Cuban music
By Cuban music is understood that music developed on the island of Cuba whose origin comes from Spanish music (in 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Cuba on his first voyage) and from the rhythms and African songs brought by them, from the XVI century. A certain Asian influence can also be indicated by the use of the Chinese bugle in the carnival conga, a fact that began with the arrival of the first Chinese immigrants to the island. Starting in 1848, numerous Chinese coolies arrived in Cuba and by 1874, the year in which the hiring of agricultural workers from China ended, there were 132,435 coolies in Cuba.
Any classification that is intended to make of Cuban music will depend rather on the degree of mixture between the Spanish and African influences that are discovered in it, since in reality this is the rich and complex creative result of these two sources, to which Historically, the influence of the most diverse cultures and musical tendencies has been added.
Introduction
Cuba developed a wide range of Creole musical styles, based on its Spanish and African cultural origins. Since the XIX century, Cuban music has enjoyed enormous popularity and influence, becoming one of the most popular forms of music in the world.
.jpg)
The music of Cuba, including the instruments and dances, is mostly of European (Spanish) and African origin. Most of the current forms are fusions and mixtures of these two sources. Almost nothing remains of the original indigenous traditions.
Large numbers of enslaved Africans and European (mainly Spanish) immigrants came to Cuba and brought their own forms of music to the island. These popular European dances and music included Spanish forms such as the zapateo, the fandango, the pasodoble, and the retambico. Later, other forms from Europe such as the gavotte, the minuet, the contradanza, the waltz, and the mazurka appeared among urban whites. There was also a significant immigration of Chinese workers in the 19th century.
Fernando Ortiz, the first great Cuban folklorist, describes the musical innovations of Cuba as derived from the interaction (transculturation) between the African slaves who settled on the large sugar plantations and Spanish, such as the inhabitants of the Canary Islands (and other regions of Spain) who grew tobacco on small farms. African slaves and their descendants created a variety of percussion instruments and preserved the 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 bongo, congas (or tumbadoras) and "batá" are seen regularly (Cuban timbales are descendants of the kettledrums of Spanish military bands). Also important are the claves (two short cylindrical pieces of wood) and the cajón (a wooden box originally made of planks. The claves are still often used, and the cajones were widely used during the periods when the drum was prohibited. In addition, there are other percussion instruments in use for religious ceremonies of African origin.Chinese immigrants contributed the Chinese bugle (or Suona), a Chinese reed-reed instrument, still used in the comparsas (Carnival groups) of Santiago de Cuba.
The great instrumental contribution of the Spanish was the guitar, but even more important was the tradition of musical notation developed in the European continent and the techniques of musical composition. The Hernando de la Parra Archives provide some of the first available information on Cuban music. He reported on instruments such as the clarinet, violin, and vihuela. There were few professional musicians at the time, and very few of his songs survive. One of the first melodies is the Son de la Ma Teodora documented by the musician and writer Laureano Fuentes Matons in his book Las artes en Santiago de Cuba published in 1893, supposedly composed by Teodora Ginés around 1562, a free slave from Santiago de Cuba, who apparently became famous for her compositions. This piece is said to be similar to Spanish songs from the 16th century.
Cuban music has its main roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time it has been influenced by various genres from different countries. Among these are France and its colonies in Latin America and the United States.
Cuban music has also had a considerable influence in other countries. He has contributed not only to the development of jazz and salsa, but also to the development of Argentine tango, Ghanaian high-life, West African Afrobeat, the Dominican genres of bachata and merengue, Colombian cumbia, and Spanish flamenco.
African beliefs and practices exerted a powerful influence on the music of Cuba. Polyrhythmic percussion is an inherent element of African music, just as the melody style is part of the European musical tradition. Also, in the African tradition, percussion is always associated with song and dance, as well as with a particular social environment. Due to the union of European and African cultures, most of Cuban popular music has been the result of that merger. This transculturation of Cuban life has taken place over a long period of time, since long before the XX century, and elements of African beliefs, music and dance are strongly integrated into popular forms.
18th and 19th centuries
Among the world-famous composers of the academic genre can be counted the Baroque composer Esteban Salas y Castro (1725-1803), who spent most of his life teaching and composing music for the church. He was replaced in the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba by the priest Juan París (1759-1845). Paris was an exceptionally industrious man, and an important composer. He dedicated himself to stimulating the realization of diverse and continuous musical events.Pág. 181.
Aside from rural music and Afro-Cuban folk music, the most popular genre of urban Creole dance music in the 19th century was the contradanza, which began as a local form of English regional dance country dance and its derivative, the French contredanse, as well as the Spanish contradanza. While many contradanzas were written for the dance, from the middle of the century several were composed as light salon pieces for the piano. The first distinguished composer in that style was Manuel Saumell (1818-1870), who is consequently sometimes hailed as the father of Cuban Creole musical development. In the hands of his successor, Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905), the dance (as it was more typically called towards the end of the 19th century), achieved even greater sophistication in its piano language.
"After Saumell's visionary work, all that was left to do was develop his innovations, which profoundly influenced the history of Cuban musical nationalist movements." Cervantes was dubbed by Aaron Copland as a Cuban Chopin, because of his Chopinesque-style piano compositions. Cervantes's reputation today rests almost solely on his famous forty-one Cuban Dances, of which Carpentier said, "they take the place of [Edvard's] Norwegian Dances." Grieg or Dvórak's Slavic Dances occupy in the musical traditions of their respective countries. Cervantes' unfinished opera, Maledetto, has been long forgotten.
In the 1840s, the habanera emerged as a languid vocal song with a contradanza rhythm. (Non-Cubans sometimes call Cuban contradanzas "habaneras.") The habanera became very popular in Spain and elsewhere. The Cuban contradanza/danza also exerted an important influence on Puerto Rican danza, which went on to enjoy its own dynamic and distinctive career through the 1930s. In Cuba, in the 1880s, the contradanza/danza gave birth to the danzón, which effectively surpassed him in popularity.
Laureano Fuentes (1825-1898) came from a family of musicians and wrote the first opera composed on the island, La hija de Jefté. This was later lengthened and organized under the title of Seila. His numerous works spanned all genres. Gaspar Villate (1851-1891) produces an abundant and wide body of work, all centered on opera.p. 239 José White (1836-1918), a mulatto with a French father and an Afro-Cuban mother, was a composer and violinist of international merit. He learned to play sixteen instruments and lived alternately between Cuba, Spanish America and France. His most famous work is La bella cubana, a habanera.
During the middle years of the 19th century, a young American musician arrived in Havana: Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829- 1869). His father was a Jewish businessman from London and his mother a white Creole of French Catholic origin, Gottschalk was raised by his black grandmother and his wet nurse Sally, both from Saint Domingue. He was a piano prodigy who had heard and witnessed the music and dancing in Congo Square, New Orleans since his childhood. His stay in Cuba lasted from 1853 to 1862, including some short visits to Puerto Rico and Martinique. Gottschalk composed many Creole-style pieces, such as the habanera Bamboula, Op. 2 Danse de negres) (1845), whose title refers to an Afro-Caribbean drum; El cocoye (1853), based on a popular Cuban theme; the contradanza Ojos criollos (Danse cubaine, 1859) and a version of María la O, which refers to a Cuban mulatto singer. In these numbers he made frequent use of typical Cuban rhythmic patterns. At one of his farewell concerts he performed his Adiós a Cuba , causing a standing ovation and shouts of bravo! Unfortunately, the score for this work has not survived.
In February 1860, Gottschalk produced a major work in Havana, called La nuit des tropiques. In the execution of that piece he used some 250 musicians and a choir of 200 singers, in addition to a group of the black council of Santiago de Cuba who brought their drums for the performance. He presented another great concert the following year, with new material. These shows dwarfed anything previously seen on the island, and were undoubtedly unforgettable for the attendees.
Classical music in the 20th century
Between the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century, a series of composers stood out who cultivated both popular and classical music. cultured; in genres that include popular song and concert lied, danceable music, zarzuela and vernacular theater; as well as symphonic music. Among others, we must mention Hubert de Blanck ((1856-1932); José Mauri (1856-1937); Manuel Mauri (1857-1939); José Marín Varona (1859-1912); Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes (1874-1944); Jorge Anckermann (1877-1941); Luis Casas Romero (1882-1950) and Mario Valdés Costa (1898-1930).
The work of José Marín Varona links the musical activity of the end of the XIX century in Cuba, with that of the beginning of the XX century. In 1896, the composer included in his zarzuela & # 34; El Brujo & # 34; the first Cuban Guajira (music) on which there is documentation. The composer Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes said of this work: & # 34; The sound criticism of a day perhaps not too distant will grant the author of the immortal guajira of El brujo the lauro to which his indisputable talent has made him deserving in all the times & # 34;
Gonzalo Roig (1890-1970), became a major creative force in the first half of the 20th century. A composer and conductor, he was also highly qualified in piano, violin, and composition theory. In 1922 he was one of the founders of the National Symphony Orchestra, which he directed. In 1927 he was appointed Director of the School of Music in Havana. As a composer he specialized in zarzuela, a form of musical theater that was very popular until World War II. In 1931 he founded a theater company Bufo at the Teatro Martí in Havana. He was the composer of the best-known Cuban zarzuela, Cecilia Valdés, based on the famous novel of the same name from the XIX century about a Cuban mulatta, which was released in 1932. He founded several organizations and wrote frequently on musical subjects.
One of the greatest Cuban pianist-composers of the XX century was Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963). Lecuona composed more than 600 pieces, mainly in the Cuban style, and was a pianist of exceptional quality. He was a prolific composer of songs and music for film and theater. His work mainly consisted of numerous zarzuelas based on Afro-Cuban and Cuban rhythms, various Suites and multiple songs that became Latin music standards. These include Siboney, Malagueña and Andalucía. In 1942, his smash hit Always in My Heart was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song and lost the competition for the song White Christmas . The Ernesto Lecuona Symphony Orchestra performed the premiere of Lecuona's Black Rhapsody at the Cuban Liberation Day Concert at Carnegie Hall, New York, on October 10, 1943.
Although their music is rarely performed in concert today, Amadeo Roldán (1900-1939) and Alejandro García Caturla (1906-1940) revolutionized Cuban symphonic music during the first half of the century XX.p354 They played an important role in Afrocubanismo, a movement in Cuban culture focused on Afro-Cuban issues, which originated in the 1920s, and was extensively analyzed by Fernando Ortiz Fernández.
Amadeo Roldán, born in Paris to a Cuban mulatto and a Spanish father, returned to Cuba in 1919, and became first violin in the newly founded Orquesta Sinfónica de La Habana in 1922. There he met Caturla, who was second violin in the orchestra at the age of sixteen. Roldán's compositions include the Obertura sobre temas cubanos (1925), and two ballets: La Rebambaramba (1928) and El milagro de Anaquillé (1929). These were followed by a series of Rhythmics, Black Poem (1930) and Tres toques (march, rites, dance) (1931). In Motivos de son (1934) he wrote eight pieces for voice and instruments based on Nicolás Guillén's poems with the same title. His last compositions were Two Children's Pieces for piano (1937). Roldán died young, at 31, of disfiguring facial cancer (he had been a chain smoker).
After his student days, Alejandro García Caturla lived his entire life in the small central town of Remedios, where he became a lawyer to support his growing family. He had relationships with several black women with whom he had eleven children, whom he recognized and supported. His work Three Cuban Dances for Symphony Orchestra was premiered in Spain in 1929. Bembé was premiered in Havana the same year. His Cuban Overture won first prize in a national competition in 1938. He was a man of great nobility and an example of a universal musician, who combined classical and folk music themes with modern musical ideas. Caturla was assassinated in 1934 by a young gambler who was to be sentenced only hours later.
The Musical Renovation Group, which was founded in 1942 under the direction of José Ardévol, a Catalan composer established in Cuba since 1930, served as a platform for a group of young composers to develop a proactive movement to literally improve and renew the quality of the Cuban musical environment. During its existence, from 1942 to 1948, the group organized numerous concerts at the Havana Lyceum with the aim of presenting its avant-garde compositions to the general public and fostering among its members the development of many future directors, art critics, artists and teachers. They also began a process of investigation and revaluation of Cuban music in general, publicizing the outstanding work of Carlo Borbolla and promoting compositions by Saumell, Cervantes, Caturla and Roldán. The Musical Renovation Group included the following composers: Hilario González, Harold Gramatges, Julián Orbón, Juan Antonio Cámara, Serafín Pro, Virginia Fleites, Gisela Hernández, Enrique Aparicio Bellver, Argeliers León, Dolores Torres and Edgardo Martín.
Other contemporary Cuban composers who had little or no relationship with the Grupo de Renovación Musical were: Aurelio de la Vega, Joaquín Nin-Culmell, Alfredo Diez Nieto and Natalio Galán.
Although many composers in Cuba have cultivated both classical and popular styles of music, the distinction became clearer after 1960, when (at least initially) the regime withdrew support for popular music and closed most of nightclubs, while financially supporting classical music, rather than Creole genres. Since then, most musicians have kept their careers on one side or the other of that invisible line. After the Cuban revolution in 1959, a new crop of classical musicians came on the scene. The most outstanding of these is undoubtedly the guitarist Leo Brouwer, who has made outstanding contributions to the technique and repertoire of contemporary classical guitar, and has served as director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba. As Director of ICAIC's Sound Experimentation Group in the 1970s, he was an important element in the formation and consolidation of the Nueva Trova movement.
Other important composers of the early years of the post-revolutionary period that began in 1959 were: Carlos Fariñas and Juan Blanco (Cuban composer), a pioneer of concrete music and electroacoustic music in Cuba.
Following closely the first post-revolutionary generation, a group of young composers began to attract the attention of the public who attended classical music concerts. Most of them had graduated from prestigious schools outside the country, thanks to scholarships granted by the government, such as Sergio Fernández Barroso (also known as Sergio Barroso), who received a post-graduate diploma at the Academia Superior de Música de Praga, and Roberto Valera, who studied with Witold Rudzinski and Andrzej Dobrowolski in Poland. We must also mention three other composers who belong to this group: Calixto Alvarez, Carlos Malcolm (Cuba) and Héctor Angulo.
In 1962, the American composer and professor Federico Smith arrived in Havana, who adopted Cuba as his own homeland and became one of the most outstanding musicians of his time, making an important contribution to the Cuban musical heritage.
