers quickly followed, as the interwar decades saw continued economic hardship in the Caribbean and the rise of employment opportunities in New York City. Latino communities in New York supported dozens of Spanish-language theaters, dance, halls, nightclubs, social clubs, and music stores, all which fostered the development of a dynamic New York Latin music scene.
Latin music goes mainstream
From 1900 into the 1950s, popular stage, recording, film and broadcast media as well as Tin Pan Alley -the New York shorthand for publishers of popular sheet music- responded to the vibrant energy of Latin music. The introduction of the tango in stage and silent film production in 1931 gave rise to the popular image of the "Latin Lover". New York publishers issued songs that became standards, such as Ernesto Lecuona's "Siboney" (1929).
Latin music and dance grew steady in popularity during the interwar period. American tourists who flocked to the hotels and casinos of Havana in the 1920's heard a new music called Son. In 1930, Don Azpiazu's Havana casino Orchestra played Son and other Cuban dance music at New York's Palace Theater, and introduced the classic "manicero" (The Peanut Vendor), which became a national hit. Under the gender of rumba, son became a national social dance craze. Spanish-born, Havana raised Xavier Cugat (1900-1990) and his orchestra opened the new Waldorf Astoria and became the hotel's resident group, playing a mix of Latin and other popular tunes there from 1932 to 1947, mellowed for a broader American audience. The stage was set for the transition from son to salsa.
By the mid-1930's American nightclubs were featuring the conga, a Cuban carnival tradition, and many Broadway musicals included Latin numbers. In 1939, two key Latino entertainers appeared on the New York stage, Brazilian singer-dancer Carmen Miranda (1909-1955) singing "South-American Way" in the Abbott and Costello revue On the streets of Paris, and Cuban-born Desi Arnaz (1917-1986) as a conga playing football player in the Rodgers and Hart musical Too many girls.
Cugat, Miranda, and Arnaz were among the many Latinos entertainers featured in Hollywood musicals with "south of the border" themes during the 1940's. Teamed with Lucille Ball, Arnaz created the long running television comedy I Love Lucy. Featuring Arnaz's character, New York based Latin band leader Ricky Ricardo, the show brought Latino music into homes nationwide beginning in 1951 and helped make mambo and cha-cha-cha the dance crazes of the 1950's.
Latin + Jazz = the New York Sound
As El Rey Tito Puente (1923-2000) said, Latin Jazz is a marriage between Latin rhythms and Jazz harmonies. The connection that began with African-American and Puerto Rican members of James Reese Europe's military band went on to forge a true New York sound. Seminal figures included Afro-Cuban Alberto Socarras, one of the first Cubans to play in a jazz band, and Mario Bauza, who played with both Latin and jazz groups. Bauza's friendship with jazz great Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993), which began when both played trumpet in Cab Calloway's band, profoundly influenced both jazz and Latin music. In 1940, Bauza and his brother-in-law Frank Grillo, "Machito" (1909-1984) formed Machito and his Afro-Cubans, the first group to incorporate African-American jazz musicians, harmonies, and concepts into Latin music. In 1947-1948, Gillespie collaborated with Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo (1915-1948), marking the first genuine synthesis of Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz.
By 1952, New York's Palledium Ballroom at Broadway and 53rd Street has become the American center of the mambo dance craze, followed in 1954 by the cha-cha-cha. Created as an instrumental form in Cuba by Orestes and Israel "Cachao" López and Arsenio Rodríguez, mambo was popularized in the United States by Pérez Prado. Cha-cha-cha was the invention of Enrique Jorrín as a form of both dance and music. These dance forms brought "The Big Three" - Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez (1923-1973) - International renown.
And then they called "Salsa"
The musical excitement of the 1950's flowed into the 1960's. Alegre, the first Latino owned record label to record the "new" New York sound, rose to prominence. Charanga dance ensembles, with their distinctive string and flute sound, challenged the popularity of the mambo bands. Spearheaded by Dominican-born flutist Johnny Pacheco (b.1935), pachanga became a hot dance fad. Eddie Palmieri (b.1936) with Barry Rogers (1935-1991), Ray Barreto (b.1929), and Larry Harlow, developed innovative ensemble formats. Younger barrio musicians such as Joe Cuba, Johnny Colon, and Pete "Conde" Rodriguez created Latin bugalú, the first combination of rhythm and blues and Latin music. The Lebrón Brothers, Willie Colon (b.1950), and Héctor Lavoe (1946-1993) followed suit and moved into a hard-edged, urban sound.
