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1 : Introduction
‘Salsa’ simply means ‘sauce’ in Spanish, especially used to mean a hot and spicy condiment based on tomato and onion. The language of the kitchen has always readily transposed itself to jazz whenever musicians are ‘cooking’ a ‘tasty’ ‘brew’. The ‘hot & spicy’ Salsa sound is a powerful and compelling fusion of African rhythms and Hispanic music derived from folk, gypsy, and Moorish roots. It is a form of contemporary jazz-dance developed in latin New York, where lashings of brassy American big-band sound and tastes of soul, funk, hip-hop, and world music were added to the Afro-Cuban origins. It is bright, fast, exciting, and sensual.
The first use of the word ‘Salsa’, to describe the contemporary form, is attributed to a Venezuelan radio DJ in 1966. To understand the colourful diversity of the music, however, the story of its development must be traced back more than two thousand years to its beginnings in the complex cultural history of modern Spain!
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2 : Celts to 1500 : The making of modern Spain - a brief history
The indigenous Neolithic Celtic tribes of the Iberian peninsular were over-run firstly by the Romans before the time of Christ. This empire was already breaking up when in 383AD Magnus Maximus, ruler of Britain at the time, declared himself Emperor and crossed the Channel to conquer Gaul and Spain. In 388 he was defeated and killed at Aquileia.
The Roman Empire continued to be over-run by fierce, marauding barbarians from Northern and Eastern Europe. By 425, Spain was being settled by Vandals, in the South, and by Suevi and Visigoths, in the North. Today’s Basque peoples, with a language more akin to modern Hungarian than Spanish, may well be descended from these early migrants.
The ‘Eastern’ Roman, or Byzantine Empire (Byzantium-Constantinople-Istanbul) grew strong from this time, driving the Vandals from North Africa in 534 and the Goths from Italy in 552. This paved the way for a migration of Turkish tribes, from the Balkans, across the region bringing the influences of Romany music to Spain. Check out the guitar jazz of Django Reinhart or, in more popular idiom, The Gypsy Kings.
The next great wave began with Mohammed and his followers taking Mecca in 627. Moslem influence grew around the Mediterranean and 800 years of virtually unchallenged occupation in Spain began with the conquest of Seville in 712. Assorted military alliances of Latin leaders concentrated their efforts on trying to secure Christian access to The Holy Lands. They largely failed in this objective during 8 major Crusades over the 200 years from 1100 to 1300, launched variously from Turkey, Cyprus, and North Africa.
Meanwhile, haunting Islamic prayer chants and the beautiful sound of the lute became part of Spanish culture. Moorish civilization in Spain reached its zenith, in 1333, with the accession of Yussef 1 as Caliph of Granada. There is still much Moorish architecture in Spain of which the Alhambra Palace, at Granada, is the finest example. The emphasis on shade, water, and geometry (the mathematics of form and structure) reflect the essence of things precious to a largely desert-dwelling people whose natural environment is characterised by heat, drought, exposure, and ever-shifting seas of sand. In effect, it is a stylised oasis with quiet, arched courtyards surrounding beautiful water features.
Arabic influence in contemporary music is usually called ‘Rai’ (raa-ee). Check out ‘Salsa Rai’ by Yuri Buenaventura.
Of the original mediaeval kingdoms, only Castile and Aragon had, more or less, withstood the ravages of the previous millennium. These Houses now grew in power and, uniting with their Portuguese neighbours, began to roll back the areas of Muslim influence. Modern Spain was born in 1479 with the marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon, and Isabella of Castile. In 1492 Ferdinand conquered Granada and ended the Mohammedan era in Spain.
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3 : 1500 to 1550 : The Age of Discovery : Spain meets Africa in the Caribbean
In this same year, 1492, the Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus, in the service of Spain, made the first of his five voyages to the West Indies, visiting Cuba. The whole region was soon crawling with British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese expeditionary parties hungry for the bounty of this tropical paradise. The indigenous Indian peoples were totally lacking in work ethic and too gentle to withstand the brutality of their new European masters. A workforce was required for the expanding plantations of sugar, bananas, and other tropical produce. The Portuguese had already opened-up the West coast of Africa and, in 1562, began to mastermind the early slave trade. Slavery in the Americas lasted for 300 years! During this period the colonial powers plundered West Africa, displacing millions in the miserable transportation of human cargos.