During the early 1970s, a group of musicians and composers, most of them graduates of the National School of Arts and the Municipal Conservatory of Havana, gathered around an organization recently created by the government as the youth section of the UNEAC (National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba), the Hermanos Saíz Brigade. Some of its members were the composers Juan Piñera (nephew of the renowned Cuban writer Virgilio Piñera), Flores Chaviano, Armando Rodríguez Ruidíaz, Danilo Avilés, Magaly Ruiz, Efraín Amador Piñero and José Loyola. Other contemporary composers less related to the aforementioned organization were: José María Vitier, Julio Roloff and Jorge López Marín.
After the Cuban revolution (1959), many future Cuban composers emigrated at an early age and spent most of their careers outside the country. Within this group it is worth mentioning the following composers: Tania León, Orlando Jacinto García, Armando Tranquilino, Odaline de la Martínez, José Raúl Bernardo, Jorge Martín (Composer) and Raúl Murciano.
Classical music in the 21st century
During the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the XXI, a new generation of composers emerged on the Cuban classical music scene. Most of them received a solid musical education provided by the official art school system, created by the Cuban government, and were graduates of the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA). Some of those composers are: Louis Franz Aguirre Ileana Pérez Velázquez, Keila María Orozco, Viviana Ruiz, Fernando Archi Rodríguez Alpízar, Yalil Guerra, Eduardo Morales Caso, Ailem Carvajal Gómez., Irina Escalante Chernova. and Evelin Ramón. All of them have emigrated and currently live in other countries.
Electroacoustic music in Cuba
Juan Blanco was the first Cuban composer to create an electroacoustic piece in 1961. This first composition, Música para danza, was produced with an oscillator and three common recorders. As a result of the scarcity of resources caused by conditions generated by the advent of the Cuban Revolution, access to the technology necessary to produce electroacoustic music was always very limited for anyone interested in using it. For this reason, it was not until 1969 that another Cuban composer, Sergio Barroso, dedicated himself to the creation of electroacoustic musical compositions.
In 1970, Juan Blanco began working as a musical advisor for the Propaganda Department of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP). In carrying out this function, he created electroacoustic music for all audiovisual materials produced by ICAP. After nine years of working without compensation, Blanco finally obtained financing for the implementation of an electroacoustic music studio that he could use for the production of his works. Blanco was appointed director of the studio, under the condition that he would be the one to use it.
After a few months, and without requesting approval, Juan Blanco opened the studio to the use of all composers who were interested in working with electroacoustic technology, thus creating the ICAP Electroacoustic Music Workshop (TIME), where he himself provided the necessary training to the participants. In 1990, the Workshop changed its name to the National Laboratory of Electroacoustic Music (LNME), and its main objective was to support and promote the work of Cuban composers of electroacoustic music.
Some years later, another electroacoustic music studio was created at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA). The Electroacoustic and Computer Music Studio (EMEC), now called the Carlos Fariñas Studio of Musical Electroacoustic Art, has dedicated itself to providing electroacoustic composition training to students throughout their careers.
After 1970, some Cuban composers such as Leo Brouwer, Jesús Ortega, Carlos Fariñas and Sergio Vitier, began to create electroacoustic works, and in the 1980s, a group of composers that included: Edesio Alejandro, Fernando (Archi) Rodríguez Alpízar, Marietta Véulens, Mirtha de la Torre, Miguel Bonachea and Julio Roloff, began to receive instruction and work in the ICAP studio. A partial list of Cuban composers who have used electroacoustic technology includes: Argeliers León, Juan Piñera, Roberto Valera, José Loyola, Ileana Pérez Velázquez, and José Ángel Pérez Puentes.
Cuban composers who settled abroad had easier and more direct access to the technology necessary to produce electroacoustic works than composers from the island. That is why most, if not all of those who have established their residence outside of Cuba have worked with electroacoustic technology. We can mention, among others, Aurelio de la Vega, Tania León, Orlando Jacinto García and Armando Rodríguez Ruidíaz, among others.
Classical guitar in Cuba
From the 16th to the 19th century
The guitar (as we know it today, or in some of its historical versions) has been present in Cuba since the discovery of the island by Spain. As early as the 16th century, a musician named Juan Ortiz, from Villa de Trinidad, is mentioned by the famous chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo as "great vihuela and viola player". A disciple of famed guitarist Dionisio Aguado, José Prudencio Mungol, was the first Cuban guitarist trained in the Spanish classical guitar tradition. In 1893 he appeared at a highly praised concert in Havana, after his return from Spain. Mungol participated actively in the musical life of Havana and was a professor at the Hubert de Blanck Conservatory.
The Cuban School of Guitar
After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Isaac Nicola and other teachers such as Marta Cuervo, Clara (Cuqui) Nicola, Marianela Bonet and Leopoldina Núñez became part of the national system of music schools, where a unified method of teaching the guitar was implemented. This constituted a nucleus for the later creation of a Cuban Guitar School, to whose development a new generation of guitarists and composers contributed.
Perhaps the most important contribution to the technique and repertoire of the modern Cuban Guitar School has been that of Leo Brouwer (b. 1939), the grandson of Ernestina Lecuona, the sister of Ernesto Lecuona. Brouwer began his studies with his father, and after some time continued with Isaac Nicola. He conducted self-taught studies in harmony, counterpoint, musical forms, and instrumentation, before completing his studies at the Juilliard School and the University of Hartford.
The new generations
Since the 1960s, several generations of performers, teachers and composers have been trained within the Cuban School of Guitar in educational institutions such as the National School of Arts, and the Higher Institute of Art. Isaac Nicola left a fundamental legacy as a teacher training great guitarists like Elías Barreiro, composers like Leo Brouwer and teachers of the stature of Antonio "Biki" Rodríguez Delgado, who in turn has trained guitarists of the stature of Ernesto and Marco Tamayo, Joaquín Clerch and Alí Arango. Other guitarists like Manuel Barrueco, an internationally famous soloist, developed their careers outside the country. Among many artists related to the Cuban School of Guitar we can mention: Carlos Molina, Sergio Vitier, Efraín Amador Piñero and Flores Chaviano, as well as: Armando Rodríguez Ruidíaz, Martín Pedreira, Lester Carrodeguas, Mario Daly, José Ángel Pérez Puentes and Teresa Madedo. A younger group might include: Rey Guerra, Aldo Rodríguez Delgado, Pedro Cañas, Leyda Lombard, Ernesto Tamayo, Miguel Bonachea, Joaquín Clerch. and Yalil Guerra.
Classical piano in Cuba
After its arrival on the island of Cuba at the end of the XVIII century, the pianoforte (commonly called piano) became quickly became one of the favorite instruments of the population. Along with the humble guitar, the piano accompanied the popular Cuban guarachas and contradanzas (derived from European Country Dances) in party and dance halls in Havana, as well as throughout the country. As early as 1804, the program of a concert in Havana announced a singing concert "accompanied at the fortepiano by a recently arrived distinguished visitor"... and in 1832, Juan Federico Edelmann (1795-1848), renowned pianist, son of a famous Alsatian composer and pianist, arrived in Havana and gave a very successful concert at the Teatro Principal. Encouraged by the warm reception, Edelmann decided to remain in Havana and was soon appointed to an important position at the Santa Secilia Philharmonic Society. In 1836 he founded a music house and music publishing company.
One of the most prestigious Cuban musicians, Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963) began studying the piano with his sister Ernestina and continued with Peyrellade, Saavedra, Nin and Hubert de Blanck. Lecuona was a child prodigy who gave a concert when he was only five years old at the Círculo Hispano. Upon graduating from the National Conservatory, he was awarded first prize and the gold medal of his class by unanimous decision of the chair. Lecuona is the most internationally recognized Cuban composer and his contributions to the Cuban piano tradition are exceptional.
Classical violin in Cuba
16th to 18th century
Representatives of the bowed string family can be found from a very early stage in the history of Cuban music, since during the century XVI in the Villa de Trinidad, a musician named Juan Ortiz is mentioned by the chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo as a "great vihuela and viola player". The Renaissance viola is the direct ancestor of modern Italian violins, which became popular in the 16th century.
On February 8, 1764, Esteban Salas y Castro, the master of the new music chapel recently founded in the cathedral, arrived in Santiago de Cuba. Esteban Salas counted for the performance of his trade with a small instrumental vocal group that included two violins.
After the arrival in Santiago de Cuba, in 1793, of numerous colonists who escaped the insurrection of the slaves in Santo Domingo, “…a certain Karl Rischer and Madame Clarais, who had brought a clavichord with them, founded an orchestra which consisted of: piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, three horns, three violins, viola, two cellos and drums…”
From the 18th to the 19th century
During the transition from the 18th century to the 19th century, Ulpiano Estrada (1777-1847) from Havana taught violin and he directed the orchestra of the Teatro Principal from 1817 to 1820. In addition to his activity as a violinist, Estrada maintained a very active musical career as director of numerous operas, directing various orchestras and bands, as well as composing numerous contradanzas and other danceable pieces, such as minuets. and waltzes.
José Vandergutch, a Belgian violinist, arrived in Havana with his father Juan Vandergutch and his brother Francisco, also violinists. They later returned to Belgium, but José established his residence in Havana where he achieved great recognition. In the middle of the XIX century, Vandergutch gave numerous concerts as a soloist and accompanied by various orchestras. He belonged to the Association of Classical Music and also served as director of the Musical Association of Mutual Aid of Havana.
In the universe of the classical Cuban violin of the XIX century, two Masters stand out who can be considered among the greatest virtuosos Cubans of all time, these are José White Lafitte and Claudio José Brindis de Salas.
After receiving his first music lessons from his father, the virtuoso Cuban violinist José White Lafitte (1835-1918) gave his first concert in Matanzas on March 21, 1854. In this concert he was accompanied by the famous pianist and American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who encouraged him to continue his studies in Paris, and even collected money so that he could travel to that city.
José White studied musical composition at the Paris Conservatory between 1855 and 1871. Just ten months after his arrival, he won first prize in the violin category at the conservatory, and was highly praised by Gioachino Rossini. Later, he taught the renowned violinists George Enescu and Jacques Thibaud.
From 1877 to 1889, White served as director of the Imperial Conservatory in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he also served as a musician at the court of Emperor Pedro II. He later returned to Paris, where he resided until his death. The famous “Swan Song” violin, Stradivari's latest creation, was his favorite instrument. His most famous composition is La Bella Cubana, a habanera. White also composed many other pieces, notably a concerto for violin and orchestra.
Claudio José Domingo Brindis de Salas y Garrido (1852-1911) was a renowned Cuban violinist, son of Claudio Brindis de Salas (1800-1972), also a violinist, double bassist and conductor, who conducted one of the most important popular orchestras of Havana during the first half of the XIX century, called La Concha de Oro. Claudio José surpassed the fame and mastery of his father and became an internationally renowned soloist.
Claudio José Brindis de Salas began his musical studies with his father, and later continued with the teachers José Redondo and with the Belgian violinist José Vandergutch. He gave his first concert in Havana in 1863 with Vandergutch as his accompanist. The pianist and composer Ignacio Cervantes also participated in that concert.
According to the critics of the time, Brindis de Salas was considered one of the most outstanding violinists of his time worldwide. Alejo Carpentier called him “”The most extraordinary black violinist of the XIX century... an unprecedented case in the musical history of the continent” ”.
The French government made him a member of the Légion d'Honneur, and bestowed on him the title of “Baron.” In [Buenos Aires]] he received a genuine Stradivarius, and while he lived in Berlin he married a German, he was appointed Chamber Musician to the Emperor and received the citizenship of that country. Brindis de Salas died in 1911 of tuberculosis, poor and forgotten, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1930 his remains were transferred to Havana with great honors.
Another outstanding Cuban violinist of the 19th century was Rafael Díaz Albertini (1857-1928). He studied the violin with José Vandergutch and Anselmo López (1841-1858), a well-known Havana violinist who also published musical works. In 1870 Albertini traveled to Paris with the purpose of perfecting his technique with the famous Jean-Delphin Alard, and in 1875 he won first prize in the Paris Conservatory competition, in which he later participated as a jury. He made numerous concert tours throughout the world, sometimes accompanied by prestigious Maestros such as Hugo Wolf and Camille Saint-Saëns, and in 1894 he appeared in the main cities of Cuba along with Ignacio Cervantes.
A list of Cuban violinists who stood out between the second half of the XIX century and the first of the XX includes: Manuel Muñoz Cedeño (1813-), José Domingo Bousquet (1823-), Carlos Anckermann (1829-), Antonio Figueroa (1852-), Ramón Figueroa(1862-), Juan Torroella (1874-), Casimiro Zertucha (1880-), Joaquín Molina (1884-), Marta de La Torre (1888-), Catalino Arjona (1895-) and Diego Bonilla (1898-).
From the 20th to the 21st century
During the first half of the XX century, the figure of Amadeo Roldán (1900-1939) stands out, who In addition to being a violinist, teacher and conductor, he is one of the most important Cuban composers of all time.
After graduating from the Paris Conservatoire in 1935 at just 16 years old, the prominent Cuban violinist Ángel Reyes (1919-1988) developed a successful career as a soloist and also accompanied by the most prestigious orchestras in many countries. He established his residence in the United States from a very young age, won a prize from the Ysaÿe Competition in Brussels, and was a professor at Michigan and Northwestern Universities until his retirement in 1985.
Eduardo Hernández Asiaín (1911-2010) was born in Havana, began his musical studies at a very early age and offered his first concert at the age of seven. At the age of fourteen he won first prize for violin at the National Conservatory of Havana, and was named concertmaster of the Havana Symphony Orchestra. In 1932, he moved with his family to Madrid to continue his musical studies with maestros Enrique Fernández Arbós and Antonio Fernández Bordas. Starting in 1954, Hernández Asiaín performed as a soloist with the orchestras of the Pasdeloup Concert Society of Paris and the French Radio Broadcasting, the National Orchestra of Spain, the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, the Madrid Chamber Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica y de Cámara de San Sebastián, of which he is its creator. In 1968, he was named First Violin of the RTVE Classical Quartet, forming part together with the pianist Isabel Picaza González of the RNE Classical Quintet, with whom he performed a large number of concerts and recordings in Spain and other countries. He also toured the United States of America, highlighting his performance with the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra of California.
Other outstanding Cuban violinists of the first half of the XX century are: Robero Valdés Arnau (1919-1974), Alberto Bolet and Virgilio Diago.