Following the Cuban revolution, the United States ended diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961. This action cut off the flow of music and musicians that had inspired the New York scene for decades. Four years later, immigration policy changes opened the door to migrations from previously excluded countries. Along with other demographic shifts, these two events altered the course of Latin music in ways that defined it even more sharply as a New York phenomenon. By the late 1960's, the Dominican community had burgeoned, and rhythms such as the Dominican merengue, Colombia cumbia, and Puerto Rican plena and jibaro styles had become part of the New York music scene.
By the early 1970's music once identified by specific forms and styles was clustered together under the salsa rubric. The tag gained commercial currency after "Fania" Records- the most influential record label in the field- adopted it to describe the New York music label produced. The name may have been new, but the sound of salsa is rooted in the rich mix of cultures, races and rhythms that is New York Latin music.
For: "Raices" Latin Music Museum.
Luis Bauzó, Curator.
For further reading:
Flores, Juan. From Bomba to Hip-hop: Puerto Rican culture and Latino identity. New York.
Glasser, Ruth. My music is my flag: Puerto Rican musicians and their New York communities.
Manuel, Peter, with Kenneth Bilby and Michael Largey. Caribbean currents: Caribbean music from Rumba to Reggae.
Roberts, John Storm. The Latin Tinge: The impact of Latin American music on the United States.
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A History of Salsa
Part 3: Revolution
Cuba
Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. A steady deterioration in relations caused the United States to implement a trade embargo on 8th July 1963 under the Trading With the Enemy Act.
This had a profound effect on Latin music, which up until then had looked to Cuba to lead the way in the innovation of rhythms. Although the interchange of people and ideas was stifled, the embargo did not prevent new rhythms from getting out; most notably that of songo and mozambique. It did diminish Cuba's presence on the world stage, blunting our awareness of the most recent developments in Cuban music.
Article 9(c) of Cuba's 1976 constitution (reformed 1992) interestingly guarantees each person access to education, arts and sport. There is national funding for musicians and venues. How this has benefited Cuban music, we can only guess at through the words of Cuban conguero Daniel Ponce (1980):
"When the Cubans arrived in New York, they all said 'Yuk! This is old music.' I was expecting to find a stronger Latin scene here; the lyrics, the composition, the feeling are not adventurous."
Three centres of salsa stepped forward into the light: New York, Miami, and Colombia.
New York
Nuyoricans [economic migrants from Puerto Rico who settled in New York] carried the salsa baton forward through salsa's lean years. Perhaps with the exception of Willie Colon, Puerto Rican folkloric forms like the plena and bomba were forsaken in favour of Afro-Cuban ones. Indeed, the dominant perception was that the Cuban method of playing was the only way. This lead to a situation where the Nuyoricans were practising music that was outside their cultural context:
"Nuyoricans are outsiders to Afro-Cuban folklore, particularly to the religious music, and often get their information second-hand from books and recordings"
- Charley Gerard.
They defined the New York sound, then and today: cementing the influence of Jazz and R'n'B. Second generation Puerto Ricans are bilingual, and many songs of the Latin Bugalu (African-American music) craze were in English. The proximity of Latin barrios to black neighbourhoods continues to promote crossovers, ensuring salsa's continued relevance.
Miami
Cubans exiled through the revolution of '59 fled to Florida, less than 100 miles away. The nature of their departure left a number of them embittered and vociferously anti-Castro. Many settle in Miami, in an area now called "Little Havana". Walking down its main axis of Eighth Street, more famously recognised by its Spanish name "Calle Ocho", you can hear strains of Salsa all about you. Every March, this place veritably explodes into a kaleidoscope of music and dance: the internationally reknown Calle Ocho Cuban Carnival.
Salsa in Miami is comparatively politicised. The drive behind the carnival and the raising of Miami's profile on the salsa stage, comes in no small part from right-wing political activism. To such an extent that artists with faint links to Castro's Cuba are not invited to perform at the carnival. Here, salsa is a symbol of desire: of a Cuba without Castro.
Colombia
The rise to prominence of Colombian salsa is a story of light and shade. The country's size and geography once harboured entire towns of escaped slaves; no doubt helping to create the base of unique music it has today.
What Fania did for New York, Discos Fuentes did for the whole of Colombia. Unlike in the former which was an island in a non-Latin sea, salsa was free to engulf the cities of Cali, Medellin, Cartagena and Barranquilla. The sheer weight of a whole country as a salsa centre can be felt through its more than fair share of talent and rhythmic innovations.