The seeds of modern Salsa started germinating all over the Americas based on the cultural collision between Europe, Africa, and the native Indians. Early Hispanic settlers already had a richly diverse musical culture comprised of classical, gypsy, Moorish, and assorted folk motifs. Their principal instruments were the Gypsy Guitar, the Arabic Lute, and the ‘folksy’ Hurdy-Gurdy organ.
The African slaves also came from a wide diversity of tribal and cultural backgrounds. They brought their sonorous vocal styles and powerful rhythms delivered from an array of percussion instruments. As well as Bongo, Conga, and Batá drums, the Africans are probably also responsible for Salsa’s basic tool: the Clave. This is the name both of an instrument – a pair of smooth, cylindrical, hardwood blocks which deliver a clear, bell-like tone when banged together - and also of Salsa’s fundamental rhythm: 1 2 3 -; 1 2 - -.
The lives of the native Indians were indivisible from their environments so their musical mark was made with natural objects, particularly gourds. Small ones became Maracas seed-shakers when dried and attached with handles. Long, woody ones, like the Cuban Güiro, were serrated and became the original scrapper-boards when stroked with a stick. The Quijano, nothing more than a dried donkey’s jawbone with loose back teeth, made a soft shuffling sound when shaken.
This vast multicultural collision resulted in the World’s most compellingly dynamic musical form. Salsa was born in the fusion of Spain’s poetry and lyricism, Africa’s heartbeat, and the atmospheric pulse of the native Caribbean.
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4 : Cuba : spiritual home of Salsa
Salsa, of course, developed right across the region. Indeed, there are many great bands, musicians, and songwriters with other than Cuban backgrounds. So called ‘Tropical Salsa’, for example, has its spiritual home in Cartagena, Colombia (check out the music of Joe Arroyo) and also in Panama and Venezuela. Nevertheless, before Salsa could become its truly modern self, it needed to absorb some of the musical idioms from yet another great cultural melting pot: The United States. For geographical and historical reasons, Cuba is where this collision originally occurred and so it was essentially the Afro-Cuban musical rootstock onto which these later influences were grafted, firstly in Havana and subsequently in New York.
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5 : 1550 to 1800 : Slave trade - The Africans’ story
Cuba was annexed by Spain in 1539. The trade in West African slaves began in 1562. Curiously, it would be another 300 years before the Spanish settlers and the Africans felt free to openly share their cultures. The first Africans were taken from Mozambique and Congo and set to work in gold mines and on small farms raising cattle and establishing sugar and tobacco crops. These industries expanded rapidly during the 17th century and the slave catchment area was widened to include the whole of central West Africa. It is estimated that as many as a million Africans may have been transported to Cuba alone.
The two largest groups were taken from the deltas of West Africa’s two great rivers: the Zaire (formerly the Congo) and the Niger. These two vast systems (2nd & 3rd longest in Africa at 2,900 & 2,500 miles respectively) encompass the whole of West and Central Africa taking in over 20 modern countries, comprised of several hundred states with almost 1000 tribal languages. The Congo drains the whole of central equatorial Africa. Whilst its mouth was discovered in 1482, by Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão, it would be over 300 years later before Livingstone, Stanley, and others began to realise its full extent. The Niger’s history is similar. It rises surprising close to the Atlantic in the mountains of Senegal and Guinea, then flows 1000 miles inland across the southern Saharan states of Mali & Niger, before retuning to the Atlantic in Nigeria.
(A brief aside: ‘Niger’ is the Latin word for ‘black’. It was much later than the Romans that white Americans used the word ‘nigger’ as a derogatory term to cover all Negros. ‘Negro’ is Spanish for ‘black’. Check out Grupo Niche’s brilliant ‘Etnia’, which explores the indivisible black and white origins of Salsa.)