Evelio Tieles Ferrer (1941) began studying music with his father, Evelio Tieles Soler, at the age of seven, and later continued with Professor Joaquín Molina. Between 1952 and 1954, Tieles studied violin in Paris, France, with Jacques Thibaud and René Benedetti. In 1955 he returned to Paris and entered the National Higher Conservatory of Music in that city, and in 1958 he went on to study at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, where he was a disciple of David Oistraj and Igor Oistraj. Tieles graduated in 1963 and on the recommendation of the Conservatory he went on to study for a Master's degree with the aforementioned professors from 1963 to 1966. He also received professional guidance from the prestigious violinists Henryk Szeryng and Eduardo Hernández Asiaín.
Evelio Tieles has given numerous performances in Cuba as a soloist, in a duo with his brother, the pianist Cecilio Tieles, or accompanied by the National Symphony Orchestra and other symphonic and chamber ensembles. He performed under the direction of prestigious directors such as Thomas Sanderling, Boris Brott, Enrique González Mántici and Manuel Duchesne Cuzán, among others.
Tieles established his residence in Spain since 1984, and teaches violin at the Vila-Seca Conservatory, in the province of Tarragona, of which he has been named "Emeritus Professor". Also at the Superior Conservatory of the Liceo de Barcelona has served as Head of the Chamber Music Department (1991 to 1998), Head of the Strings Department (1986 to 2002) and Academic Director (2000 to 2002).
In addition to his outstanding work as a soloist and teacher, during the Post-Revolutionary period, Tieles promoted and organized the teaching of bowed string instruments in Cuba, and fundamentally the violin.
Another prominent violinist and teacher is Alla Tarán (1941). She trained as a violinist in her native Ukraine and worked as an Instrumental Ensemble Practice teacher. Tarán established her residence in Cuba since 1969.
Alfredo Muñoz (1949) began his violin studies at the Orbón Conservatory, Havana, Cuba and later continued at the National School of Arts and the Higher Institute of Art (ISA). He joined the National Symphony Orchestra as a violinist in 1972, and has remained very active as a soloist and member of the White Trio, both in Cuba and abroad. He is currently a professor at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA).
Other Cuban violinists who have developed their careers during the period between the 20th and 21st centuries are Armando Toledo (1950), Julián Corrales (1954), Miguel del Castillo and Ricardo Jústiz.
21st century
Already at the beginning of the XXI century we must mention the violinists Ilmar López-Gavilán, Mirelys Morgan Verdecia, Ivonne Rubio Padrón, Patricia Quintero and Rafael Machado.
Operates in Cuba
Opera has been present in Cuba since the end of the XVIII century, when the first proper theater was built in Havana for that type of representations, called Colosseum. Since then, and up to the present moment, the Cuban people have enjoyed this genre, and many composers have cultivated it, sometimes reaping great success internationally.
The 19th century
The first documented event of a lyrical performance in Cuba took place in the city of Havana, in 1776. That performance was mentioned in an advertisement placed in the Havana newspaper Diario de La Habana on December 19, 1815: "…Today, Wednesday the 19th of this year, if time permits, the new tragic opera of the first merit in three acts, which contains 17 pieces, will be performed for the benefit of Mrs. Mariana Galino of music entitled Dido Abandoned [...] It is one of the first dramas of the French theatre. In Italian, the one composed by the famous Metastasio deserved singular applause, and it was sung in this city on October 12, 1776."
Cristóbal Martínez Corrés was the first Cuban composer of operas, but his works, El diablo contrabandista and Don papanero, were never premiered and have not been preserved until the present moment. Born in Havana in 1822, the composer and pianist Martínez settled in France with his family at the age of nine and later moved to Italy. Due to his early death, a third opera, called Sappho, never passed beyond an incipient creative stage. Martínez Corrés died in Genoa in 1842.
Gaspar Villate y Montes was born in Havana in 1951 and from an early age showed signs of possessing great musical talent. He began studying piano with Nicolás Ruiz Espadero as a child, and already in 1867, at just 16 years of age, he composed his first opera based on a drama by Victor Hugo, entitled Angelo, tyrant of Padua . A year later, when the war began in 1868, he traveled to the United States with his family and upon returning to Havana in 1871 he composed another opera called Richelieu's First Arms .
Villate traveled to France to continue his music studies at the Paris Conservatory, where he received classes from Francois Bazin, Victorien de Joncieres and Adolphe Danhauser. He composed numerous instrumental pieces such as contradanzas, habaneras, romanzas and waltzes, and in 1877 he successfully premiered his opera Zilia in Paris, which was later presented in Havana in 1881. Since then Villate concentrated his efforts mainly on opera and composed works such as La Zarina and Baltazar, premiered in The Hague and the Teatro Real in Madrid respectively. It is known that he worked on an opera on the life of Inés de Castro, whose manuscript has been lost.
Villate died in Paris in 1891. Shortly before that he had begun to compose a lyrical drama called Lucifer, of which some fragments have survived.
1901 - 1959
Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes was born in Havana in 1874 into a family of artists; since his father was a writer, and his mother a pianist and singer. He began his musical studies at the Hubert de Blanck Conservatory and later received classes from Ignacio Cervantes and Carlos Anckermann. He also obtained a law degree in 1894. When he was only 18 years old, he composed the famous habanera "Tú", which achieved extraordinary international recognition, and the which Alejo Carpentier has said is "the most famous of all habaneras".
On October 26, 1898, Sánchez de Fuentes premiered his first opera, called Yumurí, based on the theme of the colonization of the Island at the Havana theater Albisu In this, an aboriginal princess falls in love with a handsome Spanish conquistador, who abducts her at the time of her marriage with another indigenous character, and both die tragically at the end of the performance during a strong earthquake. de Fuentes composed five other operas: El Náufrago (1901), Dolorosa (1910), Doreya (1918), El Caminante (1921) and Kabelia (1942).
From 1960 to the present
One of the most active and prominent composers of his time, Sergio Fernández Barroso (also known as Sergio Barroso) (1946), is the author of an opera called La forma del camino", which has the complementary title of s-XIV-69 (meaning Century XIV – 1969). Lasting approximately 60 minutes, this play uses as its plot a story taken from the Popol Vuh (the sacred book of Mayan culture) about the mythical brothers Hunahpu and Ixbalanqué. The score includes soloists and a choir of nine mixed voices, accompanied by an instrumental group and a quadraphonic electro-acoustic system. The set design requires a raised dais above the spatial position of the choir, whose members are dressed in tails, as opposed to the more casual wardrobe of the soloists. All the singers wear Indian masks.
More recently, the lyrical work of two Cuban composers, Jorge Martín and Louis Franz Aguirre, stands out.
Jorge Martín (Composer) (1959) was born in Santiago de Cuba, took up residence in the United States at an early age, and studied music composition at Yale and Columbia Universities. He has composed three lyric works: Beast and Superbeast, a series of four one-act operas based on short stories by Saki; Tobermory, an opera in one act that won first prize in the Chamber Music Competition of the Fifth Biennial of the National Opera Association (USA), and which has been presented in several cities in the United States, and Before night falls (Antes que anochezca), an opera based on the famous autobiography of the same name by the Cuban novelist, playwright, and poet Reinaldo Arenas, a renowned opponent of Fidel's government Castro.
Louis Franz Aguirre (1968) is currently one of the most prolific and internationally recognized Cuban composers. His catalog includes four operatic works: Ebbó (1998), premiered on January 17, 1999 at the Brotfabrik Theater in Bonn, Germany; Ogguanilebbe (Liturgy of the Divine Word) (2005); premiered in the Sala del Parlamente of Castello de Udine, Italy; Yo el Supremo (2014) (Sainete Concertante with Dictator in an Act), first performance: October 27, 2015 at the Teatro Galileo in Madrid, Spain and The way the dead love (Theogony: an operatic manifest) [How the dead love (Theogony: An operatic manifesto)]. Work commissioned by the Lydenskab Ensemble and financed by KODA, Denmark. First performance: February 24, 2017 in Godsbanen, Aarhus, Denmark, as part of the Århus European Capital of Culture 2017.
Musicology in Cuba
Throughout the years, the Cuban nation has developed a large number of musicological studies created by numerous researchers and experts in this field. Apart from the work of some authors who provided information about music in Cuba during the XIX century, which was usually included in chronicles that dealt with more general topics, the first investigations and studies specifically dedicated to art and musical practice did not appear in Cuba until the beginning of the XX century. .
A list of important personalities who have contributed to musicology in Cuba includes: Fernando Ortiz, Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, Emilio Grenet, Alejo Carpentier, Argeliers León, María Teresa Linares, Pablo Hernández Balaguer, Alberto Muguercia and Zoila Lapique.
A second generation of musicologists after the Cuban Revolution in 1959 includes: Zoila Gómez, Victoria Elí, Alberto Alén Pérez, Rolando Antonio Pérez Fernández and Leonardo Acosta.
More recently, a group of young Cuban musicologists have earned a well-deserved reputation for their solid work in international academic circles. Some of the most prominent members of this group are: Miriam Escudero Suástegui, Liliana González Moreno, Iván César Morales Flores and Pablo Alejandro Suárez Marrero.
Popular music
Hispanic Heritage
It is obvious that the first popular music performed in Cuba after the conquest was brought by the Spanish conquistadors themselves, and most likely borrowed from the Spanish popular music in vogue during the XVI. From the 16th century to the XVIII some dance pieces that emerged in Spain were associated with Hispanic America, or were considered to originate from Hispanic America. Some of these songs with picturesque names such as sarabanda, chacona, zambapalo, retambico and gurrumbé, among others, shared a common feature, their characteristic rhythm called hemiola or sesquiáltera (in Spain).
Play (?·i)This rhythm has been described as the alternation or superposition of a binary and a ternary meter (6/8 + 3/4), and its use had been generalized in the Spanish territory since at least the century XIII, where it appears in one of the cantigas de Santa María (Como poden per sas culpas).
The hemiola or sesquiáltera is also a typical rhythm of African musical traditions, both from the north and the south of the continent, so it is very likely that the original danceable songs that the Spanish brought to Cuba already included elements of the African culture, with which the slaves who later arrived on the island were already familiar, and were used by them to create new Creole genres.
The well-known son de la Ma Teodora, an old Cuban song, as well as the first autochthonous Cuban genres, punto and zapateo, show the rhythm of the sesquiáltera in its accompaniment, which suggests a marked relationship between these and the Spanish dance songs from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
Country music
It seems that punto and zapateo were the first autochthonous musical genres of the Cuban nation. Despite the fact that the first score of a criollo zapateo was not published until 1855, in the "Álbum Regio de Vicente Díaz de Comas", it is possible to find references to the existence of these from long before. Their structural characteristics have survived almost unaltered for a period of more than two hundred years, and are usually considered the most typically Hispanic genres of Cuban popular music.
Cuban musicologists María Teresa Linares, Argeliers León and Rolando Antonio Pérez agree that the punto and the zapateo are based on Spanish danceable songs (such as the Chaconne and the Sarabande) that first arrived in the most important cities, such as Havana and Santiago de Cuba, and then spread through rural areas, where they were adopted and modified by the peasant population.
Guajiro Point
Punto guajiro or punto cubano or simply punto is a poetic-musical genre that emerged in the western and central areas of Cuba during the century XVII. Although it seems to come from Andalusia, punto is a true Cuban genre due to its Creole modifications.
The point is played by a group that includes various plucked string instruments, such as the tiple (a high-tuned guitar now in disuse), the Spanish guitar, the Cuban tres, and the lute. The word dot refers to the use of "stippling" techniques, as opposed to "strumming". Some percussion instruments such as the clave, the güiro and the guayo (a metal scraper) are also used. The singers separate into competing groups and improvise their texts and melodies.
They sing predetermined tunes or "tunadas" which are based on a ten-verse meter called a décima, and insert certain instrumental segments between their improvisations to give the contestant time to prepare their next verse. Some early compositions were recorded and published, as were the names of the improvisers. Beginning in the year 1935, the point reached its peak of popularity on national radio.
Punto was one of the first Cuban genres to be recorded by North American companies at the beginning of the XX century, but at the As time passed, interest waned and little effort was made to continue recording the radio shows live. One enthusiast of this genre, the stenographer Aida Bode, copied many verses while they were being broadcast and finally, in 1997, her transcriptions were published in book form.
Celina González and Albita Rodríguez sang punto at the beginning of their respective careers, proving that the genre still survives. Celina had one of the most beautiful voices in popular music, and her accompanying group called Campo Alegre was magnificent. For some fans, on the other hand, the Indian Naborí (Sabio Jesús Orta Ruiz, b. September 30, 1922) is the greatest exponent of the point for his décimas, which he composed daily for the radio and newspapers. He even published several collections of poetry, much of which has a political bent related to the nueva trova.
Zapateo
Zapateo is a typical dance of the Cuban “peasant” or “guajiro”, of Spanish origin. It is danced in couples who "zapatate" tapping the floor lightly with their feet, and where the role of the man is more active than that of his female opponent. Illustrations from earlier centuries exist and the dance survives, cultivated by folk groups as a fossil genre. The dance is accompanied by tiple, guitar and güiro in a combined time of 6/8 and 3/4 (called Hemiola), which is accented on the first of every three eighth notes.
Guajira
The guajira is a genre of Cuban song similar to punto cubano and criolla. Las Guajiras contain bucolic texts and references to the Cuban countryside similar to those of the décima. The meter is a combination of 6/8 and 3/4 (Hemiola). According to Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, its first section is usually in a minor key and the second in a major key.
The term guajira is now used primarily to describe a slow song in 4/4 time, consisting of a fusion of elements of son and old guajira. Guillermo Portabales was the most important representative (singer-guitarist) of this genre.
Creole
The criolla is a genre of Cuban music that is closely related to the music of the clave choirs and the Cuban popular music genre called clave.
The genre called clave, which became very popular in the Vernacular Theater, was created from the musical style of the Clave Choirs by the composer Jorge Anckermann, and this, in turn, served as a starting point for that of a new genre: the criolla. According to the musicologist Helio Orovio, "Carmela", the first criolla was composed by Luis Casas Romero in 1909, who also composed another of the most famous criollas of all time, "THE MAMBI".
African heritage
Origin of the African groups in Cuba
Evidently, the origin of African groups in Cuba is related to the island's long history of slavery. Compared to the United States, slavery in Cuba began much earlier and continued for decades afterward. Cuba was the last country in the Americas to abolish the importation of slaves and the penultimate to decree the liberation of slaves. In 1807 the British Parliament prohibited slavery, and from then on the British Navy acted with the purpose of intercepting Portuguese and Spanish ships dedicated to the slave trade. In 1860 the movement with Cuba was almost extinguished; the last slave ship to reach the Island was in 1873. The abolition of slavery was announced by the Spanish Crown in 1880, and it went into effect in 1886. Two years later, Brazil also abolished slavery.
