Mambo

Mambo is a musical ritual and dance native to Cuba. The word "mambo" is an Afronegrism, similar to other African-American musical terms such as conga, milonga, bomba, tumba, samba, bamba, bambulá, drum, tango, cumbé, cumbia and candombe, which 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 linguistic complex. In modern Swahili, the word "mambo" corresponds to the Spanish words "things" or "objects". The Oxford Online Dictionary says that "Mambo" is the Haitian Creole word for a "Voodoo priestess".

History

The original roots of Mambo can be found in the “Danzón de Nuevo Ritmo”, which was popularized by the “Arcaño y sus Maravillas” orchestra conducted by the famous flutist Antonio Arcaño.

The mambo was created at the end of the 1930s by the brothers Israel Cachao and Orestes López, when they were part of the Arcaño y sus Maravillas orchestra, accelerating the danzón and introducing a syncopation on the percussion.

Antonio Arcaño was the first to call a section of the Cuban Danzón “Mambo”. At the end of the 1930s, José Urfé included a Montuno (typical improvised concluding section of Cuban Son) at the end of El Bombín de Barreto. This was a catchy section that consisted of the repetition of a phrase, where certain elements of the Son were introduced into the Danzón. At the end of the thirties, some members of Arcaño's group already said "we are going to mambear" when referring to the Montuno or final improvisation within the Danzón. It was Arcaño's cellist, Orestes López, who created the first Danzón called & #34;Mambo" in 1938. In that piece, some syncopated motifs, taken from the Son style, were combined with flute improvisations.

Antonio Arcaño described the “Mambo” as follows: “The mambo is a type of syncopated Montuno that possesses the rhythmic flavor of the Cuban, its informality and its eloquence. The pianist attacks in the mambo, the flute hears it and is inspired, the violin plays a rhythm with double string chords, the bass adapts the “tumbao”, the timbalero chimes with the cowbell, the güiro scratches and makes the sound of the maracas, the indispensable tumba corroborates the bass tumbao and strengthens the timbal.” As a dance, it was a novelty from its very origins, because the dancers let go to improvise, while maintaining the couple's game. Throughout the 1950s, it was the first ballroom dance in which couples broke loose, and the dynamics of its steps had a major impact on ballrooms in the United States and Mexico. Many of those steps are largely due to Cuban choreographer Rodney (Roderico Neyra), famous for his shows at Tropicana.

Mambo in Mexico

Dámaso Pérez Prado (1917-1989), 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 American jazz bands, and an expanded instrumentation consisting of four or five trumpets, four or five saxophones, double bass, drums, 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.

Because his music was dedicated to an audience that lived outside the borders of the Cuban nation, Pérez Prado always used a large number of international, and especially American, style elements in his arrangements. This characteristic is evident in his arrangements of the songs Mambo Rock, Patricia and Tequila , where he uses the American swing rhythm, of ternary subdivision, fused with elements of Rumba or Cuban Son. Pérez Prado's repertoire included numerous international pieces, such as: Cerezo Rosa, María Bonita, Té para dos (Tea for two), La Bikina, Cuando caliente el sol, Malagueña and En un little Spanish town, among many others.

Beny Moré also lived in Mexico between 1945 and 1952, and it was there that people began to call him Beny instead of Bartolo. He composed and recorded some mambos in Mexico, with Mexican orchestras, especially the one directed by Rafael de Paz. He recorded Yiri yiri bon, La Culebra, Mata siguaraya, Only once and Pretty and tasty, a song praising the dancing skill and grace of Mexican women., and declares that Mexico City and Havana are sister cities. Also in Mexico, Pérez Prado and Beny Moré recorded some mambos including "La mucura", "Rabo y oreja", and "Pachito E'ché". At that time, Beny also recorded with the Jesús “Chucho” Rodríguez orchestra. El "Chucho" was so impressed with Beny's musical abilities that he gave him the nickname "Bárbaro del Ritmo".

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.

Mambo in New York

During the 1950s, various New York publications began publishing articles about the emergence of a “Mambo Revolution” in music and dance. Recording companies began to use the term “mambo” in their productions, and numerous advertisements for “Mambo lessons” appeared in local newspapers. New York City had made the Mambo a popular and transnational cultural phenomenon. By the mid-fifties, the Mambo mania had become a veritable fever. In New York, the mambo was interpreted in such a way that it created great excitement in the public that attended venues such as the famous Palladium Ballroom. This soon proclaimed itself as "The Temple of Mambo", since dancers such as the aces of the Mambo Killer Joe Piro, Augie and Margo Rodriguez, Paulito and Lilon, Louie Máquina and Pedro Aguilar (Cuban Pete), gave demonstrations of the dance there, and they gained a great reputation for the expressive use of their legs, arms, hands, and heads. Augie and Margo were still dancing fifty years later in Las Vegas.

Some of the greatest mambo dancers and bands of the 1950s included: Augie & Margo, Michael Terrace & Elita, Carmen Cruz & Gene Ortiz, Larry Selon & Vera Rodriguez, Mambo Aces (Aníbal Vasquez and Samson Batalla), Killer Joe Piro, Paulito and Lilon, Louie Máquina, Pedro Aguilar ("Cuban Pete"), Machito, Tito Rodríguez, José Curbelo and Noro Morales.

Important musicians

• Israel Cachao López
• Orestes López
• Dámaso Pérez Prado and its Orchestra
• Tito Rodríguez
• Machito
• Tito Puente
• Beny Moré
• Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra
• Rafael de Paz y su Orquesta
• Pablo Beltrán Ruiz and his Orchestra
• Yma Sumac
• Lou Bega
• Edmundo Ros
• Kiko Mendive
• Micheal Sesini
• Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz

Historians of Mambo

• Carlos J. Sierra is characterized by a syncopated rhythm mixing American Latin music and jazz