The main language group of the peoples from what is now the Federation of Congo, Zaire and Angola was Wolof. The people from what is now Nigeria were from the ancient Yoruba kingdom. Initially the racial groups were split up to minimise communication and plotting, but this policy caused such suicidal depression and debilitation that it was soon abandoned. In consultation with The Church, the Spanish government reorganised the Africans along more ethnic lines and established mutual benefit societies known as Cabildos (chapter houses) or Naciones (nations). The deal involved the Africans being baptised into Catholicism, which ironically resulted in the preservation of their religious and musical culture! The Yoruba people found that they could easily twin their pantheon of spirit-gods, known as Orishas, with various Catholic saints and so continue to practice their religion, which became dubbed Santería. In many Cuban homes today quasi-Catholic shrines can be seen, adorned with the coloured beads and cloths which signify the various Orishas and which are still worn on particular days of the week. Daily offerings of food and drink are made to these shrines. (Check out the tour of Ibrahim Ferrer’s Havana home in the film Buena Vista Social Club about the making of the World Circuit Music CD of the same name.)
For the Africans, their drums, dance, and chant were indivisible from religious practice. A Santería ceremony, or Bembé, begins with unwholesome spirits being driven out with a bunch of smoking, sanctified herbs. The Bembé is led with a nest of three egg-timer-shaped Batá drums, wrapped in coloured scarves, and strung with leather straps adorned with beads, rattles and bells. The drums are used to invoke the presence of the various Orishas, each of which is associated with a particular rhythmic structure. One of the dancers will become ‘possessed’ and move with gestures, and chant in the ‘tongue’, associated with a particular Orisha, and the congregation respond immediately with appropriate songs.
Another musically influential group were the Efik people from the Niger delta. Their Abakwa religion was an even more secretive affair. The holiest of their drums, the Ekue, was played by a ‘priest’ behind a curtain and never seen. Abakwa dances are performed by frightening figures in hooded masks, dubbed Diabolitos (little devils), and looking like flamboyant, multi-coloured versions of the Ku Klux Klan. Today’s Mambo rhythm derives from Abakwa ceremony.
Nowadays, African ritual is on the tourist itinerary and can be seen on the streets during fiesta and carnival. It would be well into the 20th century, however, before it emerged from its clandestine origins. The Cabildos community centres, as well as enabling the preservation of African culture, also assisted the slaves to ‘buy’ their freedom. By the 18th century, increasingly autonomous groups of Africans were establishing their own meeting places, dance halls, bars, and places of worship in the principal towns and cities. The Cabildos had also opened their doors to workers from poor Spanish and native Mulatto Indian backgrounds.
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6 : 1800 to 1900 : The collapse of slavery to independence - America comes to Cuba
At the end of the 18th century a profound sea change started to affect lives across the Americas. The so-called ‘civilized’ colonial powers began to realize that their treatment of Africa was anything but. In 1791, The Wilberfoss motion to ban the slave trade was carried through the British Parliament. The following year, slavery was banned in Danish colonies. In 1802 the slave trade was abolished in Jamaica, and on British ships. In 1833, Parliament passed the Abolition of Slavery Act and, in the following year, slavery was abolished in all British possessions. In 1863, slavery was finally abolished in The USA.
With slavery collapsing all around it, Cuba was increasingly in revolt. The Spanish began to lose control of the Western end of the island where Cubans were receiving assistance from their American neighbours. Insurrection boiled over into an outright War of Independence in 1868 when the Spanish administration was pushed back to the Eastern end of the island. Cubans flocked in triumph to Havana from all over the island. In 1873 slavery was officially banned in ‘free’ Cuba.