Subsequent organization
The roots of most Afro-Cuban musical forms are found in the Cabildos, which were self-organized associations by African slaves, where they separated into groups according to their original culture. This was organized mainly in four groups: the Yoruba (Lucumí in Cuba); the Congos, the Dahomeyans (Fon or Arará) and the Carabalíes of Calabar.
The Cabildos preserved their cultural traditions, even before their abolition in 1886. At the same time, African religions were passed down from generation to generation in Cuba, Haiti, as well as other Caribbean islands and Brazil. Those religions, which had a similar but not identical structure, were known as Lucumí or Regla de Ocha (of Yourba origin), Palo (from central Africa), Vodú in Haiti, among others. The term "Santería" was initially used to refer to the fusion of African deities with Catholic saints, especially by people who were baptized and initiated, and who were honest practitioners of both religions. Some people outside the practice have later used it indiscriminately and it has become a general term, much like "salsa" in music.
African ritual music in Cuba
All African cultures had their individual musical traditions, which have survived erratically to the present day, not always in detail, but in general style. The best preserved are those of the polytheistic religions, whose songs, dances and other manifestations have been preserved quite well, at least in Cuba. The ancient original African languages have been preserved, as in the Lucumí religion, while in Africa the languages have continued to evolve. What truly unifies all genuine forms of African music is the polyrhythm in the percussion, the soloist and choral style of singing, and the typical forms of dance, as well as the absence of Arabian or European instruments.
Yoruba, Congolese (Bantú) and Carabalí Rituals
Religious traditions of African origin have survived in Cuba and constitute the basis of ritual music, songs and dances different from those of profane or secular music. The religion of Yoruba origin is called Lucumí or Regla de Ocha, the one of Congolese origin is known as Palo or Palo-Monte, and the Carabalí is called Abakuá or Ñáñigo. Also in the eastern region some forms of Haitian religion are preserved, which have their own rituals, music and instruments.
Key
3-2 (?·i) and 2-3 (?·i).The rhythmic pattern of the “Clave” is used as a guide for the temporal organization in genres of Afro-Cuban music, such as Rumba, Conga, Son, Mambo, Salsa, Latin Jazz, Songo and Timba. This five-beat pattern (distributed in groups of 3 + 2 or 2 + 3 beats) constitutes the essential structure of many Afro-Cuban rhythms. Just as a keystone supports the structure of an arch, the Clave pattern maintains the rhythmic cohesion in Afro-Cuban music. The Clave pattern originates from Sub-Saharan music traditions. The pattern is also found in the music of the African diaspora, in the percussion of Haitian Vodou, and Afro-Brazilian music. The Clave pattern is also used in North American music as a rhythmic motif or ostinato, or simply as ornamentation.
Cuban Carnival
French Tomb
French-Haitian immigrants who escaped the revolution during the late 18th century settled in Oriente province and They established their own style of Afro-Haitian music known as Tumba Francesa, in which they use their own types of drums, as well as their songs and dances. This genre represents the oldest and most tangible link to Afro-Haitian heritage in Cuba's Oriente province, which developed from a fusion of traditional French music and that of Dahomey in West Africa. This fossil genre has survived to our times in Santiago de Cuba and Haiti, executed by specialized folkloric groups.
Cuban contradanza
The Cuban Contradanza is an important precursor to various other popular dances. It arrived in Cuba during the 18th century from Europe, where it had emerged first as English “country dance”, and later as the French “contredance”. The origin of the name is a variant of the term in English. According to the Oxford English Dictionary: “Littré's theory that a French quadrille already existed in the 17th century, with which the English term was confused and used in parallel, is not tenable; no trace of this name has been found in France before its appearance as an English adaptation. But new dances of this type were created in France and later introduced in England with the French name."Manuel Saumell composed more than fifty Cuban contradanzas (in 2/4 and 6/8), in which he demonstrated a surprising inventiveness both rhythmic and melodic.
The contradanza is a group dance, whose figures conform to a predetermined pattern. The selection of figures for a particular dance was determined by a master of ceremonies or dance guide. Its form was composed of two parts of 16 bars each, which were ballads in the form of double rows or groups. The tempo and style of the music was quite fast and upbeat.
The first Cuban Creole version of a contradanza was published in Havana in 1803 and was named "San Pascual Bailón". This version shows for the first time the well-known tango or habanera rhythm that differentiates it from the European contradanza. The Cubans developed a series of Creole versions of the figures, such as walk, chain, sustained and cedazo. The creolization of the contradanza is an early example of the influence of African traditions in the Caribbean. Most Cuban musicians were black or mulatto (even at the turn of the XIX century there were many free slaves and mestizos living in the populations of Cuba). According to a comment by the Countess of Merlin in 1840: "The women of Havana have a furious appetite for dancing, and they spend whole nights high, agitated, like mad, and shedding sweat until they drop exhausted."
Play (?·i)The contradanza supplanted the minuet as the most popular dance since 1842, giving way to the habanera, a style of song based on the same rhythm and style as the contradanza.
Dance
This genre, a descendant of the Cuban Contradanza, was also danced in rows or groups and was also an agile style of music and dance in binary or ternary rhythm. A repeated 8-bar “walk” was followed by two 16-bar sections called the first and second. One of the most famous dance composers was Ignacio Cervantes, whose 41 Cuban Dances are a benchmark in terms of musical nationalism. This type of dance was eventually replaced by the danzón, which was, like the habanera, slower and calmer.
Havana
Main article: Habanera
The Habanera develops from the contradanza during the 19th century. Its main novelty was that it was sung, as well as played and danced. Written in 2/4 time, it is characterized by its expressive and languid melodic development, as well as its typical rhythm, called “habanera rhythm”.
The habanera dance was slower than the dance. By 1840, many habaneras were composed, sung, and danced in Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Spain. Since about 1900 the Habanera has become a fossil genre, but famous later compositions exist, such as the habanera Tú de Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, which has been recorded in multiple versions.
The habanera genre has appeared in the music of Ravel, Bizet, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Fauré and Albeniz. Its rhythm is similar to that of the tango, and consequently, some think that the habanera is the most direct ancestor of the tango.
Danzón
The European influence on more recent Cuban music is represented by the danzón, an elegant musical form that was once more popular than the son in Cuba. This is a descendant of the Cuban criolla contradanza. The danzón marks the change from the group dance of the late XVIII century to the modern dance of couples. The stimulus for this change was the success of the once scandalous waltz, where couples danced opposite each other, independent of other couples and not part of a predetermined structure. The danzón was the first Cuban dance to adopt those methods, although there is a difference between these two dances. The waltz is a ballroom dance where couples move in circles counterclockwise, while the Danzón is a “pocket handkerchief” dance, in which couples stay within a small area of the room. living room.
The danzón was developed by Miguel Faílde in Matanzas, and its official date of origin is the year 1879. Failde's orchestra was an instrumental format known as Orquesta típica, which was derived from military bands and it included various brass instruments, violins, and a concave timpani. The later development of the "charanga française" format was more appropriate for ballroom dance and is still popular in Cuba and other countries. The charanga uses a flute, several violins, cello, and double bass, as well as a piano, Cuban timbale (paila), and güiro.
Over time the danzón acquired other characteristics of Afro-Cuban origin, such as the inclusion of the Montuno, a syncopated refrain that is repeated and varied for an indeterminate period of time. The addition of this structural element to the danzón form has been attributed to José Urfé, who introduced it in his danzón titled “El bombín de barreto” (1910). Both the danzón and the “charanga” format have exerted a important influence on the development of later genres.
The danzón was exported with great success to other Latin American countries, and especially to Mexico. The classical danzón is now a relic, but its descendants survive in orchestral formats that Faílde and Urfé would hardly recognize, such as the Van Van orchestra founded by Juan Formell.
Dancer
The first danzones were purely instrumental. The first to introduce a vocal part in a danzón was Aniceto Díaz (in Matanzas, 1927), thus creating a new genre called danzonete. That first danzonete was titled “Breaking the routine”. Later, in 1935, the famous black singer Barbarito Diez joined Antonio María Romeu's charanga, with whom he recorded numerous danzonetes. All subsequent variants of the danzón have included vocal parts.
Guaracha
On January 20, 1801, Buenaventura Pascual Ferrer published a comment in the newspaper “El Regañón de La Habana”, in which he refers to certain songs that “run around in the mouths of the masses”. Among these, he mentions a guaracha called “La Guabina”, of which he says: “in the mouths of those who sing it knows how many dirty, indecent and foolish things you can think of…” Later, on an undetermined date, “La Guabina” was published. ” among the scores printed in Havana during the XIX century.
According to the comments published in “El Regañón de La Habana”, we can infer that those songs were very popular among the Havana population at that time, since in the same article mentioned above the commentator says: “…but Above all, what has bothered me the most has been the freedom with which a portion of songs are sung in those streets and in many houses where innocence is outraged, morality is offended... by many individuals not only of the lowest extraction, but also by some in whom a good upbringing should be assumed..." In other words, those guarachas with quite daring content, were already apparently sung by the most diverse sectors of the Havana population.
Alejo Carpentier mentions in his book “Music in Cuba”, quoting Buenaventura Pascual Ferrer, that at the beginning of the XIX century up to fifty dances a day were given in Havana, where the famous guaracha was played and sung, along with other fashionable dances.
The guaracha is a genre of fast tempo and comic or picaresque lyrics. It originated at the end of the XVIII century, and during the early XX century, he was frequently executed in brothels and other places in Havana. His texts were full of popular phrases and frequently referred to events that appeared in the newspapers of the time. Rhythmically, the guaracha exhibits a series of rhythmic combinations, such as 6/8 with 2/4.
Many of the troubadours, such as Manuel Corona (who worked in a Havana brothel area), composed and sang guarachas as a balance to the slower boleros and songs. The satirical content of their texts also matched those of the son, and many groups played both genres. In the middle of the XX century this style was adopted by “conjuntos” and big bands. Today, it seems to have disappeared as a musical genre and has been assimilated by the vast concept of "salsa" music. The musicians who master the guaracha and improvise are called “guaracheros” or “guaracheras”.
Musical Theater
Since at least the 18th century until our time, musical theater formats have used and given rise to various forms of music and dance. Many famous composers and musicians became known through this theatrical medium, and many important pieces were premiered on stage. In addition to staging some European operas and operettas, Cuban musicians gradually developed original ideas that could please their audience. The recordings were a means through which Cuban music came to achieve international diffusion. The most recorded Cuban artist until 1925 was a singer from the Alhambra theater named Adolfo Colombo. Records show that he recorded about 350 numbers between 1906 and 1917. Colombo's last two recordings were made in 1929.
Havana's first theater was inaugurated in 1776, and the first Cuban opera was composed in 1807. Musical Theater became very important during the 19th century XIX and the first half of the XX century; its significance only began to wane with the changing political and social climate in the second half of the 20th century. The radio, which began in Cuba in 1922, contributed to the development of popular music because it served as a means of promotion and a source of income for artists.
Zarzuela
The zarzuela is basically a form of light operetta and on a smaller scale. Starting from the Spanish zarzuela, it evolved into a vehicle for commenting on political and social events in Cuba. The zarzuela holds the distinction of having been the first Cuban musical genre to be perpetuated in recordings: soprano Chalía Herrera (1864-1968) was the first Cuban artist to make recordings abroad. She recorded numbers of the zarzuela "Cádiz" on unnumbered cylinders during the year 1898.
The Cuban zarzuela reached its greatest development during the first half of the XX century. A group of important composers such as Gonzalo Roig, Ernesto Lecuona and Rodrigo Prats produced a series of hits for the Regina and Martí theaters in Havana. Big stars like the “vedette” Rita Montaner, who could sing, play the piano, dance and act, were the Cuban equivalents of the Mistinguett and Josephine Baker in Paris. Some of the best known zarzuelas were “la virgen morena” (E. Grenet), “La niña Rita” (Grenet and Lecuona), “María la O”, “El Batey” and “Rosa la China” (Lecuona), “ Havana at night” (G. Roig), “Amalia Batista” and “La perla del Caribe” (R. Prats) and most of all “Cecilia Valdés”, based on the most famous Cuban novel of the 19th century, with music by Gonzalo Roig and libretto by Prats and Agustín Rodríguez). Some artists who became known through the lyrical theater were Caridad Suárez, María de los Ángeles Santana, Esther Borja and Ignacio Villa (Bola de Nieve).
Without a doubt the most outstanding diva of Cuban lyrical theater was Maruja González, who was born to Spanish parents in Mérida, Yucatán, in 1904, and died in Miami, Florida, in 1999. Maruja González Linares traveled from Cuba to the United States at an early age. She studied vocal techniques in Cuba and made her debut in 1929 as an opera singer with the Ernesto Lecuona Company. González performed in various theaters in Havana before traveling on a tour throughout the United States, and upon her return to Havana she performed La bayadera and La viuda merry in that city. In the early thirties she signed several contracts to sing in Latin America and Spain. Maruja González married Paco Suárez. Since the beginning of the Cuban Revolution she established her residence abroad and she never returned to her country of origin.
Comic Theater
Cuban comic theater is a form of comedy, direct and satirical, with popular characters that can be found frequently among the population. The bufo has its origin between 1899 and 1815 and is part of the Spanish stage tune, which from that moment began to disappear from Havana. Francisco Covarrubias, called "el caricato" (1775-1850) has been recognized as its initiator.
The guaracha occupied a predominant place in the development of Cuban vernacular theater, whose appearance during the XIX century coincides with the emergence of the first autochthonous musical genres such as the guaracha and the contradanza. Beginning in 1812, Francisco Covarrubias replaced the characters of the Spanish scenic tonadilla with Creole types such as the guajiros, huntsmen, carters, and laborers in his theatrical pieces. These structural transformations were also associated with certain changes in the musical accompaniment of the pieces. In this way, the Jácaras, tiranas, boleros and Spanish carols were replaced by guarachas décimas and Cuban songs.
The slang of blacks and the slums was used in many guarachas of the time, as in the following example:
- I'm dead!
- And don't you put that mulata on?
- How to remain a living man
- if they don't give up who kills.
- The mulata is like bread;
- You should eat hot,
- to let her cool
- The devil doesn't get his tooth!
Other theatrical forms
Cuban vernacular theater also included other genres. Formats such as the British Music Hall or the American Vaudeville, where the audience was offered a potpourri of singers, comedians, bands, skits and special acts, were used. Even in theaters, during the presentation of silent films, singers and instrumentalists appeared in the intermissions, and a pianist played during the presentations of the films. Bola de Nieve and María Teresa Vera played in theaters in their beginnings. Burlesque was also common in Havana before 1960.
