SALSA MUSIC

'Salsa music' is a Latin musical genre that is popular across Latin America and among Latinos. As a genre, salsa generally utilizes rhythms from Cuba, particularly son and guaracha. On occasion salsa bands will play other genres, such as son montuno, guaguancó, bolero, danzón, plena, bomba, cumbia and others. Bands have historically played entire songs in these genres or in some instances shift into these genres for a few bars for rhythmic variation. However, typically salsa songs most approximate the Cuban guaracha genre in terms of structure and tempo.
That said, salsa songs are generally not played exactly, note for note, as a traditional Cuban guaracha. This is because of the music's evolution. Essentially, Cuban music in the form of son and guaracha genres began reaching the United States as early as the late 1920s, though Don Azpiazu's band, with Antonio Machín as lead singer, is credited by some authors with introducing Cuban music to the United States with the song El manicero. In New York, Latino immigrants from Cuba and Puerto Rico began playing this music. That particular phenomenon is responsible for the development of salsa. Basically, this community began playing Cuban music and continued to do so, adopting songs and genres as these were created in Cuba. For example, during the 1940s Pérez Prado popularized the mambo and soon the New York musicians were playing it. These musicians also began playing chachachá after Cuban violinist created the genre in 1949 with the song La engañadora.
What happened was that the New York musicians conserved the basic structure of these Cuban dance genres while adding their own elaborations. Innovators in this regard include Tito Puente, born in 1923 in Harlem to Puerto Rican parents; "Pin" Madera, a saxophonist and arranger for the Machito band; René Hernández, pianist and arranger for the Machito bands; José Curbelo, pianist and bandleader; and other key figures. The recordings of these musicians during the 1940s reveal a new , more expansive approach to harmony than what many Cuban bands played at the time. The changes were significant but not so much that it could be argued that New York musicians of the era were playing a different kind of music than bands in Cuba. That is because the basic song structure and patterns played on the percussion instruments, along with general horn voicings, were all broadly similar. The difference lay in how the musicians in New York interpreted the same rhythms as musicians based in Cuba. That particular New York interpretation or approach would later be called salsa.
Despite several authors claiming that salsa is some kind of amalgamation of rock, Cuban music, plena from Puerto Rico, Brazilian music and who knows what else, this is simply not the case. Listening to the music will reveal that. Marc Anthony's album Contra la corriente, for example, a popular salsa album, does not have rock phrases worked in. It does not have bossa nova figures nor plena nor cumbia nor any of the genres certain people cite as being part of salsa. Structurally, the songs are those of guarachas and they have the faster tempos of a guaracha. That said, their sound is far from traditional. The horn voicings are modern, keyboards add to the harmonic layers: this is not by any means traditional guaracha as played, for example, by singer Beny Moré or the Buena Vista Social Club. It very much reflects the sound and approach of New York-based Latin musicians, a sound which has become highly stylized and developed since the 1930s.
Salsa is essentially Cuban in stylistic origin,^[1] though it is also a hybrid of Puerto Rican and other Latin styles mixed with pop, jazz, rock, and R&B.^[2] Salsa is the primary music played at Latin dance clubs and is the "essential pulse of Latin music", according to author Ed Morales,^[3] while music author Peter Manuel called it the "most popular dance (music) among Puerto Rican and Cuban communities, (and in) Central and South America", and "one of the most dynamic and significant pan-American musical phenomena of the 1970s and 1980s".^[4] Modern salsa remains a dance-oriented genre and is closely associated with a style of salsa dancing.

Contents

The word ''salsa''

Characteristics

Songs and instrumentation

Rhythm

Lyricism

History

Origins

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s to the present

Related Genres

Precursors

Subgenres

Succesors

References

Notes

Further reading

External links

The word ''salsa''