Revolt continued in Spanish Cuba but was brought under control in 1878. The Spanish finally abolished slavery in 1886, but this gesture of appeasement was too little, too late. In 1895 there was a major uprising in Eastern Cuba, which was brutally suppressed by the Spanish and invoked formal protests from the USA. Revolutionary activities continued under José Martí, backed by the US. In 1898, the Spanish finally signed their own death warrant by blowing up the US battleship Maine in Havana harbour. The USA went to war and defeated the Spanish at Santiago and Manila. The Treaty of Paris ended the conflict and resulted in the USA acquiring The Philippines and in full independence for Cuba from 1902. The USA reserved the right of intervention in domestic affairs and retained naval bases, principally at Guantanamo Bay near Santiago (which currently houses Islamic revolutionaries!).
In 1917, Cuba signified its alliance with the ‘free’ world by joining The Allies in the 1st World War. In this same year, Prohibition was proposed in the USA and introduced in 1920. This was to have a major impact on Cuba and on the development of Salsa! For the next 40 years, until the Cuban Revolution, thousands of Americans flocked to the holiday-island paradise where they could enjoy all the pleasures that were denied by austerities back home!
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7 : 1900 to 1950 : ‘Salsa is Son’ - Afro-Cuban music develops under American influence
The catchphrase ‘Salsa is Son’ is repeated like a mantra by all the musical greats, and historians, of Salsa music. Son is the first truly indigenous Afro-Cuban music: a rolling song and dance medium fusing the lyricism of the Spanish guitar with the rhythms of Africa. Some trace its origins to a particular song ‘Má Teodora’ about two slave sisters who sung around Santiago in the 1550s. It was nurtured, especially at the islands Eastern end, during the turbulent struggle for independence from Spain and based on instruments that could be easily carried, either in the pockets or slung across the back.
(this section to be concluded)
Notes:-
Hundred years old. Purist embodiment of original son guitar trios was Trio Matamoros founded in Santiago in 1912 : Miguel Matamoros(guitar); Rafael Cueto(guitar and voice); & Siro Rodríguez(virtuoso maracas player) toured Latin America & Europe & recorded in New York. Marímbula thumbThe catchphrase ‘Salsa is Son’ is repeated like a mantra by all the musical greats, and historians, of Salsa music. Son is the first truly indigenous Afro-Cuban music: a rolling song and dance medium fusing the lyricism of the Spanish guitar with the rhythms of Africa. Some trace its origins to a particular song ‘Má Teodora’ about two slave sisters who sung around Santiago in the 1550s. It was nurtured, especially at the islands Eastern end, during the turbulent struggle for independence from Spain and based on instruments that could be easily carried, either in the pockets or slung across the back.
(this section to be concluded covering :-)
early son, around turn of 20th century, usually based on guitar trios
gradual growth in size of ensembles and instrumentation, responding to needs of larger venues
gradual emergence of African drums from secrecy
influx of American tourists, incorporation of swing-band style brass sections, birth of Latin jazz
two-way flow : American bands start incorporating Afro-Cuban musicians & motifs
revivalism : early styles can still be heard : group of Havana students establish son preservation society in ’76 ‘Sierra Maestra’ using authentic instrumentation and recording many old classics : Celia Cruz, denies being an initiate, but released two classic albums in the 60’s called Homenaje a los santos (Homage to the saints) based on the holy Santería songs to the Orishas : 1998 Grammy to London offices of World Circuit Records for million-selling ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ – Anglo-Cuban-American collaboration – Ry Cooder & group of veteran Cuban musicians
early uses of word ‘Salsa’
Notes:-
Hundred years old. Purist embodiment of original son guitar trios was Trio Matamoros founded in Santiago in 1912 : Miguel Matamoros(guitar); Rafael Cueto(guitar and voice); & Siro Rodríguez(virtuoso maracas player) toured Latin America & Europe & recorded in New York. Marímbula thumb-piano basses.
Cuba’s top son group in the 30’s, Sexteto Habanero, recorded a song ‘Echale salsita!’ – Put sauce on it.