The Black Curros
In reference to the emergence of the guaracha, and even later, to that of the urban rumba in Havana and Matanzas, it is necessary to point out the important and picturesque social sector of the "Negros Curros”. Composed of free blacks who had arrived in Havana from Seville on an undetermined date in the XVIII century, this group joined the population of blacks and mulattoes who lived in the marginal areas of the city.
The Cuban costumbrista writer José Victoriano Betancourt describes them during the XIX century as follows: “The curros had a peculiar physiognomy, and it was enough to see them to classify them as such: their long locks of braided hair, falling over their faces and necks like great mancapers, their teeth cut [pointed] in the carabalí style, the cheesecloth shirt embroidered with candlesticks, their breeches almost always white, or striped colors, narrow at the waist and very wide at the legs, the low-cut canvas shoe with a silver buckle, the little olancito jacket with short and pointed skirts, the fluffy straw hat with flares, pendants and black silk tassels, and the thick gold rings that they wear in their ears, from which hearts and padlocks of the same metal hang, form the harness that only they use; They are also recognized by the way they walk, waddling as if they were gonces, and waving their arms back and forth; for the singular inflection that they give to their voice, for their vicious locution, and finally, for the particular language they speak, so physical and crazy, that sometimes they are not understood; such were the Mangrove gigs..."),"
The job was dedicated to the easy life, robbery and pimping, while his partner the “curra”, also called “mulata de rumbo”, practiced prostitution. According to Carlos Noreña, she was distinguished by the use of "burato blankets of neat workmanship and braided fringes, for which they paid nine and ten ounces of gold", as well as for her "sui generis flip flops". But the Curros also provided entertainment, including songs and dances, to the thousands of Spaniards who arrived on the Island every year in the galleons that followed the so-called "Carrera de Indias", a route established by the Spanish Crown for the navigation of its fleets. with the purpose of avoiding the attacks of pirates and corsairs, and who remained in Havana for several months before leaving again for Seville. Having been subject to cultural influence from both Spain and Africa since their birth, they are supposed to have played an important role in the creolization process of the original copla-estribillo prototype that gave rise to the Cuban guaracha. El Negro Curro and his companion, the Mulata de Rumbo (Negra Curra) disappeared from the middle of the XIX century, integrating into the general population of Havana, but its picturesque images survived in social prototypes that were manifested in the characters of the Bufo Theater.
The famous “Mulatas de Rumbo” Juana Chambicú and María La O, as well as the blacks “Cheches” (handsome) José Caliente “who cuts anyone who presents himself in half”, Candela, “little black man who breaks and raja, who flies with the knife and cuts with the razor", and the black curro Juan Cocuyo, were inextricably linked to the image and characteristic atmosphere of the guaracha and the rumba.
Rumba
Guaracha and Rumba
The word rumba is an abstract term that has been applied for many different purposes to a wide variety of topics for a long time. From a semantic point of view, the term rumba can be included in a group of words with a similar meaning such as conga, milonga, bomba, tumba, samba, bamba, mambo, tambo, tango, cumbé, cumbia and candombe. a Congolese origin due to the use of sound combinations such as mb, ng and nd, which are typical of the Niger-Congo language complex.
Perhaps the oldest and most general of its meanings is that of “party” or “holiday”. Already during the second half of the XIX century we can find this word used several times with the purpose of representing a party in a short story called “La mulata de rumbo”, by the Cuban folklorist Francisco de Paula Gelabert: “…I enjoy more and have fun in a rumbita with those of my color and class…”, or “Leocadia was going to bed, as she had said, at no less than noon, when one of his party friends arrived at the house, accompanied by another young man who was going to introduce him...". According to Alejo Carpentier "...it is significant that the word party has passed into the Cuban language as a synonym for feasting, licentious dancing, partying with women from the area.”
As an example we could mention the Yuka and Makuta parties, and the changüises in Cuba, as well as the milonga and tango in Argentina, where the word rumba was originally used to denote a festive gathering; and over time it was used to name the genres of music and dance corresponding to these festivities.
Some academics have pointed out that in terms of the use of the terms rumba and guaracha, we are faced with a case of synonymy, that is, the use of two different words to name the same thing. The following comment by María Teresa Linares highlights the imprecision of the terms rumba and guaracha in terms of the purpose of defining a specific musical genre, when she tells us that: “…in the early years of this [20th] century, they kept at the end of the vernacular theater works, some musical fragments that the authors themselves sang and that were called final rumba..." and he goes on to explain that these... "were certainly guarachas."
To which one could add that the musical pieces that closed the works could have been called indistinctly rumbas or guarachas, since these terms did not indicate any generic or structural difference between them. Linares also says in reference to this subject: “Recordings of the artists of the Alhambra Theater of guarachas and rumbas that did not differ from each other in the accompaniment of the guitars -when it was a small group, duo or trio- or by the theater orchestra or piano. The labels of the discs said: dialogue and rumba”
Urban Rumba
Urban Rumba (also called Solar Rumba or Cajon Rumba), is an amalgamation of various African musical and dance traditions, combined with Hispanic influences. According to the Cuban musicologist Argeliers León: “In the party that constituted a rumba, certain Afroid contributions attended, but other elements also converged, with Hispanic roots, which had already been incorporated into the expressions that appeared in the new population that arose on the island
The Rumba de Cajón is a secular style of music that emerges in the docks and less prosperous areas of Havana and Matanzas. In its early days, Rumba players used a trio of wooden cajons to play, which were later replaced by drums, similar in appearance to congas or tumbadoras. The highest pitched drum is called “quinto”, the one with medium pitch “macho” or “three-two”, because its essential rhythm is based on the pattern of the Cuban clave, and the lowest is called “female or salidor”. ”, because he usually started or “broke” the Rumba.
In the Rumba instrumental ensemble, two chopsticks are also used to strike a hollow piece of bamboo called “guagua” or “catá”, as well as the Cuban Claves, the Güiro and rattles of Bantu origin called “nkembi”.
The vocal part of the Rumba corresponds to a modified version of the old Spanish style of “copla y estribillo”, including a section called “montuno” that could be considered as an expanded or developed refrain, which constitutes an independent section where the well-known "question and answer" style, so characteristic of African musical traditions, is frequently used.
Of the multiple styles that began to appear at the end of the XIX century, called “Tiempo'Spain”, such Like the tahona, the jiribilla, the palatino, and the resedá, only three forms of Rumba have survived: the columbia, the guaguancó, and the yambú. The columbia, performed in 6/8 time, is commonly a dance performed by a male soloist. This one is fast and agile, and includes aggressive and acrobatic moves. The guagancó is danced by a man and a woman, and simulates the male's sexual persecution of the female. The yambú, now a relic, represents the mocking imitation of a pair of slowly dancing old men. All forms of Rumba are accompanied by singing supported by the percussion ensemble.
The Rumba of Solar or Cajón is nowadays a fossil genre that can be seen in Cuba in the presentations of professional groups that are dedicated to the cultivation of this genre. There are also groups of fans based in the so-called "Houses of Culture" and in workplaces. Like all aspects of society in Cuba, musical and dance activities are organized by the state through Ministries and other bodies.
Charpsichord Choirs
The Clave Choirs were popular choral groups that emerged at the end of the XIX century in Havana and other Cuban cities.
Cuba's colonial government only allowed blacks, free or slave, to cultivate their cultural traditions within the confines of certain mutual aid societies, whose founding dates back to the 17th century XVI. According to David H. Brown, those societies, called cabildos, "provided in case of illness or death, celebrated masses for the deceased, collected funds for the liberation of their members from slavery, regularly organized dances and recreational activities on Sundays and holidays." fiesta, and sponsored masses, processions, and carnival balls around the annual cycle of Catholic festivals.”
In the local councils of some neighborhoods of Havana, Matanzas, Sancti Spiritus and Trinidad, they were organized during the XIX century some choral groups that carried out competitive activities, and that were sometimes visited by local authorities and neighbors, who gave them tips and other gifts. The name Coros de Clave most likely comes from the main instrument with which these choral activities were accompanied, the Cuban Claves, which played the main rhythm of their songs.
The chorus accompaniment included a guitar and the percussion was played on the soundboard of an American banjo without strings, because drumming of African origin was prohibited in the cities. The Harpsichord Choir style, and particularly its rhythm, later gave rise to a popular genre called Clave, which most likely constituted the original model for the later creation of the Criolla. Both styles were very popular in Cuban vernacular theater.
Rural Rumba
Similar to how the first Spanish song-dances passed from the cities to the countryside, so too the characteristics of the Cuban Guaracha, which enjoyed great popularity in Havana, began to penetrate rural areas at an indeterminate time during the 19th century. This process is not difficult to imagine if we consider how close the rural areas were to the urban ones in Cuba at that time.
That is the reason why Cuban peasants (called guajiros) began to include in their festivals (called “guateques” or “changüís”, as well as in celebrations such as the “patron saint festivities” and “parrandas”), some Rumbitas that were very similar to the urban Guarachas, whose binary meter contrasted with the characteristic ternary meter of their traditional “tonadas” and “zapateos”.
These rural Rumbitas have been called by the renowned musicologist Danilo Orozco proto-sones”, “primigenial soncitos”, “rumbitas”, “nengones” or “marchitas,” and some of them like the Caringa, the Papalote, Doña Joaquina, Anda Pepe and the Tingotalango have been preserved to the present time.
The Rumbitas were considered as Proto-Sones (primordial Sones), due to the great analogy between their structural components and those of the Son, which emerged in Havana during the first decades of the century XX, these could be considered as prototypes or predecessors of that popular genre.
According to musicologist Virtudes Feliú, those Rumbitas appeared in cities and towns throughout the national territory, such as: Ciego de Ávila, Sancti Espíritus, Cienfuegos, Camagüey, Puerta de Golpe in Pinar del Río and Bejucal in Havana, as well as in Remedios in Villa Clara and Isla de Pinos (currently Isla de La Juventud).
We can find many references to the Cuban wars of independence (1868-1898) related to rural Rumbitas, both in the eastern region and in the western Isla de Pinos, which suggests that their appearance occurred approximately during the second half of the 19th century.
The rural Rumbitas showed a greater number of characteristics of African music in comparison with the Guaracha habanera, due to the gradual integration of Afro-Cuban citizens into the rural environment.
Since the 16th century, thanks to a government program called “manumission”, black slaves were authorized to pay for your freedom with your own savings. Thus, more free black citizens engaged in manual labor in the countryside than in the cities, and some of them even became owners of plots of land and slaves.
Characteristics of the Rural Rumba
One of the most evident characteristics of the Rural Rumbitas was their own shape, very similar to typical African vocal structures. In this case, the entire song was based on a single musical fragment or phrase of short duration that was repeated, with some variations, over and over again; frequently alternating with a choir. This style was called "Montuno" (literally from the "mountain" or "from the field") due to its rural origin.
Another characteristic of this new genre was the superimposition of different rhythmic patterns performed simultaneously, similar to that used in Urban Rumba, which is also a distinctive feature of the African musical tradition.
Those planes or “bands of sonorities” according to Argeliers León, were assigned to different instruments that were gradually incorporated into the accompanying group. This is how the instrumental ensemble grew from the one made up of the traditional tiple and güiro, to another that included the guitar, the bandurria, the Cuban lute, the claves and other instruments such as the tumbandera, the marimbula, the botija, the bongos, the common machete and accordion.
Some important musical functions were assigned to the various sound planes, such as the “temporal line” or clave rhythm, executed by the claves, a rhythmic pattern composed of an eighth note and two sixteenth notes, executed by the güiro or the machete, the syncopated rhythms of the “guajeo” performed by the Tres, the improvisation of the bongos and the “anticipated bass” that was played on the tumbandera (tingotalango) or on the botija.
Proto-Son
We can find the origins of the Cuban Son in the Rural Rumbas, called for this reason Proto-Sones or Primitive Sones by the musicologist Danilo Orozco, since they show, in partial or embryonic form, all the characteristics that were later identified with the Son style, that is to say: the repetition of a phrase called “montuno”, the pattern of the clave, a rhythmic counterpoint between the different levels of musical texture, the “guajeo” of the Tres, the rhythms of the guitar, the bongos and bass, as well as the "question and answer" style between the soloist and the chorus.
According to Radamés Giro: “later, the chorus or “montuno” was joined to a quatrain or couplet called “regina”, which was how the eastern peasants called the quatrain. In this way, the structure “estribillo-cuarteta-estribillo” appears at a very early stage in the “Son oriental”, as in one of the oldest Sones called “Son de máquina”, which is composed of three “reginas”. with their corresponding "refrains".
During a research project about the Valera-Miranda family (old soneros) led by Danilo Orozco in the Guantánamo region, he recorded an example of Nengón, which is considered an ancestor of Changüí. This shows the previously mentioned “chorus-quartet-chorus” structure. In this case, the numerous repetitions of the chorus constitute a true “montuno”. Chorus: I was born for you Nengón, I was born for you Nengón, I was born for you Nengón…
Nengon
The Nengón is considered a Proto-Son precursor of the Changüí and even the eastern Son. Its main characteristic is the alternation of improvised verses between the soloist and the choir. The Nengón is interpreted with the Tres, the guitar, the güiro and the tingotalango or tumbandera.
Changüí
The changüí is a type of son characteristic of the eastern provinces (Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo area), formerly known as Oriente province. This shares relevant characteristics with the Son Oriental in terms of rhythm, instrumentation and choral refrains; and at the same time shows certain original elements.
The changüí is still cultivated by some small groups, mainly based in Cuantánamo. The instrumentation is similar to that of the old Son groups that emerged in Havana in the 1920s. Those groups like the Bologna Sextet and the Habanero Sextet, used marímbulas or botijas to interpret the bass part, before they switched to the more modern double bass, which had greater instrumental flexibility. It is still questionable whether Changüí is a genuine musical genre or simply an archaic form of Son, artificially preserved with state support. Some modern orchestras, such as the Orquesta Revé, claimed Changüí as their main influence, but it has not been clarified whether this statement is true or not.
Sucu-Sucu
We can also find a Proto-Son called Sucu-sucu on Isla de Pinos (currently Isla de la Juventud), at the western end of the island, which shows a structure similar to that of the Eastern Proto-Sones. According to María Teresa Linares, in Sucu-sucu the music is similar to Son Montuno in its formal, melodic, instrumental and harmonic structure. A soloist alternates with the chorus and improvises a quatrain or tenth. The instrumental group begins an introduction to which the instruments are gradually incorporated, beginning with the Tres (or the lute). The eight-bar introduction is followed by a chorus performed by the chorus, which alternates with the soloist several times.
