 |
Salsa Music, popular genre
of Latin American music. Since its emergence
in the mid-1960s, salsa has achieved worldwide
popularity, attracting performers and audiences
not only in Latin American communities but
also in such non-Latin countries as Japan
and Sweden. In terms of style and structure,
salsa is a reinterpretation and modernization
of Cuban dance-music styles—especially
the son—which had coalesced
by the 1950s.
The son emerged around
1900 as an urban, popular dance-music style
in Cuba. It derived some features from Hispanic
music, including its harmonies and the use
of the guitar and a similar instrument called
the tres. To these, it added characteristics
of the rumba, a style of dance music with
Afro-Cuban origins. Features derived from
the rumba include a rhythmic pattern known
as clave and a two-part formal structure.
This structure consists of a songlike first
section followed by a longer second section
featuring call-and-response vocals and instrumental
improvisations over a repeated chordal pattern.
By the 1940s the son had become
the most popular dance music in Cuba, Puerto
Rico, and much of urban Africa; Puerto Ricans
who moved to New York City brought the son
with them.
The 1950s were a particularly
dynamic period for Cuban dance music. Cuban
and Puerto Rican performers in Havana, Cuba,
and New York City popularized the mambo
as a predominantly instrumental, big-band
style. The mambo, together with the medium-tempo
chachachá, enjoyed considerable popularity
in the United States. Most importantly,
the son was modernized by adaptation to
horn-based ensembles of 10 to 15 musicians
and distinctive, often jazz-influenced instrumental
styles.
By the 1950s, New York City
had become host to a large and growing Puerto
Rican community. A wave of social and political
activism, cultural self-assertion, and artistic
ferment swept through this community in
the 1960s. The newly founded Fania Records
successfully promoted several young performers
of Cuban-style dance music, and the music—now
repackaged as salsa—became linked
to the sociopolitical effervescence of the
era. Bandleaders such as Willie Colon, Rubén
Blades, Johnny Pacheco, Ray Barretto, and
Eddie Palmieri led the musical movement,
in which salsa became a self-conscious vehicle
for Latino pride, unity, and mobilization
throughout the Hispanic Caribbean Basin
countries and among Latino communities in
the eastern United States. Most importantly,
however, salsa, with its intricate and driving
rhythms, its brilliant horn arrangements,
and its searing vocals, served as an exuberant
and exhilarating dance music.
By the mid-1970s, salsa had
become the dominant popular music idiom
in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, with
Venezuela and Colombia emerging as music
centers to rival New York City. But during
the 1980s, salsa’s themes of Latin
unity and sociopolitical idealism diminished.
In addition, the genre faced new competition,
especially in New York City and Puerto Rico,
from the merengue, a dance-music style from
the Dominican Republic. Nevertheless, salsa
has remained popular among younger generations
of Latinos, who tend to favor a smoother,
more sentimental style known as salsa
romántica, popularized by such
bandleaders as Eddie Santiago and Tito Nieves.
Notable salsa singers of the 1990s included
Linda “India” Caballero and
Mark Anthony.
Source: Encarta
To learn more about some of
the most important salsa artists:
Celia
Cruz
Rubén
Blades (Site in Spanish)
Back to Resources
page
Back to Calendar
of Events page
|