1936 musicologist Dr Fernando Ortiz lecture tour brought sacred drums out of hiding. In 1938, guitarist Arsenio Rodríguez revolutionised dance bands by adding a conga drum. This used to bang out a ‘new’ rhythm which Rodríguez called ‘diabolo’, in homage the Abakwa deities. It was later renamed ‘Mambo’. Ortiz, meanwhile, had teamed up with glamorous Afro-Cuban singer Mercedita Valdés, quasi-religious songs, hit song ‘Babalú’ – diminutive ‘priest’; Valdés’s 1st album ‘Toques de santos – rhythms of the saints 1946. Santería achieved exotic respectability and sacred rhythms and chants arrived in danchall
Cuban musicians Mario Bauzá and Machito invented Latin Jazz in 1943 by fusing the traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms with the sort of complex horn arrangements employed by the great American swing and dance bands led by the likes of Chick Webb, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington. Back in America, Dizzy Gillespie was blowing minds in New York by introducing Afro-Cuban drummer, Chano Pozo, into his band. Pozo accompanied his conga with almost rap-style fragments of Abakwa chants.
During the 40’s and 50’s, the Cuban Superstar entertainer Beny Moré used to sign off his shows, ‘Hola, salsa!’ – Hey (or Hi), sauce!
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8 : 1950 to 1960 : The Cuban Revolution - The story moves to New York
In 1933, President Roosevelt announced a ‘New Deal’ for Americans. Prohibition was repealed and a serious attempt was made to roll back the tide of gangster culture. If anything, the reverse happened for Cubans! In this same year, one Fulgencio Batista y Zalvídar organised a military coup: the ‘sergeants’ revolt’. After consolidating his power-base, he became president (1940-4).
Many Cubans were already becoming increasingly restive about American mob rule. Their island seemed increasingly run by gangsters for the benefit of Americans who still flocked to the holiday paradise hungry for entertainment and for all the pleasures and vices. With a combination of threat and bribe, The Mob simply pocketed politicians, and the economy. The faces behind the attendant ‘protection rackets’ were often literally hidden behind the frightening masks of the Abakwa deities, further demeaning local culture.
In 1952, on the back of growing unrest, Batista overthrew the government of president Prio Socorras. Batista had already shown himself to be yet another dictator in the pay of The Mob, and guerrilla activity against the government increased. This was fuelled with the ideas of two revolutionary intellectuals: Fidel Castro who had studied law in Havana, and his Argentinian friend ‘Che’ (Ernesto) Guevara who had studied medicine. In 1953, Castro was imprisoned after an unsuccessful uprising. Batista had himself re-elected president in 1954 and, under an amnesty, released and exiled Castro firstly to the US and then to Mexico.
Curiously, in this same year the US Senate ended four years of xenophobic witch hunts with the censure of Senator McCarthy’s ‘Committee of Enquiry into Un-American activities’. They agreed, however, that the Communist Party was a menace, and banned it!
In 1956, Castro and Guevara landed in Cuba with a small band of insurgents and began to organise anti-government forces. In 1958, the revolutionaries mounted a full-scale attack. In January 1959, Batista fled to the Dominica Rupublic and Castro seized power, proclaiming a ‘Marxist-Leninist programme’. He became Prime Minister (President from 1976) of a 31-member State Council appointed by a National Assembly of Peoples Power comprised of 510 deputies. Guevara, now a national hero, served as a minister under Castro until 1965 when he left Cuba to become a guerrilla in South America. In 1967 he was captured and executed in Bolivia.
The government set about driving out The Mob and introducing wholesale agrarian, economic, and cultural reforms. Plantation estates were nationalised and land plots redistributed to peasants. In 1960, US assets in Cuba were sequestrated, Cuba aligned itself with the Communist bloc, and the US ended their so-called ‘economic aid’.
April of the following year saw an abortive US-backed invasion attempt. A force of 1300 Batista loyalists landed on the South coast at Bahía de Cochinos (The Bay of Pigs) but were rapidly overwhelmed by Cuban troops led by Castro. The revolutionaries promptly invited the Russians to establish a base on the island in return for economic support. The ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ in October 1962 was possibly the closest the world has come to a 3rd world war with a major stand-off between Russia and the US. President Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of the island. Soviet leader Khrushchev eventually acceded to demands that the base be dismantled.