Trova
During the XIX century, a movement of itinerant musicians called “troubadours” developed in Santiago de Cuba. they usually moved from one place to another with the purpose of earning a living singing and accompanying themselves on the guitar. They acquired great relevance as composers and performers, and their songs have been adapted to many other genres of Cuban music.
José Sánchez, better known as Pepe Sánchez (1856-1918), has been recognized as the father of the “Trova” and the creator of the Cuban bolero. He had no formal training in music theory, but based on his A remarkable natural talent, he composed numerous songs, many of which were never transcribed and are lost forever. Others survived thanks to the fact that friends and disciples managed to transcribe them. His first bolero, called “Tristezas”, is still remembered and appreciated. Sánchez also created music for commercials that aired before the birth of radio. He was a teacher and role model for many troubadours who came before him.
The first and one of the longest-lived was Sindo Garay (1867-1968). He was a noted composer who contributed numerous songs to the trova repertoire, most of which have been sung and recorded on numerous occasions. Garay never received any musical instruction and only learned the alphabet self-taught at the age of 16, but fortunately many of his personal recordings have survived. Garay established his residence in Havana in 1906, and in 1926 he joined Rita Montaner and others for the purpose of traveling to Paris, where they stayed for three months. His music was frequently broadcast on the radio, and he used to say: “There are not many people who have shaken hands with José Martí and Fidel Castro!” p298
José, (Chicho) Ibáñez (1875-1981), lived even longer than Garay. He was the first troubadour to specialize in Son Cubano, and he also sang guaguancó and Abakuá music.
The composer Rosendo Ruiz (1885-1983) was another long-lived troubadour and author of a well-known manual for learning the guitar. Alberto Villalón (1882-1955) and Manuel Corona (1880-1950) were also relevant troubadours. Garay, Ruiz, Villalón and Corona are known as the “four greats of trova”, although the following troubadours are also well known: Patricio Ballagas (1879-1920), María Teresa Vera (1895-1965), Lorenzo Hierrezuelo (1907- 1993), Ñico Saquito (Antonio Fernández: 1901-1982), Carlos Puebla (1917-1989) and Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz (1907-2003), known as Compay Segundo. The Guayabero, Faustino Oramas (1911-2007) is traditionally known as the last of the troubadours.
The troubadours frequently performed in duets and trios, such as Compay Segundo, whose nickname refers to the role of “second voice” in the trio “Los Compadres”. Later, many of them joined in larger groups, such as sextets and septets. We must not forget Ciro, Cueto and Miguel, the members of the famous Matamoros Trio, who worked together for most of their lives. Miguel Matamoros is considered one of the greatest exponents of Trova.
Bolero
The bolero is a song-dance that has nothing to do with the Spanish genre of the same name. Its origin dates from the last quarter of the XIX century, and is attributed to Pepe Sánchez, the founder of the traditional Trova. He composed the first bolero, titled “Tristezas”, which is still a popular piece. The bolero was always a significant genre within the Trova repertoire.
Originally, the form of the bolero consisted of two sections of 16 bars each, in 2/4 time, separated by an instrumental section played by the guitar, called a “passacalle”. The bolero has proven to be extraordinarily adaptable and has given rise to numerous generic variants. The introduction of the syncopated rhythm that has given rise to the bolero-moruno, the bolero-beguine, the bolero-mambo and the bolero-cha is typical. The bolero-son was for decades the most popular dance rhythm in Cuba, and it was the rhythm that the international community welcomed under the name of “rumba”.
The Cuban bolero has been exported all over the world, and is still very popular. Some important bolero composers have been: Sindo Garay, Rosendo Ruiz, Carlos Puebla and Agustín Lara (Mexico).
Song
The Canción is a popular genre of Latin American music and particularly Cuban music, where many of its most important exponents have originated. Its roots originate in Spanish, French and Italian folk song forms. Highly stylized in its early days, with "intricate melodies and dark, enigmatic, elaborate lyrics", the song was democratized by the Trova movement at the turn of the century XIX, when it became a vehicle for the aspirations and feelings of the population. The song was later merged with other genres of Cuban music, such as the bolero.
Tropical Waltz
The waltz fashion arrived in Cuba at the beginning of the XIX century. This was the first dance in which the couples did not follow the predetermined steps of a rigid choreographic pattern. It was, and still is, a dance in ¾ time, accented on the first beat. It was originally considered scandalous, since the couples danced linked face to face, and literally forgot everything around them. The Waltz penetrated all the American nations and its relative popularity in nineteenth-century Cuba is difficult to calculate.
Typical Cuban dances did not use the linked couple style, and the man and woman danced separately until the creation of the Danzón at the turn of the century XIX, although the Guaracha may have been an exception to that rule. The Waltz had another characteristic: it was a dance where couples moved through the entire space of the room. In the dances of Hispanic origin, the movements of the couples are not usual, but they do occur in the Conga, the samba and the tango.
The Tropical Waltz was played at a slower tempo and frequently included a sung melody with a text. Those texts usually referred to the beauties of the Cuban countryside, the longing for the Siboneyes (Cuban aborigines) and other Creole themes. Its melody was fluid, composed of notes of equal value and accented in its three beats. It was similar to many other songs in which the melody was treated in a syllabic form; where the first beat was not accented by a brief upbeat but had a tendency to drift into the second beat, as in country songs.
They are
The Son is a style of song and dance that originated in Cuba and gained worldwide fame during the 1930s XX. This combines the structure and characteristics of Spanish music with Afro-Cuban musical elements and instruments. The Cuban Son is one of the most influential genres of Latin American music. Its derivatives and fusions, and especially Salsa, have spread widely throughout the world.
According to Cristóbal Díaz Ayala, Son is the most important genre of Cuban music, as well as the least studied. It is possible to affirm that Son is for Cuba what Tango is for Argentina or Samba for Brazil. In addition, the Cuban Son is perhaps the most flexible form of Latin American music. Its greatest strength lies in the fusion of European and African musical traditions. Its most characteristic instruments are the Cuban chordophone known as Tres, and the well-known bimembranophone instrument called Bongó, which have been present in the genre from a very early stage to the present. Also typical of this musical style are the claves, the Spanish guitar, the double bass (which replaced the botija or the marimbula), as well as the trumpet and the piano.
Despite a traditional tendency to attribute the origin of the Cuban Son to the eastern regions of Cuba, more recently some musicologists have shown a broader and more inclusive position. Although Alejo Carpentier, Emilio Grenet and Cristóbal Díaz Ayala support the theory of "oriental origin", Argeliers León does not mention anything about it in his important work "Del Canto y del Tiempo", nor does María Teresa Linares in her book "La music between Cuba and Spain.” Radamés Giro expresses in reference to this topic: “If Son is an artistic phenomenon that has been developing since the second half of the century XIX – and not only in the former province of Oriente - it is logical to suppose, but not affirm, that long before 1909 it was already heard in the capital (Havana) due to the reasons mentioned above,,,”
It was in Havana where the meeting of the Rural Rumba and the urban Rumba took place, which had evolved separately during the second half of the century XIX. The guaracheros and the rumberos who accompanied themselves with the tiple and the güiro finally met the rumberos who sang and danced to the sound of the cajones and the Cuban clave, and the result was the fusion of both styles in a new genre called Son. Around 1910, the Son probably adopted the clave rhythm of Havana's "rumba de solar o cajón", which had developed since the turn of the century XIX in certain urban areas of Havana and Matanzas.
The massive popularization of Son led to an increase in the appreciation of Afro-Cuban street culture and the artists who had created it. It also opened the doors for other musical genres with Afro-Cuban roots to become popular in Cuba and around the world.
Cuban Jazz
The history of Jazz in Cuba remained in the dark for many years, but more recently it has become clear that its history in Cuba is as old as its history in the United States.
We now have much more information about the early Cuban Jazz bands, although further investigation is limited by the lack of musical recordings. Migrations and visits to and from the United States, as well as the mutual exchange of recordings and scores kept musicians from both countries in communication. At the beginning of the XX century, there were close relations between Cuban and New Orleans musicians. The director of the famous Club Tropicana orchestra, Armando Romeu Jr., was a decisive figure in the development of Cuban Jazz after World War II. The Cubop phenomenon and the "jam sessions" in Havana and New York organized by Cachao originated true fusions that influenced the musicians of new generations. Leonardo Acosta is an important scholar of the initial stage of Cuban Jazz. Other authors have explored the history of Jazz and Latin Jazz from a more North American perspective.
First Cuban Jazz Bands
The Sagua Jazz Band was founded in Sagua la Grande in 1914 by Pedro Stacholy (director and pianist). Its members were: Hipólito Herrera (trumpet); Norberto Fabelo (cornet); Ernesto Ribalta (flute and saxophone); Humberto Domínguez (violin); Luciano Galindo (trombone); Early Antonio (tuba); Tomás Medina (drums); Red Marine (guiro). The orchestra played for 14 years at the “Teatro Principal de Sagua.” Stacholy studied with Antonio Fabre in Sagua, and completed his studies in New York, where he lived for three years.
The “Cuban Jazz Band” was founded in 1922 by Jaime Prats in Havana. Members of it included his son Rodrigo Prats on violin, the great flutist Alberto Socarrás on flute and saxophone, and Pucho Jiménez on trombone. His full staff must have probably included a double bass, drums, banjo, and cornet. Some studies mention this orchestra as the first Cuban Jazz Band, but evidently other groups existed before.
In 1924 Moisés Simons (pianist) founded a group that played on the terrace of the Plaza Hotel in Havana, and consisted of a piano, violin, two saxophones, banjo, double bass, drums and timpani. Some of its members were Virgilio Diago (violin); Alberto Soccarás (alto saxophone and flatua); José Ramón Betancourt (tenor saxophone) and Pablo O'Farrill (double bass). In 1928, still performing at the same venue, Simons hired Julio Cueva, a famous trumpeter, and Enrique Santiesteban, a future star, as vocalist and drummer. These were renowned instrumentalists attracted by the magnificent salary of eight pesos a day. p28
During the thirties, various bands played jazz in Havana, such as Armando Romeu, Isidro Pérez, Chico O'Farrill and Germán Lebatard. His most important contribution was his own instrumental format, which introduced the typical Jazz sound to the Cuban public. Another important element within this process were the arrangements by Cuban musicians such as Romeu, O'Farrill, Bebo Valdés, Peruchín Jústiz and Leopoldo "Pucho" Escalante.
Afro-Cuban Jazz
Afro-Cuban Jazz is the oldest form of Latin Jazz and mixes Afro-Cuban clave rhythms with Jazz harmonies and improvisational techniques. Afro-Cuban Jazz emerged in the early 1940s, with musicians Mario Bauzá and Frank Grillo “Machito” in the New York City-based band “Machito and his Afro-Cubans”. In 1947, bebop innovator Dizzy Gillespie's collaboration with Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo brought Afro-Cuban instruments and rhythms, primarily the tumbadora and bongos, to the East Coast jazz scene of the United States.
Some early combinations of Jazz with Cuban music, such as “Manteca” by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo, as well as “Mango Mangué” by Charlie Parker and Machito, were commonly called “Cubop”, an abbreviation for “Cuban Bebop” During its first decades, the Afro-Cuban Jazz movement was stronger in the United States than in Cuba itself. In the early 1970s, the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna and later the group Irakere brought Afro-Cuban jazz to the Cuban music scene, influencing later genres such as Songo.
Diversification and popularization
Cuban music penetrates the United States
In the thirties Don Azpiazu reached the record of one million Cuban music records sold, with El Manisero, whose vocalist was Antonio Machín. This number had been orchestrated and included on the New York stage by Don Azpiazu himself before the recording, which undoubtedly influenced his promotion.
The Lecuona Cuban Boys became the most famous traveling Cuban musical group. They were the first to include the Conga (musical instrument) as a whole, and popularized the Conga (dance) as a dance style. Xavier Cugat was very influential with his performances at the Waldorf Astoria
In 1941, Desi Arnaz popularized the comparsa drum, similar to the Conga (musical instrument) (tumbadora) in the United States, with his performances of the song Babalú, and at that time a real rumba craze broke out Cuban. Later, Mario Bauzá, Machito and Miguelito Valdés settled in New York.
The 1940s and 1950s
In the 1940s, Chano Pozo was part of the bebop revolution in Jazz, playing the Congas with Dizzy Gillespie and Machito in New York. Cuban Jazz had started much earlier in Havana, during the beginning of the XX century.
Arsenio Rodríguez, one of the most famous Cuban tres players, director of his own ensemble, emphasized the Son's African roots by adapting elements of the guaguancó, and adding a cowbell and Congas to the rhythm section. He also expanded the role of the Tres as a solo instrument.
Already in the forties, the Arcaño y sus Maravillas orchestra incorporated a greater syncopation and a montuno (similar to that of the Son), transforming the music played by charanga orchestras.
The era of Big Bands
The era of the Big Bands (Big Bands) arrived in Cuba in the forties, and they became a dominant instrumental format that has lasted to this day. We must mention two great arrangers-band directors: Armando Romeu Jr. and Dámaso Pérez Prado.
Armando Romeu Jr. directed the Tropicana Cabaret orchestra for twenty-five years, beginning in 1941. He already had experience playing with North American jazz groups that visited the Island, and also had complete mastery of the Cuban music genres. In his hands, the Tropicana Cabaret orchestra presented not only Afro-Cuban music and other forms of popular music, but also Cuban jazz and North American compositions for "big bands". Later, Armando was director of the "Cuban Orchestra of Modern Music".
Dámaso Pérez Prado produced a large number of popular songs and sold more 78-rev records than any other Latino musician of his day. He began his career as an arranger for the Casino de la Playa Orchestra in 1944 and immediately began to introduce novel elements into his sonority. The orchestra then began to sound more Afro-Cuban and at the same time, Pérez Prado incorporated influences as diverse as Igor Stravinsky, Stan Kenton and many others. When he left the orchestra in 1946, he had already consolidated the sound of his Mambo for the "big band" format. According to Leonardo Acosta: "First of all, we must highlight the work of Pérez Prado as arranger, or better still, as a composer and arranger, and his clear influence on most Cuban arrangers since then.”p86
Benny Moré, considered by many to be the greatest Cuban vocalist of all time, developed his career during the 1950s. He possessed an innate gift for music and a fluid tenor voice, which he colored and phrased with great expressiveness. Although he could not read music, Moré was a master of all Cuban genres, including the Son Montuno, the Mambo, the Guaracha, the Guajira, the Chachachá, the song, the bolero, and the guaguancó. With his orchestra “Banda Gigante de Benny Moré” and his music, he developed a more flexible and fluid style than that of the Pérez Prado Orchestra, with which he also sang from forty-nine to fifty.