But the success story is darkened by drugs. Cartel figures used patronage (an age-old Spanish tradition) of salsa bands for two purposes: to launder money, and to purchase some semblance of social respectability. The source of the contributions would have made it difficult to refuse: if you're a singer and your no.1 Drug Lord fan buys you a car as a gift, what're you going to do? Give it back?
Nevertheless, the heavy investment for whatever reason was targeted at salsa's grassroots; exactly where it would do the most good. Young bands and venue managers found they had the resources to promote their activities, driving a broader uptake of salsa in Colombia's social scene.
A History of Salsa
Part 2: An African Movement
The Saint Domingue / Haitian contribution to the birth of new Cuban rhythms cannot be fully quantified, but is probably significant since the blacks had more freedom to retain their cultural heritage. It's more than mere coincidence that two important musical developments emerged from Oriente at the same time as arrivals from Hispañola. But conditions in Cuba themselves had to be right to foster these developments. And they were. The remoteness of Sierra Maestra from Havana allowed the blacks more freedom to practice their customs in the east.
The vocal and drumming tradition is central to the religious and social practices of the African people. A key aspect is the idea of co-operative musicianship, where groups of people are involved in an activity. A fine example is the drumming, where particular patterns are identified with particular deities.
An individual drummer would play a specific and unique rhythm; and several drummers, called a battery, would play together to produce a polyrhythm. Each part of the polyrhythm can be complex, and drummers play in a highly syncopated environment, so it's easy for them to lose their place. Every drummer is kept on the right track by being aware of how his own pattern fits with a master pattern called the "key". As long as the key is present, the drummers are synchronised and the polyrhythm holds together. It acts like a rhythmic "glue". The large number of African deities required a large number of polyrhythms; which could be easily achieved by varying the parts of just a few drummers.
African polyrhythms are a key component of salsa, and so follow a "clave" [Spanish for key or code] of some form. Common keys are the son clave, rumba clave, samba clave and cua; all descended from the African key. The cinquillo [five beat] and tresillo [three beat] are not claves themselves, but rhythmic motifs that conform to part of a clave.
In an example of polyrhythmic change in salsa, a chachacha can be changed to a pachanga simply by altering the pattern on the congas from "tumbao moderno" [modern rhythm] to "a caballo" [horse gallop]. The difference is quite subtle, and it is understandable why people find Latin rhythms confusing.
Another artefact comes from African ceremonial gatherings where group chants were cued by individual religious / social leaders. Known in Latin music as coro-pregon [call and response], lead singers and group vocals sing responses to each other in alternation. Non-drummers at these ceremonies would still actively participate by stamping on the ground with their feet, knees flexed to absorb shock. The resulting leverage was used to move the hips in counterpoint. The hip action, though toned down to varying degrees, is easily seen in salsa.
Author's Note:
Early in my dancing years, a friend of mine Luis recounted an anecdote that poignantly encapsulates the spirit of salsa. At that time I was having trouble keeping rhythm because my steps were too big.
Salsa was described to me as being originally a slave's dance. They couldn't take large steps because of the short chains between their ankles that prevented them from running very far. So in the evenings when they came together to dance, they did the only thing they could do to keep the dance interesting - they increased the speed of the rhythm.
I was appalled. Until Luis explained that we weren't parodying their misfortune, but celebrating a phenomenon that made great suffering bearable. For a slave, dance was a light in a very bleak existence.
I don't know how much truth there is in the story, I hope there is. Because I still feel the weight of his words in the bitter lyrics and sweet melodies of "El Preso" [The Prisoner] and "Rebellion".
A History of Salsa: Cuba
The means of music making in Cuba towards the later half of the 1800s was geographically distinct. Musicians in the East were itinerant, moving from village to village, rarely having a fixed place to perform. These troubadours who led an unsettled and occasionally hazardous lifestyle tended to be male. They functioned as important sources of news and retainers of folklore. Their instruments were uncomplicated and portable: guitar; tres - a Cuban guitar with three pairs of strings; marimbula - African thumb piano; botija - ceramic drum derived from olive oil jars; and bongos. The music they played consisted of a rhythmic progression of simple chords, supporting improvised lyrics sung to a clave.
These features exist in salsa. The montuno section, which occurs in the latter stages of a song, consists of a two to four chord repeated pattern called a vamp over which is laid lyrical improvisations called la inspiracion [the inspiration]. The skill of improvising vocal commentary to music is called soneo. Vocals are still predominantly male, including the high-pitched nasal chorus occasionally sung as a response called "old mother's voice". Incidentally, the word montuno [mountain] comes from the rhythmic style son-montuno that originated in Sierra Maestra.