Many Cubans are very proud of their government for recapturing their culture and for building a system of social welfare, which is fair to all. The downside is the poverty resulting from being ostracised by their American neighbours: the world’s most powerful economy.
For many more Cubans, the whole of the revolutionary period proved too much to bear with yet more warfare, yet more austerity, and yet another invasion of foreigners – Russians this time. Times were particularly hard for all those associated with the music industry, which had lost its American patronage. There was a mass exodus to the US and large communities of Cuban ex-pats began to grow in the nearest city, Miami; on The West Coast, in Los Angeles and San Francisco; and particularly in New York.
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9 : 1960 to 1980 : The New York scene
(this section to be concluded covering:-)
The making of Spanish Harlem; influx of Latinos – first Puerto Ricans, then Cubans
Birth, and growth, of Fania Records
In 1966, a Venezuelan radio DJ, Danilo Escalona, launched a show called ‘La hora del sabor, la salsa, y el bembe – the hour of flavour, sauce, and soul. The word ‘Salsa’ had arrived as a convenient cover for a whole raft of contemporary Afro-Cuban and similar music, particularly in the Americanised style.
By the end of the 70’s, a cocky young Puerto Rican New Yorker called Izzy Sanabria had made the word ‘Salsa’ virtually synonymous with the sound of Latin New York being released through Fania Records. He designed their distinctive and brilliantly coloured album sleeves; he pioneered the magazine ‘Latin NY’, in which he constantly used ‘salsa’ to describe the music he was covering; and he was MC to the legendary Fania All Stars supergroup. During these shows he would frequently bark out the word ‘salsa’ to wind up the audience and to drive on the musicians.
Notes:-
Tito Peunte timbales Manhatten’s Palladium Ballroom
Andy(Anibal) Vásquez : Mambo Aces : fronted bands in 50’s at Manhattan Palladium cutting lindy-hop & jitter bug with traditional Cuban/Pueto Rican folk routines
Danilo Escalona : Venezuelan dj : 1966 : show ‘La hora del sabor, la salsa, y el bembe.’ (The hour of flavour, spice, & soul)
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10 : 1980 to 1990 : Global Salsa – New directions and influences
(this section to be concluded covering)
interplay between Spanish Harlem & Black Bronx introduces hip hop, soul & raga influences; growth of West Coast scene, more laid-back sound of ‘Salsa Sensuál’ & Salsa Romantica)
non-Cuban Salsa : So-called ‘tropical salsa’ was typified, during the 80’s, by Colombian Joe Arroyo’s Caribbean flavoured songs.
Panamanian singer-songwriter, Rubén Blades became a key player at Fania and inspired fellow countryman, Omar Alfanno, who makes a living writing hit songs for a new generation of Puerto Rican singers.
Venezuelan songwriter, bandleader, and one the great soneros - Oscar D’León, developed a style based on his love of Cuba’s Beny Moré and the great mambo bands of 50’s Havana.
Roll-along Miami scene and popularisation of Salsa :-
During the late nineties another Columbian and ex TV soap star, Carlos Vives, caused a ripple with his accordion-led ‘vallenato-salsa’ which inspired copies from Gloria
Estafán and Julio Iglesias.
The broad appeal of Latin music is reflected throughout the popular music industry, which has now spread the message world-wide.
From Edmundo Ros to The Spice Girls
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11 : 1990 to 2000 : Full Circle – Salsa returns to Africa
It is a cutting irony that salsa should return to countries like Mali, Senegal, and Zaire, who had surrendered so many millions to the slave trade over nearly 300 years, from around 1550.
Fans of world music know that Africa, in particular the West coast, is still a huge melting pot of enormously diverse music. The people not only export great music but, since the fifties, have also been insatiably hungry for imported records & CDs, especially anything coming out of Cuba or the black and latin quarters of America. These influences resulted in ‘African Salsa’. This was often more raw than its sophisticated trans-Atlantic cousin. The emphasis was very much on percussion driven by a mixture of traditional and more contemporary, often guitar-based, musical brews.