''Salsa'' means ''sauce'' in the Spanish language, and carries connotations of the spiciness in some Latin and Caribbean cuisine.^[5] More recently, ''salsa'' acquired a musical meaning in both English and Spanish. In this sense, ''salsa'' has been described as a word with "vivid associations, but no absolute definitions, a tag that encompasses a rainbow assortment of Latin rhythms and styles, taking on a different hue wherever you stand in the Spanish-speaking world".^[6] The precise scope of ''salsa'' is highly debatable.^[7] Cuban immigrants and Puerto Rican migrants in New York have used the term analogously to ''swing'' or ''soul'', which refer to a quality of emotionally and culturally genuine music in the African American community. In this usage ''salsa'' connotes a frenzied, "spicy" and wild musical experience that draws upon or reflects elements of Latin culture, regardless of the specific style.^[8]
Various music writers and historians have traced the use of ''salsa'' to different periods of the 20th century. World music author Sue Steward has claimed that ''salsa'' originated as a "cry of appreciation for a particularly piquant or flashy solo". She cites the first use in this manner to a Venezuelan radio DJ named Phidias Danilo Escalona;^[9] Max Salazar traced the word back to the early 1930s, when Ignacio Piñerio composed "Échale Salsita", a dance song protesting tasteless food.^[10] Though Salazar describes this song as the origin of ''salsa'' meaning "danceable Latin music", author Ed Morales has described the usage in the same song as a cry from Piñeiro to his band, telling them to increase the tempo to "put the dancers into high gear". Morales claims that later in the 1930s, vocalist Beny Moré would shout ''salsa'' during a performance "to acknowledge a musical moment's heat, to express a kind of cultural nationalist sloganeering [and to celebrate the] 'hotness' or 'spiciness' of Latin American cultures".^[11] [Note: Morales is wrong and cannot cite any recordings in which Moré did this because there are none. As anyone who has listened to Moré can tell you, the singer favored making amusing sounds similar to birdcalls or would exclaim other phrases during songs, such as "Dale azúcar," "Ah-ja" and others. Morales should listen to Beny Moré albums before making such statements.]
Some people object to the term ''salsa'' on the basis that it is vague or misleading; for example, the style of musicians such as Tito Puente evolved several decades before ''salsa'' was a recognized genre, leading Puente to once claim that "the only salsa I know comes in a bottle. I play Cuban music". Because ''salsa'' can refer to numerous styles of Cuban music such as, son, son montuno, rumba, guaguanco, cha cha cha, guaracha, danzon, bolero, conga, Cuban jazz/Cuban big band, mambo, etc, or even Puerto Rico's bomba and plena genres. Johnny Pacheco Dominican musician and founder of New York's based Fania Records in an interview referred to the word "salsa" as a marketing term designed to superficially categorize this music in a way that appeals to non-aficionados and foreign audiences.^[12] For a time the communist state controlled media of Cuba officially claimed that the term ''salsa music'' was a euphemism for authentic Cuban music stolen by American imperialists, though the media has since abandoned this theory.^[13]
Some doubt that the term ''salsa'' has any precise and unambiguous meaning. Peter Manuel describes salsa as "at once (both) a modern marketing concept and the cultural voice of a new generation", representative of a "crystallization of a Latino identity in New York in the early 1960s". Manuel also recognizes the commercial and cultural dichotomy to salsa, noting that the term's broad use for many styles of Latin pop music has served the development of "pan-Latin solidarity", while also noting that the "recycling of Cuban music under an artificial, obscurantist label is but one more example of North American exploitation and commodification of third world primary products; for Latinos, salsa bridges the gap between "tradition and modernity, between the impoverished homeland and the dominant United States, between street life and the chic night club, and between grassroots culture and the corporate media".^[14]
The singer Willie Colón once claimed that ''salsa'' is merely "a concept", as opposed to a definite style or rhythm. Some musicians are doubtful that the term ''salsa'' has any useful meaning at all, with the bandleader Machito claiming that salsa was more or less what he had been playing for forty years before the style was invented, while Tito Puente once responded to a question about salsa by saying "I'm a musician, not a cook" (referring to ''salsa's original use to mean ''sauce''). Celia Cruz, a well-known salsa singer, has said, "salsa is Cuban music with another name. It's mambo, cha cha chá, rumba, son ... all the Cuban rhythms under one name".^[15] In contrast, Ed Morales cites the use of ''salsa'' for a specific style to a New York-based editor and graphic designer named Izzy Sanabria. Morales also [erroneously] mentions an early use of the term by Dominican musician Johnny Pacheco by saying that PAcheco released a 1962 album called ''Salsa Na' Ma'', which Morales translates as "it just needs a little salsa, or spice".^[11] Morales, however, is wrong: "Salsa Na'Ma is an album by pianist Charlie Palmieri and was released in 1965, not 1962.