Cuban music in the United States
Three great innovations based on Cuban music impacted the United States after World War II: The first was Cubop, the latest Latin Jazz fusion. In this, Mario Bauzá and the Machito orchestra on the Cuban side, as well as Dizzy Gillespie on the US side, were the pioneers. The bouncy Cuban conga player Chano Pozo was also very important, as he introduced basic Cuban rhythms to Jazz players. Cuban Jazz has continued to be a significant influence on American music.
Mambo initially entered the United States around the 1950s, although it had been developing in Cuba and Mexico for some time. The Mambo as it was known in North America and Europe was considerably different from Orestes "Cachao" López's Danzón-Mambo, which was actually a Danzón with a heavily syncopated final section. The Mambo that gained international fame was a product for Gran Banda (Big Band), created by Dámaso Pérez Prado, who made sensational recordings for RCA in his new recording studios in Mexico City, in the late 1940s.
About 27 of those recordings featured Benny Moré on vocals, although the biggest hits were instrumental numbers, which included: Que rico el mambo (Mambo Jambo); Mambo No. 5; Mambo No. 8; Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White). The successful Patricia of 1955, was a mambo/rock fusion. Pérez Prado's Mambo was more a descendant of Son and Guaracha than Danzón. In the United States, the mambo fad ended around 1956, but its influence on Bugaloo and Salsa, which preceded it, was considerable.
Violinist Enrique Jorrín created the Chachachá in the early 1950s. This was developed from the Danzón, through an extended syncopation. The Chachachá became more popular outside of Cuba when the orchestras of Dámaso Pérez Prado and Tito Puente produced arrangements that were very attractive to European and North American audiences.
Along with the "Nuyoricans" Ray Barretto, Tito Puente and others, various waves of Cuban immigrants introduced their ideas into the music of the United States. Among these was Celia Cruz, a prominent guaracha singer, who has been called "La guarachera de Cuba." Others were active in Latin Jazz, such as percussionist Carlos "Patato" Valdes from the group with a strong Cuban orientation “Típica 73”, related to the Fania All-Stars orchestra. Some of the former members of the Irakere Group have also achieved great success in the United States, including Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval. Tata Güines, a famed conga player, settled in New York City in 1957, playing with such jazz players as Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, and Miles Davis at the famed Birdland Jazz Club. As a percussionist, Tata Güines came to play with Josephine Baker and Frank Sinatra. He returned to Cuba in 1959, after Fidel Castro seized power through the process of the so-called Cuban Revolution, to which he had contributed from his own personal funds.
Mambo
Mambo is a musical and dance genre that originally developed in Cuba. The word "Mambo", in a similar way to other Afro-American musical terms such as conga, milonga, bomba, tumba, samba, bamba, bambulá, tambo, tango, cumbé, cumbia and candombe, denote an African origin, and particularly Congolese, due to the presence of certain characteristic sound combinations, such as "mb", "ng" and "nd", which belong to the Niger-Congo language complex.
The original roots of the Mambo can be found in the “Danzón de Nuevo Ritmo”, popularized by the “Arcaño y sus Maravillas” orchestra conducted by the famous flutist Antonio Arcaño. He was the first to call a section of the Cuban Danzón “Mambo”. It was the cellist from Arcaño, Orestes López, who created the first Danzón called Mambo in 1938. In that piece some syncopated motifs were combined, borrowed from the Son style, with flute improvisations.
Dámaso Pérez Prado (1927), pianist and arranger from Matanzas, moved to Havana in the early 1940s and began working in cabarets, as well as in the orchestras led by Paulina Álvarez and Casino de La Playa. In 1949 he travels to Mexico looking for job opportunities and achieves great success with a new style, to which he designates a name that had been previously used by Antonio Arcaño, that of "Mambo".
Pérez Prado's style differed from the previous concept of “Mambo”. The new style had a greater influence from North American jazz bands, and an expanded instrumentation consisting of four or five trumpets, four or five saxophones, double bass, drum set, maracas, cowbell, bongos, and tumbadoras. The new "Mambo" included a tasty counterpoint between the trumpets and the saxophones, which encouraged the body to move to the beat of the rhythm, stimulated at the conclusion of the phrases with a characteristic and sonorous guttural expression.
Pérez Prado's recordings were aimed at Hispanic audiences in the Americas, but some of his most famous Mambos, such as "Mambo No. 5" and "Que Rico el Mambo", were immediately successful in the United States.
Chachacha
Chachachá is a genre of Cuban music, as well as a popular dance style, which developed from the Danzón-mambo in the early 1950s, and became very popular in everyone.
Chachachá is a genre of Cuban music whose creation has traditionally been attributed to Cuban composer and violinist Enrique Jorrín, who began his career playing for the Orquesta América charanga.
According to the testimony of Enrique Jorrín himself, he composed some danzones in which the musicians of the orchestra had to sing short refrains, and this style received great acceptance from the public. In the Danzón “Constancia”, he introduced some Montunos and the audience was motivated to sing the refrains. Jorrín asked the members of the orchestra to sing in unison, so that the lyrics could be more clearly perceived and have a greater impact on the audience. That style of singing also contributed to masking the vocal imperfections of the orchestra members.
Since its creation, the music of the Chachachá had a close relationship with the steps of the dance. The well-known name of Chachachá arose with the help of the dancers of the Club Silver Star in Havana. When the dance was coupled to the rhythm of the music, it was evident that the feet of the dancers produced a peculiar sound when they brushed against the floor in three successive blows. It was like an onomatopoeia that sounded like: "Chachacha". From these rhythmic sounds a new genre was born that motivated many people to dance to its tasty rhythm throughout the world.
According to Olavo Alén: “During the fifties, the Chachachá maintained its popularity thanks to the efforts of many composers who were familiar with the composition of Danzones, and who exercised their creativity in the Chachachá, such as Rosendo Ruiz Jr. (Los Marcianos and Rico Vacilón), Félix Reina (Tell me Chinita, How Mexicans dance Chachachá), Richard Egües (El bodeguero and La cantina) and Rafael Lay (Zero elbows, zero headbutts).
Although the rhythm of the Chachachá originated with the Orquesta América, some scholars of the subject, including John Santos (1982), consider that the Orquesta Aragón led by Rafael Lay and Richard Egües, and the Fajardo y sus Estrellas orchestra led by José Fajardo, were particularly influential in the development of the Chachachá. The coincidental emergence of television and 33 1/3 RPM records were also significant factors in the sudden international popularity of Chachacha music and dance.
The Chachachá was presented to the public from its beginnings through the instrumental format of the charanga, a typically Cuban musical group, composed of a flute, strings, piano, bass and percussion. The popularity of the Chachachá revitalized the popularity of this type of grouping.
Filin
Filin was a Cuban musical trend that emerged between the 1940s and 1950s, influenced by North American popular music. The name is derived from the English word "feeling". It describes a style of jazz-influenced romantic song called "crooning". Its Cuban roots can be traced back to the bolero and the romantic song. Some Cuban vocal quartets, such as Cuarteto D'Aida and Los Zafiros, were based on the harmonic style of some North American vocal quartets (such as Los Platters). Other members of this group were influenced by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Nat King Cole. A house in Havana where the troubadour Tirso Díaz lived became a meeting place for singers and musicians interested in Filin, such as Luis Yáñez, César Portillo de la Luz, José Antonio Méndez, Niño Rivera, José Antonio Ñico Rojas, Elena Burke, Froilán, Aída Diestro and Frank Emilio Flynn. There, lyricists and singers could establish a relationship with arrangers such as Bebo Valdés, El Niño Rivera (Andrés Hechavarria) and Peruchín (Pedro Justiz), to develop their creations. Some Filin singers were César Portillo de la Luz, José Antonio Méndez, who settled in Mexico for a decade, from 1949 to 1959, Frank Domínguez, the blind pianist Frank Emilio Flynn, and the great bolero singers Elena Burke and Omara Portuondo., which were part of the D'Aida Quartet. The Filin movement originally had a daily space on the radio station Radio Mil Diez. Some of its most prominent figures, such as Pablo Milanés, later joined the Nueva Trova movement.
The sixties and seventies
Modern Cuban music is characterized by a constant search for new sonorities through the fusion of different influences and styles. For example, in the 1970s the group Irakere used Batá drums in a Big Band context, which was called son-batá or batá-rock. Pello el Afrokán created the Mozambique rhythm, which consisted of a fusion of Conga, Mambo and batá-rumba, mixing rumba with batá drum music. Mixtures of hip hop, jazz and rock and roll are also common, as in the rockoson of Habana Abierta.
The Revolution and the Cuban exiles
The triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 caused many Cuban musicians to emigrate to various countries, settling in locations such as Florida and New York, in the United States, as well as in Puerto Rico. In Cuba, the artists and their work came under the control of the Socialist State and its official music recording and publishing company, EGREM. The Castro government abolished the laws that protected copyrights, closed many of the places where popular music used to be heard (such as Night Clubs or Night Clubs), thus indirectly leaving many artists out of their sources of work. This undoubtedly had a deleterious effect on the evolution of popular dance and music.
Many young artists then began to study classical music instead of popular music, and musicians employed by the government were forced to take classes at official schools. In Cuba, the Nueva Trova movement, which included Pablo Milanés, reflected the new ideals of the left. The state took control of the lucrative Tropicana Cabaret, which continued to be a popular attraction for foreign tourists until 1968, when it was closed along with many other venues, and then reopened with the revival of tourism.p202 Tourism was almost non-existent for three decades, and traditional music could be found in the local Casas de La Trova. The musicians who had an official job, were hired full time and received a salary from the state, after graduating from a conservatory. The collapse of the USSR in 1991, and the loss of its financial support, radically changed the situation. Tourism was considered a respectable source of income again, and so was popular music as part of the tourist industry. The musicians were then allowed to travel abroad, and even live outside the state-controlled system.
A list of famous Cuban Exile artists includes: Celia Cruz and the entire ensemble that performed with the Sonora Matancera, Carlos "Patato" Valdes, Israel Cachao López, La Lupe, Arturo Sandoval, Willy Chirino, Hansel and Raúl, La Palabra, Paquito D'Rivera, Bebo Valdés and Gloria Estefan, among many others. Many of these musicians, including Celia Cruz, closely aligned themselves with an ideology opposed to the Cuban Revolution, and were considered in Cuba as "non-persons", a term coined by George Orwell in his famous novel 1984 (novel), which It is a metaphor for totalitarian regimes. Dissident artists were omitted from official textbooks, and the dissemination and publication of their creations was prohibited. At least, Celia Cruz was recognized in a Cuban reference work, the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cuban Music by Radamés Giro (2007, volume 2).
Sauce
La Salsa was the fourth innovation based on Cuban music to impact the United States, and it differs from the others in that it was initially developed in the United States and not in Cuba. Because Cuba has so many original genres, their promotion outside the country has always been a problem, due to the difficulty faced by a foreigner in distinguishing the differences between various rhythms that are evident to Cubans. Thus, on two occasions during the XX century, two terms were used with the purpose of solving that problem. The first was in the 1930s, after El Manisero had become an international success. This was called Rumba, although it has little relation to the so-called urban, cajón or solar Rumba, and is actually a Cuban Son or "son-pregón". For a long time, the word Rumba was used as a name for any form of Cuban popular music.
The second occasion occurred during the period from 1965 to 1975 in New York, when some musicians of Cuban and Puerto Rican origin came together to create the most popular Latin style of the post-Chachacha period. This music was called Salsa. No one knows how it happened, but everyone recognizes the benefit of using a common term to name Son, Mambo, Guaracha, Guajira (music), Guaguancó and other genres of Cuban music.
The claim that Salsa is nothing more than Cuban music, has been discussed for more than thirty years, and initially one could not really perceive a great difference between one and the other. Cubans and non-Cubans, like Tito Puente, Rubén Blades and many other experts in Cuban music and Salsa, have always said that Salsa is just another name for Cuban music. Tito Puente once expressed: "Now they call it Salsa, later they may call it sofrito, but for me it will always be Cuban music." Willie Colón also said: “If you look at an orchestra from the forties playing Cuban music, you will see exactly the same instruments as in Salsa. Benny Moré, the greatest sonero of all time, had been singing boleros with a salsa cadence since the 1940s.
But over time, Salsa groups have worked with other influences. For example, at the end of the sixties Willie Colón produced some numbers where he used Brazilian rhythms. Some radio programs in New York offered "Salsarengue" as another option, and later a type of sweetened bolero was called "Romantic Salsa".
It wasn't until the 1950s that Cuban music penetrated Puerto Rican orchestras, which before that played Plena, Bomba, and other popular genres on the island. Many famous Puerto Rican musicians went to Cuba between the 1930s and 1940s with the purpose of learning Cuban musical styles, but it was not until Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, when the export of Cuban music to the world was paralyzed, that Puerto Ricans in New York were able to succeed and be taken into account.
According to some scholars on the subject, what is known as Salsa today was brought to New York by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo in the forties. However, others are of the opinion that not only Salsa from New York was different from the current genres in Cuba, but the styles of Salsa in Venezuela, Colombia and other countries could also be individually identified.
Nueva Trova
La Nueva Trova was a movement within Cuban music that emerged during the 1960s and had its roots in traditional Trova, but differed from it because of its political content, but in a broad sense. It combined traditional popular music with “progressive” and often politicized texts, and was associated with the New Latin American Song movement, especially the Chilean and Argentine New Song. Some of the members of Nueva Trova were also influenced by Rock and Pop Music of their time.
The Nueva Trova style has a close relationship with the Cuban Revolution, which is evident in its texts, which, according to Helio Orovio: “try to escape from everyday banalities, by concentrating on the ideals of socialism, injustice, sexism, colonialism, racism and other similar themes.” Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés became the most prominent exponents of this style. Carlos Puebla and Joseíto Fernández were old troubadours who supported the new regime through songs dedicated to the Cuban Revolution.
The Nueva Trova movement reached its greatest development during the 1970s, but began to decline before the fall of the Soviet Union. We can find examples of non-political styles within Nueva Trova, as in the case of Liuba María Hevia, whose lyrics focus on more traditional themes, such as love and loneliness, sharing a highly poetic style with other members of the movement. On the other side of the spectrum, singer-songwriter Carlos Varela is famous in Cuba for his open criticism of some aspects of the Revolution.