The circle was finally completed in dramatic fashion! In 1992, guitarist Luis Guerrra had the brainwave of direct collaboration between Africa and Latin New York. Senegalese music producer, Ibrahim Sylla, and a group of African rumbas, turned up at a New York recording studio and masterminded The Africando Project – a word meaning ‘Africa reunited’ in Wolof, the Niger-Congo language of the Senegalese. The ever-changing personnel include some of the great names in music from both sides of the Atlantic. The 4th album, Baloba – Let them speak, was released on the 150th anniversary of slavery’s abolition.
Africando, whilst distinctly African in character, are one of today’s great salsa sounds. One of their great delights is hearing songs in so many languages: not just the colonial Spanish and French, but also Arabic, Wolof, and other African languages. Check out their 2000 album, Mandali. This features no fewer than 11 of the world’s great vocalists (mostly African, but also from the Caribbean) exploring their diverse styles, all backed by one of the tightest, funkiest salsa machines ever assembled.
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12 : 2000 onwards : Salsa music – Salsa culture : diverse, energetic, and inclusive
So! Just what is it about Salsa that evokes such passion and inspires such devotion in so many of us? I would like to conclude by taking a look at the Salsa scene: a uniquely inclusive culture, which grows directly from our response to the music’s unique diversity and energy.
1 : Divesity
As a music lover, with a very large and extremely varied collection, I find much of today’s music industry depressingly dull and devoid of fresh ideas. The big players can keep production costs low and profits high by marketing image rather than musical content. They serve us up with a constant stream of teeny-bopper boy-girl outfits rehashing revivals, and in-your-face MCs with mindless messages delivering wall-to-wall noise with little appreciation of space and texture. It’s all dumbed-down and mind-numbing, if not positively brain-damaging.
Real talent has been increasingly sidelined to small labels or, worse, fails to get recorded at all. As I comb the industry’s underground fringes, looking for the bright, fresh, and interesting, I find myself most excited by the exploration of musical fusions, especially when the fusion is also cultural. This is the only area, it seems to me, in which music is really happening.
Mainstream dance was invigorated in the early 90s by Enigma’s introduction of Gregorian and then Islamic chant. Deep Forest developed the theme using samples from West Africa and then traditional Romany tunes from Eastern Europe. More recently Afro-Celt Sound System have delighted the Glastonbury dance tent with their powerful combination of pumping African rhythms overlaid with light and bright Irish themes. Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawney, Joi, and others have opened up the world of Anglo-Indian fusions. Café Del Mar style ‘chill’ music has developed an intelligent blend of dance with the best of world R&B cut with some jazz.
On the whole, mainstream jazz has also been flagging in recent times, largely failing to build on previous highlights. Some of these have been Django Reinhard’s gypsy guitar in the 30s & 40s – the first European to really influence the jazz scene; the John Meyer-Joe Harriott collaboration ‘Indo-Jazz Fusions’ in the 50s; flashes of brilliance from Miles Davis, especially in the 60s, with the likes of ‘Sketches of Spain’; Weather Report’s brightening of the 70’s as well as John McLaughlin’s ‘Shakti’ collaboration; Pat Metheny Band’s introduction of a Korean choir to their ‘Secret Journey’ during the 80s.
Rock music does not, on the whole, go in for cultural fusions but one name must be mentioned before moving on. For the best part of four decades, Carlos Santana has done more than anyone to open the Western ear to Latin music. His 1970 ‘Abraxus’ is one of the all-time great albums including a cover of Tito Peunte’s classic: ‘Oye Como Va’. Thirty years later, approaching the tender age of 60, he celebrated the new millennium by collecting two Grammy’s for single and album of the year. ‘Smooth’ was a tune in classic cha-cha-cha rhythm taken from an album full of Latin delights: ‘Supernatural’.
Salsa, as a musical form, it is the richest and most diverse fusion in the history of world music embracing idioms from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. The multi-culture, which flows from the music, transcends race and is uniquely inclusive. There are now home-grown Salsa bands in most countries around the globe and Salsa conventions, wherever, are multi-national.
2 : Energy
Salsa is also incredibly energetic physically, mentally, and socially.