Characteristics

At its root, however, salsa is a mixture of Spanish and African music, filtered through the music histories of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and adapted by Latin jazz and Latin popular musicians for Latino populations with diverse musical tastes.^[6] The basic structure of a salsa song is based on the Cuban guaracha, beginning with a simple melody and followed by a montuno section in which the singers improvise in a call and response pattern. Morales cites the Venezuelan scholar César Miguel Rondón, in ''El Libro de la Salsa'', as noting that Eddie Palmieri's arrangement of the trombone ''in a way that they always sounded sour, with a peculiarly aggressive harshness''; Leymarie, pg. 268 cites the same work and says that Rondón stressed that salsa's ''trademark horn is the stalwart trombone, which carries the melody or plays counterpoint behind the singer.'' Peter Manuel notes how New York and Puerto Rican salsa differs from the 1950s Cuban "son" in various ways, such as the greater use of timbales and trombones, the occasional use of Puerto Rican elements like the declamatory exclamation ''le-lo-lai'', its frequent lyrics about barrio life in New York and elsewhere, the "smooth" sound of the ''salsa romántica'' style that emerged in the 1980s, and salsa's role as a soundscape for the Latino identity movement of the 1970s.^[18]

Songs and instrumentation

Salsa bands play a wide variety of songs, including pieces based on plenas and bombas, cumbia, vallenato and merengue; most songs, however, are modern versions of the Cuban son. Like the son, salsa songs begin with a songlike section followed by a ''montuno'' break with call-and-response vocals, instrumental breaks and jazzy solos.^[19] In the United States, the music of a salsa club is a mix of salsa, merengue, cha-cha-cha and bachata, whether sourced from a live band or a DJ. Some salsa clubs also add reggaeton to the mix due to its popularity with youth.
The most important instrumentation in salsa is the percussion, which is played by a wide variety of instruments, including claves, cowbells, timbales and conga.^[20] Apart from percussion, other core instruments are the trumpets, trombones, and bass, usually an electric baby bass.. Other melodic instruments are commonly used as accompaniment, such as a guitar, the piano, and many others, all depending on the performing artists. [The tres guitar was used in a particular style of band known as a conjunto but that format is nearly extinct and it is indeed a rarity to find a band that uses a tres.] Bands typically consist of up to a dozen people, one of whom serves as band leader, directing the music as it is played. Two to four players generally specialize in horns, while there are generally one or two choral singers and players of the bongo, conga, bass guitar, piano and ''timbales''. The maracas, clave or güiro may also be played, typically by a vocalist. The bongocero will usually switch to a kind of bell called a ''campana'' (or ''bongo bell'') for the ''montuno'' section of a song. Horns are typically either two trumpets or four trumpets or, most commonly, two trumpets with at least one saxophone or trombone.^[21]

Salsa essentially remains a form of dance music; thus, many songs have little in the way of lyrics beyond exhortations to dance or other simple words. Modern pop-salsa is often ''romántica'', defined partially by the sentimental, lovelorn lyrics, or ''erótica'', defined largely by the sexually explicit lyrics. Salsa also has a long tradition of lyrical experimentation, with singer-songwriters like Rubén Blades using incisive lyrics about everything from imperialism to disarmament and environmentalism.^[22] Vocalists are expected to be able to improvise during verses and instrumental solos. References to Afro-Catholic religions, such as ''Santería'', are also a major part of salsa's lyrics throughout Latin America, even among those artists who are not themselves practitioners of any Afro-Catholic religion.^[23]

Rhythm

Salsa music traditionally utilizes a 4/4 time signature. Musicians play recurring rhythmic accompaniments often in groups of eight beats (two measures of four quarter notes), while melodic phrases span eight or sixteen beats, with entire stanzas spanning thirty-two beats.
While percussion instruments layer several different rhythmic patterns simultaneously, the clave rhythm is the foundation of salsa; all salsa music and dance is governed by the clave rhythm. The most common clave rhythm in salsa is the so-called ''son'' clave, which is eight beats long and can be played either in 2-3 or 3-2 style.

The 2-3 clave        The 3-2 clave

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.     1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.

..
★ .
★ ...
★ ..
★ ..
★ .     
★ ..
★ ..
★ ...
★ .
★ ...

