1920s
and '30s
Son music came to Havana in 1920 due to the efforts
of legendary groups like Trío Matamoros. Son was urbanized, with
trumpets 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 adopted.
The
son trios gave way to the septets, including guitar or tres, marímbulas
or double bass, bongos, claves and maracas. The trumpet was introduced
in 1926. Lead singers improvised lyrics and embellished melody lines while
the claves laid down the basic son clave beat.
As
time passed, musicians began "whitening up" son for the growing
tourist traffic in the Havana nightclubs who did not understand the complex
African rhythms.
- Trío Matamoros - Serie Inmortales: Todos Sus Exitos: listen & download
Cuban
music enters the United States
In the 1930s, the Lecuona Cuban Boys and Desi Arnaz popularized the conga
in the US and Don Aspiazu did the same with son montuno, while Arsenio
Rodriguez developed the conjunto band and rumba's popularity grew. Conjunto
son, mambo, chachachá, rumba and conga became the most important
influences on the invention of salsa.
Habanera
In the late 19th century, the habanera developed out of the contradanza
which had arrived from Haiti after the Haitian revolution. The main innovation
from the contradanza was rhythmic, as the habanera incorporated Spanish
and African influences into its repertoire.
In
the 1930s, habanera performer Arcaño y sus Maravillas incorporated
influences from conga and added a montuno (as in son), paving the way
for the mixing of Latin musical forms, including guaracha, played by
a charanga orchestra. Guaracha (sometimes simply called charanga) also
drew from Haitian musical forms, has been extremely popular and continues
to entertain audiences.
It
was not, however, until 1995 that a Cuban artist first recorded a complete
disc in the Habanera genre, when singer/songwriter Liuba Maria Hevia
recorded some songs researched by musicologist Maria Teresa Linares,
then director of the Cuban Museum of Music. Even then, the original
intention was to supply the Cuban Museum of Music with some sound references
of the genre. It is worth mentioning that the same artist, unhappy with
the technical conditions at the time (Cuba was in the middle of the
so-called Periodo Especial), re-recorded most of the songs on the 2005
CD Angel y habanera.
The
fact that the above-mentioned CD Habaneras en el tiempo (1995) was mainly
distributed in Barcelona underlines the fading interest on this kind
of music in the island, specially when compared to the vigorous popularity
of the Habanera in the Mediterranean coast of Spain.
1940s
and '50s
Arsenio Rodriguez, one of Cuba's most famous soneros, is considered
to have brought son back to its African roots in the 1940s by adapting
the guaguanco style to son, and by adding a cowbell and conga to the
rhythm section. He also expanded the role of the tres as a solo instrument.
Rodriguez introduced the montuno (or mambo section) for melodic solos
and his style became known as son montuno.
In
the 1940s, Chano Pozo formed part of the bebop revolution in jazz, playing
conga and other Afro-Cuban drums. Conga was integral part of what became
known as Latin jazz, which began in the 1940s among Cubans in New York
City.
- The Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra & Chano Pozo - A Night to Remember: listen & download
Benny
Moré, considered by many fans of Cuban music as the greatest
Cuban singer of all time, was at his heyday in the 1950s. He was gifted
with an innate musicality and fluid tenor voice which he colored and
phrased with great expressivity. Moré was a master all the genres
of Cuban music, including son montuno, mambo, guaracha, guajira, cha
cha cha, afro, canción, guaguancó, and bolero.
Cuban
music in the US
A charanga group called Orquesta America, led by violinist Enrique Jorrín,
helped invent chachachá, which became an international fad in
the 1950s. Chachachá was popularized by bands led by Tito Puente,
Perez Prado and other superstars. Many of these same performers also
updated mambo for modern audiences.
The
mambo first entered the United States in the early 1940s. The first
mambo, "Mambo" by Orestes "Cachao" Lopez, was written
in 1938. Five years later, Perez Prado introduced the dance to the audience
at La Tropicana, a nightclub in Havana. Mambo was distinguished from
its immediate predecessor, danzon, by elements of son montuno and jazz.
By 1947, mambo was wildly popular in the US, but the craze lasted only
a few years.