Nueva Trova, so popular in its early days, received a strong blow with the fall of the Soviet Union, although its decline had already been felt in previous years. The movement suffered inside Cuba, perhaps from growing disenchantment with one-party rule, and externally from the vivid contrast to the Buena Vista Social Club recordings and films. Audiences around the world opened their eyes to the charm and high musical quality of older forms of Cuban music. By contrast, certain issues that were very relevant during the 1960s now seemed old and distant. In the same way, those creations of great lyrical and musical quality, among which Hasta siempre, comandante by Carlos Puebla stands out, will probably last forever.
Cristóbal Díaz Ayala selected two songs from Nueva Trova for his list of the most outstanding "50 Cuban songs in the international popular repertoire", they were "Unicornio Azul" by Silvio Rodríguez and "Yolanda" by Pablo Milanés.
The eighties and nineties
The Son continued to be the basis of the most popular forms of modern Cuban music. The Son was represented by groups such as the National Septet, which was reinstated in 1985, the Aragón Orchestra, the Ritmo Oriental Orchestra and the Original Manzanillo Orchestra. The Sierra Maestra group is famous for having initiated a revitalization of the traditional Son during the 1980s. Nueva Trova still enjoys some influence, but the overtly political themes of the 1960s have gone out of style.
Meanwhile, Irakere fused traditional Cuban music with elements of Jazz, and groups like NG La Banda, Orishas and Son 14 continued to add new elements to Son, especially hip hop and funk, to create Timba, a process that was stimulated for the acquisition of imported electronic equipment. There are still many practitioners of the traditional Son montuno, such as Eliades Ochoa, who has recorded and given numerous performances as a result of the marked interest in Son montuno, after the success achieved by the Buena Vista Social Club.
The Cuban singer-songwriter, established in Europe Addys Mercedes has made a fusion of Son and Filin (Bolero, feeling) with elements of Urban Music, Rock and Pop Music, reaching excellent positions among the most listened to songs in Germany.
In the 1990s, an increase in interest in World music coincided with the “special period” of the post-Soviet era in Cuba, during which the economy began to open up to international tourism. The Orquesta Aragón, the Charanga Habanera and Cándido Fabré y el Banda were former participants in the charanga scene, and contributed to the creation of the popular Timba scene during the 1990s. The most important prize for Cuban music was the “Benny Moré Award”.
Timba
Cubans have never been very happy to hear the term Salsa applied to their music and rather see it as a trade name for it. In almost all its aspects, Timba coincides with Cuban Salsa, although some argue that it is something more than that. Since the 1990s, the word Timba has been used to refer to popular danceable music in Cuba, only rivaled by Reggaeton. Although derived from the same roots as Salsa, Timba has its own characteristics, being closely linked to the cultural environment of Cuba and particularly of Havana.
Unlike Salsa, whose emergence is directly related to the Cuban Son and the “conjuntos” of the 1940s and 1950s, Timba is composed of a synthesis of stylistic elements, which include Rumba, Guaguancó, the music of the Batá drums, the sacred songs of Santeria), and other popular sources such as Rock, Jazz, Funk and Puerto Rican folk music. According to Vincenzo Perna, author of Timba: The Sound of the Cuban Crisis, Timba should be defined based on its social, cultural, and political components. Its great popularity in Cuba, its novelty and originality as a musical style, the skill of its performers, its relationship with local traditions and the culture of the Afro-Cuban emigration, its meanings and its style, reveal points of tension within the Cuban society.
In addition to timpani, Timba percussionists use drums as a way to identify their sonority compared to Salsa. The use of the synthesizer is also common within this musical style. Timba songs tend to be more innovative, experimental, and often more virtuosic than salsa songs. The brass parts are usually faster, bebop-influenced and often reach the extremes of the instruments' range. The bass and percussion parts are unconventional, with improvisation being a common practice in this style.
Rebirth of son
Several projects managed to capture international attention during the 1990s, due to the revival of traditional styles like the Cuban son of the septet and conjunto era. The Sierra Maestra group was one such group. In 1995, Juan de Marcos González, director and Tresero of the Sierra Maestra group, was contacted by Nick Gold (president of the World Circuit Records music label) with the purpose of recording an album using African musicians. In the end, the Africans could not travel to Havana, so the project became one hundred percent Cuban, presenting figures such as Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo and Rubén González.
For this project, two instrumental groups were created that included the American guitarist Ry Cooder, which were: Buena Vista Social Club and Afro-Cuban All Stars, and both groups recorded productions called: Buena Vista Social Club and “A toda Cuba likes it”, in March 1996. The launch of the first one in September 1997 was a real success. The album became a global hit, selling millions of copies and making its performers recognized international figures.
Buena Vista spawned several subsequent recordings and a film of the same name as the album, Buena Vista Social Club (documentary), as well as stimulated a marked interest in other Cuban musical groups. In the following years, multiple soloists and groups recorded with international production companies and went on concert tours outside of Cuba.
The conclusion that many observers reach about this phenomenon is that the closure of numerous venues where popular music was played, and the absolute control of the state over artistic activities and the media, after the Cuban Revolution, damaged severely the development and promotion of Cuban popular music.
Hip-hop
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban economy began to decline. The level of poverty was then more widespread and visible in Cuba. During the nineties, some Cubans began to protest the situation through Rap and Hip hop. The "rappers" became a true "revolution within the revolution". In Cuba, Hip hop has been used to express the vicissitudes of daily life, as well as the aspirations of the people.
During the so-called Special Period after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the Cuban government was forced to take measures to guarantee the survival of the Status quo established by the Cuban Revolution. At that time, tourism was discreetly stimulated, and Havana venues where musical shows were offered began to attract both locals and visitors. Before that stage, tourists were a rarity in Cuba. When Hip hop began to emerge, the government opposed the relatively vulgar image they projected, but towards the end of the 1990s they accepted that it was more convenient to allow the development of the rap movement under the control and influence of the official Ministry of Culture, as an "authentic expression of Cuban culture".
Unlike Salsa (musical genre), Rap music in Cuba is of foreign origin. Although some groups prided themselves on remaining faithful to the essence of Hip hop, others such as Orishas, the only Cuban Rap group to succeed abroad, have been criticized for using Salsa (musical genre) rhythms to generate greater appeal to the public. public.
The Government and Hip Hop
That Hip hop has been tolerated by the Cuban government is something out of the ordinary, because the government itself provides Rap performers with sound equipment and appropriate venues for their presentation. Members of the Rap scene and Cuban Hip Hop spontaneously requested the participation of the Ministry of Culture in their activities, and thus ensured the survival and development of the movement, putting it at the service of government guidelines. Thanks to this servile attitude, the cultivators of Rap received in 2002 a record label, a periodical publication and a Hip hop festival through the so-called "Cuban Rap Agency". The Cuban government gave the Rap and Hip hop groups diffusion through the official media, in exchange for a self-limitation in their expressions and the presentation of a positive image of the revolutionary government. This 2019 for the island They aspired to the golden gramophone (Grammy) an excellent exponent of Cuban Hip hop, the Orishas group, which with its album Gourmet (Sony Music Latin, 2018) competes in the Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album section.
Cubaton
Cubatón is a Cubanized version of Reggaeton or Reggaeton, which in turn is derived from Jamaican Reggae. Around the year 2012, the Cubatón singer Osmani García, also called "La voz", had reached such a high degree of popularity that he was considered "the most popular exponent of Cuban music".
The advent of Internet access contributed to the unofficial dissemination of Reggaeton in Cuba, but both its texts and its body movements have been highly criticized. The Reguetón musicians responded to that attitude with songs that defended his stylistic positions; but despite their efforts, the Ministry of Culture determined that their music could not be used in educational institutions, parties and musical recordings. In 2011, the government restricted the radio and television broadcast of Reggaeton due to the massive popularity of "Chupi Chupi" by Osmani García, which includes a veiled reference to oral sex. Other famous Reggaeton performers are Eddy K and Gente de Zona.
Rock Music in Cuba
The musical interaction between Cuba and the United States is very old. As far back as the 18th century, during the Spanish rule of Louisiana (1763-1803), Havana orchestras and bands offered concerts in New Orleans, and in the 19th century the Cuban contradanza was very popular in the United States. style="font-variant:small-caps;text-transform:lowercase">XX The first jazz bands in the style of North American groups began to be created in Cuba. The jazz band "Sagua" was founded in Sagua la Grande in 1914 by Pedro Stacholy (director and piano). The group played for 14 years at the Teatro Principal de Sagua.
The strong influence of North American music on Cuban youth gave rise to Rock and roll soloists and groups in Cuba during the 1950s. Many Cuban artists of that time sang versions of North American songs translated into Spanish, as was also happening in Mexico.
The launch of the Los LLopis quartet represented the entry into a new stage of Cuban music, that of the generation and amplification of sound through electronic resources; since in the timbral composition of that group you can appreciate a novel element of great importance, the inclusion of the electric guitar.
In 1961 other rock singers emerged such as Dany Puga, called the king of twist, and bands such as Los Satélites, Los Diablos Melódicos and Los Enfermos del Rock, as well as Los Halcones and Los Huracanes from the city of Marianao.
Vocal quartet Los Zafiros was another successful group of the early 1960s. Founded in 1961, it was influenced by the doo-wop style of the Platters, The Diamonds and other North American groups, and had a repertoire composed mainly of ballads, calypsos and bossanovas, as well as slow rock songs and boleros.
At that time, the popular group Los Astros, led by singer and guitarist Raúl Gómez, was threatened due to the pressure exerted by the Fidel Castro regime on rock groups, which were then considered a form of "ideological diversionism", and combated in all its manifestations. His style, heavily influenced by British Invasion groups such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, was declared "deviant" and therefore unceremoniously repressed. From that moment, the so-called "revolutionary government of Cuba" began to implement absolute control over all aspects of Cuban society, including of course cultural manifestations.
Around 1965, the revolutionary government put into practice a strategy to replace the foreign cultural products that youth preferred, with others that fit within its official guidelines; and as a result of this strategy, on August 6, 1966, the radio program Nocturno went on the air, whose initial theme was the song La chica de la Valija, performed by the Italian saxophonist Fausto Papetti. The program presented modern songs giving priority to the European repertoire in Spanish by singers and groups such as: Los Mustang, Los Bravos, Los Brincos, Juan y Junior, Rita Pavone, Massiel, Nino Bravo, Leonardo Fabio, Salvatore Adamo and Rafael, as well as some Cuban groups such as Los Zafiros and Los Dan. The official ban on rock music was lifted in 1966, but rock music enthusiasts continued to be marginalized by the communist apparatus, and viewed with suspicion as "counter-revolutionaries".
Actually, English rock began to be heard in Havana in 1970, in a Radio Marianao program called Buenas Tardes Juventud. This show featured groups like the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Dave Clark Five, The Animals, Grand Funk, Rare Earth, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Neil Sedaka, and Paul Anka. At the beginning of the eighties, this radio station joined Radio Ciudad de La Habana.
In 1979, a festival called Havana Jam 79 was held at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, where a group of artists including Billy Joel and Stephen Stills performed.
During the eighties Roberto Armada created a heavy metal band in Playa Municipality called Venus. The band achieved great success and popularity among the youth of that time. Punk Rock was introduced in Cuba towards the end of the eighties and generated a form of cult among its followers who made up a minority within the youth audience.
In the 1990s, rock and roll in Cuba was still a semi-clandestine phenomenon. In Havana, the radio station Radio Ciudad de La Habana presented several programs with the most recent trends in this type of music around the world. Juan Camacho, a former musician and radio host, had a morning show called Disco Ciudad. Ramón's program was also a successful radio show. Some bands from that time were: Gens, Athanai, Zeus and Los Tarsons.
In 2001, the Welsh group Manic Street Preachers was invited to perform in Cuba, and Fidel Castro attended their concert along with other government officials. In 2004, Castro gave a speech in honor of the birthday of John Lennon whose music, as a member of the Beatles and as a soloist, had been banned in Cuba. A bronze statue of Lennon was placed in a central Havana park, and he became a notoriety for being a constant victim of vandalism from passers-by who frequently stole his bronze eyeglasses.
At the same time that the government showed a more accommodating attitude towards foreign rock groups, as part of an international campaign whose main purpose was to achieve a greater opening of trade and investment from the United States and Europe in Cuba; it continued implementing an inflexible repressive attitude against any attitude of internal dissidence. That is the case of the rocker Gorki Águila and his group “Porno para Ricardo”. In August 2008, Águila was arrested on charges of "dangerousness," a legal figure that allows the authorities to accuse a person who, according to his criteria, could commit a crime, even if he has not committed it yet.
More recently, Rick Wakeman, Sepultura and Audioslave performed in Havana, and the Rolling Stones performed a historic concert, which became the most prominent rock event in Cuba since the start of the Revolution in 1959.
A new phenomenon occurred in 2013, when several "Metal Rock" they began to immigrate to the US creating a parallel scene with the bands Agonizer, Escape, Ancestor, Hipnosis, Suffering Tool and Chlover.
Electronic music
Cuban electronic music is characterized by the rhythms introduced on the island mainly by Juan Blanco and later by German filmmakers when they filmed a documentary about the tour of various DJs from the capital to take the culture of electronic music to other cities in Cuba in 2004. [citation needed]
According to the origin of its influences, two main currents within the genre can be determined: Cuban electronic dance music and Cuban experimental electronic music.
The European influence on the first current is undeniable, in part because it was the music that the government allowed to Cuba, while on the other hand it blocked the entry of musical content from the US, mainly during the decade from the 90's.[citation needed]
A subsequent opening that facilitated travel abroad by Cubans and access to the internet, favors the development of a second variant with its own and experimental identity from purely electronic genres to danceable music. [citation required]
Among its “fathers” stand out Djoy de Cuba, Alexis de la O, Edwin Casanova, DJ Dark, Kike Wolf among others, and some new ones that have joined this movement, such is the case of I.A., Ultrack, DJ OBI, Diemen Duff, among others.
The arrival of some of them to the US and other countries, led to a natural boost to the genre as it reduced production costs and facilitated access to digital platforms.
Some manifestations of Cuban music
Cuban traditional or folk music encompasses:
- Cuban Point
- Rumba
- Danzón
- They're Cuban.
- Cha-cha-cha
- Danzón
- Danzone
- Changüí
- Guaguancó
- Guajira
- Guaracha
- Mambo
- New Trova
- Pachanga
- Salsa
- Changüisa
- They are.
- Timba
- Trova
- Cuban rock
- Filin (Bolero, feeling)
- Mozambique
- Pilón