Music in the west was much more European, it was more sedate and arrangements more elaborate. Musicians benefited from a regular performing base with consistent patronage and venues. The component instruments were costly and delicate compared those of the east, and still resembled those of the French orchestras. It was the retention of orchestral structure, instruments and specialist musicians that would later ease the entry of Jazz into Cuban music. But before then, there is just this little issue of collision and creolisation between European and African music.
The greatest leap in the evolution of music and dance came about with Cuba became colonially independent in terms of cultural identity and economy. What was originally a geographical distinction between Oriente and Western Cuba became a vertical stratification in the capital: with European music being played for the white upper classes, and music from Oriente played by the lower black classes. Located in between were the mulatas and mulatos: Creoles or people of mixed ancestry. Here is where the real action was.
Creolisation
The study of ethnic music in the Caribbean had an European bias until as recently as the 1970s, suggesting that it was the inclusion of African rhythms and instruments in orchestral groups that brought about creolisation. In all fairness, the crossover process was probably bi-directional but there would be more documentation concerning the former. The reason is simple: early ensembles avant-garde enough to feature a coloured musician might find that person arrested, thus generating paperwork. Such was the unhappy lot of guiro players in Puerto Rico in the 1850s.
What is significant is that the creolisation process did occur and that it was not localised to Cuba. The use of the African-derived cinquillo pattern, indicative of creolisation, was being found throughout the Caribbean basin. What few appreciate is the length and continuity of creolisation. It began with the early interactions between colonists and natives, and it continues now after nearly five centuries.
Cuban music
The Caribbean cinquillo found its way into the danza and the habanera (cubana) via the contradanza criolla in the nineteenth century. The habanera made its way to Argentina to become a precursor to the tango. The danza evolved into the danzon later that same century, becoming one of the two most important music and dance forms to influence Latin music of the twentieth century.
Rebeca Mauleon describes the danzon structure most accurately in "Salsa Guidebook for Piano and Ensemble" (1993), and hints at the future significance of the other form - the son:
"The danzon form consists of an introduction called the paseo (A), the principal flute melody (B), a repeat of the introduction (A), the violin trio (C). Innovations by several composers led to the addition of a fourth section (D) called nuevo ritmo, later known as mambo. This section added elements of the Cuban son."
Dances to these forms ceased being group activities and came to be performed as individual couples. There were two major reasons for this: one was a weakening of Spain's influence over her colonies, brought about by Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the disruption of her shipping routes by competing colonial powers. The other was an increased sense of individual identity through new capitalist thought and success. Economic independence brought a new confidence that reduced the need to demonstrate allegiance to the mother country.
The individualisation of dance paved the way for the introduction of African movement in contredanse derivatives. A creolisation of dance occurred which was accepted more readily in coloured communities than by the conservative ruling elite. Thus creole dances became identified as a phenomenon of the underclasses, throughout Latin America: son in Cuba; merengue and bachata in the Dominican Republic; tango in Argentina, bomba and plena in Puerto Rico.
Prerevolution
Fulgencio Batista was the political strongman of Cuba from 1933-1959. It was his close association with two leading Americans that saw unparalleled levels of US interest in the island state. One was Sumner Welles, US ambassador to Cuba and advisor to President (F.D.) Roosevelt. Through him, Cuba became a beneficiary of Roosevelt's "Good Neighbour" policy, opening the door to huge investments from US companies. The other was Meyer Lansky, a key figure of the organised crime syndicates. Through him, the criminal underworld established a large number of hotels and casinos in Havana turning it into the "Latin Las Vegas".
American influence and the Vegas connection in particular, brought in acts like Ginger Rogers and Frank Sinatra, introducing the next big movement in the formation of salsa. Jazz.
The mambo became a recognised style in its own right, separate from the danzon in the 1940s. An increase in tempo, adoption of Jazz lines, and a shift towards North American brass instrumentation, distinguished the mambo from its predecessor. It soon spread from Havana to Mexico, New York and Los Angeles.
The chachachá was also derived from the nuevo ritmo section of the danzon. Unlike the mambo, it was still interpreted by charanga (flute and violin) bands and remained mid-tempo. The big change was the addition of the conga drum (for more information, see the article Chachachá: Classic Cheek, Classic Chic).
The music of both the chachachá and the mambo carries an accent on the second beat. It is particularly audible in the basic rhythm interpreted by the conga, where a slap stroke producing a sharp "crack" sound is played on beat two. Dances to both rhythms begin on the second beat instead of the first because of this.
Both styles swept rapidly across the world, starting a love affair with Latin American music and dance; upon which the popularity of salsa and merengue rests today.
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