Even when the clave rhythm is not played by its own, it functions as a basis for the instrumentalists and singers to use as a common rhythmic ground for their own musical phrases. The instrumentalists emphasize the differences of the two halves of the eight-beat clave rhythm; for example, in an eight-beat-long phrase used in a 2-3 clave context, the first half of the phrase is given more straight notes that are played directly on beat, while the second half instead contains notes with longer durations and with a more off-beat feeling. This emphasizes that the first four beats of the 2-3 son clave contain two "short" strikes that are directly on beat, while the last four beats contain three "long" clave strikes with the second strike placed offbeat between beats two and three. Salsa songs commonly start with one clave and then switch to the reverse partway through the song, without restarting the clave rhythm; instead, the rhythm is shifted four beats using breaks and stop-time.
Percussion instruments have standard patterns that reoccur in most salsa music with only slight variations. For example, this is a common rhythmic pattern called the ''cáscara'' based on the 2-3 clave, and is played on the shells of the timbales during the verses and less energetic parts of a song:

Timbales cáscara rhythm in 2-3 clave

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.   (beats)


★ .
★ .
★ 
★ .
★ 
★ .
★ 
★ .
★ .
★    (
★  = cáscara strikes)

During the chorus and solo parts, the ''timbalero'' often switches to the following rhythm, which is normally played on a cowbell (the ''mambo bell'') mounted on the timbales set:

Timbales mambo bell rhythm in 2-3 clave

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.   (beats)

+.
★ .+++
★ .++
★ +.+
★    (+/
★  = weak/accented cowbell strikes)

The timbales pattern above is often accompanied by a handheld cowbell (the ''bongo bell'') also played during the chorus but by another person, using this simpler rhythm:

Handheld bongo bell rhythm in 2-3 clave

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.   (beats)

+.
★ .+.
★ 
★ +.
★ 
★ +.
★ 
★    (+/
★  = low/high-pitched cowbell strikes)

The piano has many roles in salsa, being an important solo instrument and providing harmony, rhythm and sometimes even the lead melody. During the montuno section, in which the singers and chorus engage in a call and response pattern of singing, the piano player plays a repeating ostinato figure known as a guajeo or tumbao which serves as a backbone for the rhythm section. The piano always respects the clave. The montuno patterns have many variations, but are basically highly syncopated two-bar vamps made to match the clave. For example:

Piano montuño rhythm in 2-3 clave

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.   (beats)


★ .
★ 
★ .
★ .
★ .
★ .
★ .
★ .
★    (
★  = key strikes)

The bass pattern often follows a distinct salsa rhythm pattern known as the ''tumbao'' which alternates between the fifth and the root of a chord. One side of the tumbao will be in near unison with the clave, while the other side is syncopated against the clave:

Bass tumbao rhythm

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.   (beats)

...5..8....5..1.   (5 = fifth of chord, 8 = high octave of chord, 1 = low octave of chord)

Lyricism

Salsa lyrics range from simple dance numbers with little lyrical innovation and sentimental romantic songs to risqué and politically radical lyrics. Music author Isabelle Leymarie notes that salsa performers typically used to incorporate machoistic bravado (''guapería'') in their lyrics, in a manner reminiscent of calypso and samba, a theme she ascribes to the performers' "humble backgrounds" and subsequent need to compensate for their origins. Leymarie claims that salsa is "essentially virile, an affirmation of the Latin man's pride and identity". As an extension of salsa's macho stance, manly taunts and challenges (''desafio'') are also a traditional part of salsa.^[24]
Politically and socially activist composers have been a part of salsa but generally songs have focused on telling stories about everyday situations and cultural events. Since the mid-1980s, however, the large majority of salsa songs are about romantic relationships.

History

In the 1930s, '40s and '50s, Cuban music within Cuba was evolving into new styles derived primarily from son and rumba, while the Cubans in New York, living among many Latinos from Puerto Rico and elsewhere, began playing their own distinctive styles, influenced most importantly by African American music. Their music included son and guarachas, as well as tango, bolero and danza, with prominent influences from jazz.^[25] While the New York scene continued evolving, Cuban popular music, especially mambo, became very famous across the United States. Following this was a series of other genres of Cuban music, which especially affected the Latin scene in New York. Many Latin musicians in New York were Puerto Rican, and it was these performers who innovated the style now known as ''salsa music'', based largely off Cuban and Puerto Rican music.^[26]
Salsa evolved steadily from the 1930s, reflecting Cuban traditional influences and also the personal innovations of the artists in New York that played it, becoming a style or approach that was significantly different from that employed in Cuba to play the same basic rhythms. By the turn of the century, salsa was one of the major fields of popular music in the world, and salsa stars were international celebrities.

Origins

Salsa's roots can be traced back to the African ancestors that were brought to the Caribbean by the Spanish as slaves. Salsa's most direct antecedent is the Cuban