The physical energy lies in the powerhouse of its African rhythms, which drive it along at pulsating speed. Average club speed is around 200 beats per minute, and I’ve heard it played as fast as 230! There is no other form of dance music which gets anywhere near it. However wild it gets though, the constancy of its African heartbeat keeps it right on-track.
It is brightened and sharpened to a frenzy by its brass, and given human passion and sensuality by the vocals.
Sexuality & the celebration of life
Mambo is stylised mating ritual
African percussion often paired, male and female, musicians communicate with each other and between right and, left hand, call and response, solo and chorus. Percussive element to non-percussion instruments. Sexuality : vocalists / band. Cross-rhythms.
3 : Salsa – A Culture of Inclusion
The extraordinary multi-racial roots of Salsa make it inherently a culture of inclusion, rather than exclusion. Personally, I loathe the xenophobic tribalism characterised by the football hooligan; by extreme rightwing politics; and by fundamentalism. This may once have had a sound biological basis in mankind’s distant past, providing instincts of protection and preservation. In today’s world it is merely self-importance. It is a mechanism which closes down the human heart, depriving us of our openness and sensitivity. Castaneda’s Don Juan says ‘self-importance is the nemesis of mankind’ and it threatens our destruction by causing division and conflict. Salsa invites us into a multi-cultural global village which, to me, is infinitely more interesting and alive.
In the countries of its origins, Salsa is street music and street dance - a way for whole communities to come together. Little toddlers, who can clap out the clave before they can speak, join their great-grandparents to share and celebrate their common culture. Today’s Salsa scene still very much reflects its roots. I know of no other culture which so comprehensively transcends the bullshit boundaries of race, colour, age, size, shape, sexual persuasion, and social or religious background.
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12 : Epilogue : Displacement and reconnection - The spiritual basis of Salsa
(this section to be concluded)
Notes
Importance of salsa culture in displacement
Language overlay jazz/cuisine: ‘cooking’, ‘tasty’, ‘flavour’
African percussion often paired, male and female, musicians communicate with each other and between right and, left hand, call and response, solo and chorus. Percussive element to non-percussion instruments. Sexuality : vocalists / band. Cross-rhythms.
Andy(Anibal) Vásquez : Mambo Aces : fronted bands in 50’s at Manhattan Palladium cutting lindy-hop & jitter bug with traditional Cuban/Pueto Rican folk routines
Danilo Escalona : Venezuelan dj : 1966 : show ‘La hora del sabor, la salsa, y el bembe.’ (The hour of flavour, spice, & soul)
End of 70’s, ‘salsa’ synonymous with sound of Latin New York as produced by Fania Records
Izzy Sanabria : Pueto Rican New Yorker : designed Fania’s brilliant record covers : MC’d Fania All Stars shouting ‘salsa’ during shows to introduce tracks, musicians : pioneered magazine ‘Latin NY’ using ‘salsa’ to describe music he was covering
80’s Joe Arroyo – Colombian – Caribbean flavoured ‘tropical salsa’
90’s Carlos Vives – Colombian – accordian led ‘vallenato-salsa’ inspired Gloria Estafán(Miami) & Julio Iglesias
1998 Grammy to London offices of World Circuit Records – Anglo-Cuban-American collaboration – Ry Cooder & group of veteran Cuban musicians ‘Buena Vista Social Club’
Full Circle : thriving trade in exported salsa to central & West Africa (origin of slaves) resulting in ‘African Salsa’ – mixture of local guitar-based & traditional music with influence of imported Cuban/New York bands – guitarist Juan Luis Guerra got together with Senegalese producer Ibrahim Sylla & group of African rumbas & founded Africando project bringing together musicians from Africa & New York
Venezuela – Oscar D’Leon- sonero, song writer, bandleader- music based on passion for Cuba’s Bene Moré & 50’s mambo bands in Havana
Rubén Blades – Panamanian singer/songwriter – Fania - inspired fellow countryman Omar Alfanno – prolific hit-song writer for generation of Pueto Rican singers
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