Other
influential musicians prior to the revolution were Ernesto Lecuona,
Chano Pozo, Bola de Nieve, who lived in Mexico, and Mario Bauza, who,
along with such "Nuyoricans" Ray Barreto and Tito Puente made
innovation in mambo which gradually would produce Latin jazz and later
salsa. A large number of musicians left Cuba between 1966 and 1968,
after the Cuban government nationalised the remaining nightclubs and
the recording industry. Among these was Celia Cruz, a guaracha singer,
who gave strong impulses to the development of salsa. In later years
Cubans were very active in Latin jazz and early salsa, 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.
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 band
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.
Castro
and Cuban exiles
The arrival to power of Fidel Castro in 1959 signified on one side mass
exile to Puerto Rico, Florida and New York, and the protection of artist
by the Communist state, reflected in state-owned record labels like
EGREM. In Cuba, the Nueva Trova movement (including Pablo Milanés)
reflected the new leftist ideals. Young musicians learned in music school.
The state-run cabaret Tropicana was a popular attraction for foreign
tourists, though more well-informed tourists sought out local casas
de la Trova. Musicians were full-time and paid by the state after graduating
from a conservatory, but as much as 90% of their income was taken by
the Ministry of Culture. Castro's government eventually forced even
early supporters like Arturo Sandoval and Paquito D'Rivera into exile.
The fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s eventually changed the situation
quite a bit, and musicians were then allowed to tour abroad and earn
a living outside the state-run system.
Famous
artists from the Cuban exile are Celia Cruz, Cachao, La Lupe, Willy
Chirino and Gloria Estefan. Many of these musicians, especially Cruz,
became closely associated with the anti-Castro movement.
Salsa
In the 1970s and onwards, son montuno was combined with other Latin
musical forms, such as the mambo and the rumba, to form contemporary
salsa music, currently immensely popular throughout Latin America and
the Hispanic world.
Nueva
trova
Paralleling nueva canción in Chile and Argentina, Cuba's political
and social turmoil in the 1960s and '70s produced a socially aware form
of new music called nueva trova. Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés
became the most important exponents of this style. It arose from travelling
trovadores in the early 20th century, including popular musicians like
Sindo Garay (best-known for "La Bayamesa"), Nico Saquito,
Carlos Puebla and Joseíto Fernández (best-known for "Guantanamera").
Nueva trova was always intimately connected with Castro's revolution,
but its lyrics frequently expressed personal rather than social issues,
focusing on intense emotional issues.
Nueva
Trova began to evolve after the fall of the Soviet Union, adapting to
the new times. Examples of a new, non-political line in the Nueva Trova
movement could be Liuba María Hevia, whose lyrics are focused
on other subjects like 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,
while at the same time being included in the Nueva Trova genre.
The
term Novísima Trova (literally 'Newest song') is often used to
describe a new generation of songwriters whose main references are Silvio
Rodriguez and Pablo Milanés.
1980s,
1990s and 2000
Son and nueva trova remain the most popular forms of modern Cuban music,
and virtually all Cuban artists play music derived from one of these
two genres. Son is best represented by long-standing groups like Septeto
Nacional, which was re-established in 1985, Orquesta Aragón,
Orquesta Ritmo Oriental and Orquesta Original de Manzanillo. Septeto
Nacional, alongside groups like Sierra Maestra, have sparked a revival
in traditional son. 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 the upturn
in interest in son montuno since the mid-1990s.
In
the 1990s, increased interest in world music brought Cuban music, especially
traditional styles like son montuno, again into the limelight. This
development went hand-in-hand with the post-Soviet Union periodo especial
in Cuba, during which the economy began opening up to tourism.
Orquesta
Aragon, 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. The
antagonism between Cuban politicians in Florida and on the island forced
the celebration of the Latin Grammy Awards awards in Los Angeles instead
of Miami.
Timba
Since its appearance in the early 1990s timba has become the most popular
dance music in Cuba, rivalled only lately by Reggaetón, the Cuban
version of Jamaican raggea and dancehall music. Though related to salsa,
timba has its own characteristics and history, and is intimately tied
to the life and culture of Cuba, and especially Havana. Timba is to
Havana what tango is to Buenos Aires, or samba to Rio de Janeiro.
Buena
Vista Social Club
The watershed event was the release of Buena Vista Social Club (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, Joseíto Fernández, and
Compay Segundo, whose careers had stagnated in the 1950s.
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 interest of world
audiences in exile and pre-revolutionary musicians has stirred some
resentment among younger musicians that feel that their work and evolution
of forty years is being ignored.
Links
& Sources:
Best
website about modern Cuban Music: www.timba.com
