Salsa Music

Salsa music is a style of Latin American music, combining elements of Cuban and Puerto Rican influences. Because most of the basic musical components predate the labeling of salsa, there have been many controversies regarding its origin. Most songs considered as salsa are primarily based on son montuno and son cubano, with elements of cha-cha-chá, bolero, rumba, mambo, jazz, R&B, bomba, and plena. All of these elements are adapted to fit the basic Son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa.

Originally the name salsa was used to label commercially several styles of Hispanic Caribbean music, but nowadays it is considered a musical style on its own and one of the staples of Hispanic American culture.

The first self-identified salsa band is Cheo Marquetti y su Conjunto - Los Salseros which was formed in 1955. The first album to mention Salsa on its cover was titled “Salsa” which was released by La Sonora Habanera in 1957. Later on self-identified salsa bands were predominantly assembled by Puerto Rican and Cuban musicians in New York City in the 1970s. The music style was based on the late son montuno of Arsenio Rodríguez, Conjunto Chappottín and Roberto Faz. These musicians included Celia Cruz, Willie Colón, Rubén Blades, Johnny Pacheco, Machito and Héctor Lavoe.
During the same period a parallel modernization of Cuban son was being developed by Los Van Van, Irakere, NG La Banda under the name of songo, which further evolved into timba in the late 80s with artists like Charanga Habanera; both styles are at present also labelled as salsa. Though limited by an embargo, the continuous cultural exchange between salsa-related musicians inside and outside of Cuba is undeniable.Unterberger, p. 50

Origins of the term Salsa

The word ''Salsa'' means sauce in the Spanish language. The origin of the connection of this word to a style of music is disputed by various music writers and historians.

The musicologist Max Salazar traced the origin of the connection to 1930 when Ignacio Piñeiro composed the song ''Échale salsita'' (Put some sauce in it). The phrase is seen as a cry from Piñeiro to his band, telling them to increase the tempo to "put the dancers into high gear".Morales 2003, p. 56 In the mid-1940s, Cuban Cheo Marquetti emigrated to Mexico. He named his group Conjunto Los Salseros, with whom he recorded a couple of albums for the Panart and Egrem labels. Later on, while based in Mexico City, the musician Beny Moré would shout ''salsa'' during a performance to acknowledge a musical moment's heat, making a connection with the hot salsa (sauce) made in the country.Manuel 1990, "salsa is to Latinos as 'soul' is to blacks; salsa—literally, 'hot sauce'"

Puerto Rican music promoter Izzy Sanabria claims he was the first to use the word salsa to denote a music genre:

In 1973, I hosted the television show ''Salsa'' which was the first reference to this particular music as ''salsa''. I was using he term''salsa'', but the music wasn't defined by that. The music was still defined as Latin music. And that was a very, very broad category, because it even includes mariachi music. It includes everything. So salsa defined this particular type of music ... It's a name that everyone could pronounce.

Sanabria's ''Latin New York'' magazine was an English language publication. Consequently, his promoted events were covered in ''The New York Times'', as well as ''Time'' and ''Newsweek'' magazines. Sanabria confessed the term salsa was not developed by musicians: "Musicians were busy creating the music but played no role in promoting the name salsa."Izzy Sanabria 2005 For this reason the use of the term salsa has been controversial among musicians. Some have praised its unification element. Celia Cruz said, "Salsa is Cuban music with another name. It's mambo, chachachá, rumba, son ... all the Cuban rhythms under one name."Steward 2000, p. 488. Willie Colón described salsa not as a precise musical style but a power to unite in the broadest terms: "Salsa was the force that united diverse Latino and other non-Latino racial and ethnic groups ...Salsa is the harmonic sum of all Latin culture ".

On the other hand, even some New York based artists were originally against the commercialization of music under that name. Machito said: "There's nothing new about salsa, it is just the same old music that was played in Cuba for over fifty years." Similarly, Tito Puente stated: "The only salsa I know is sold in a bottle called ketchup. I play Cuban music." Cuban musicologist Mayra Martínez wrote that "the term salsa obscured the Cuban base, the music's history or part of its history in Cuba. And salsa was a way to do this so that Jerry Masucci, Fania and other record companies, like CBS, could have a hegemony on the music and keep the Cuban musicians from spreading their music abroad." Izzy Sanabria responded that Martínez was likely giving an accurate Cuban viewpoint, "but salsa was not planned that way".Boggs 1992, p. 189 Johnny Pacheco, co-founder of Fania Records, gave his definition of the term “Salsa” during various interviews: ''“La salsa es, y siempre ha sido, la musica cubana”'' (“Salsa is, and always has been, Cuban music”).

The marketing potential from the name was so big, that eventually both Machito, Puente, and even musicians in Cuba embraced the term as a financial necessity.Mauleón 1999, p. 80

Instrumentation

The instrumentation in salsa bands is mostly based on the son montuno ensemble developed by Arsenio Rodríguez, who added a horn section, as well as tumbadoras (congas) to the traditional Son cubano ensemble; which typically contained bongos, bass, tres, one trumpet, smaller hand-held percussion instruments (like claves, güiro, or maracas) usually played by the singers, and sometimes a piano. Machito's band was the first to experiment with the timbales. These three drums (bongos, congas and timbales) became the standard percussion instruments in most salsa bands and function in similar ways to a traditional drum ensemble. The timbales play the bell pattern, the congas play the supportive drum part, and the bongos improvise, simulating a lead drum. The improvised variations of the bongos are executed within the context of a repetitive marcha, known as the ''martillo'' ('hammer'), and do not constitute a solo. The bongos play primarily during the verses and the piano solos. When the song transitions into the montuno section, the bongo player picks up a large hand held cowbell called the bongo bell. Often the ''bongocero'' plays the bell more during a piece, than the actual bongos. The interlocking counterpoint of the timbale bell and bongo bell provides a propelling force during the montuno. The maracas and güiro sound a steady flow of regular pulses (subdivisions) and are ordinarily clave-neutral.

Nonetheless, some bands instead follow the Charanga format, which consists of a string section (of violins, viola, and cello), tumbadoras (congas), timbales, bass, flute, claves and güiro. Bongos are not typically used in charanga bands. Típica 73, Orquesta Broadway, Orquesta Revé and Orquesta Ritmo Oriental where popular Salsa bands with charanga instrumentation. Johnny Pacheco, Charlie Palmieri, Mongo Santamaría and Ray Barretto also experimented with this format.

Latin big bands in the 1950s-1960s included a brass section of trumpets and saxes.

Throughout its 50 years of life, Los Van Van have always experimented with both types of ensembles. The first 15 years the band was a pure charanga, but later a trombone section was added. Nowadays the band could be considered a hybrid.

In the 1960s, Eddie Palmieri decided to replace the violins with two trombones for a heavier sound.

Rhythm

Salsa music typically ranges from 160 bpm (beats per minute) and 220 bpm, which is suitable for salsa dancing.

The key instrument that provides the core groove of a salsa song is the clave. It is often played with two wooden sticks (called clave) that are hit together. Every instrument in a salsa band is either playing with the clave (generally: congas, timbales, piano, tres guitar, bongos, claves (instrument), strings) or playing independent of the clave rhythm (generally: bass, maracas, güiro, cowbell). Melodic components of the music and dancers can choose to be in clave or out of clave at any point.

For salsa, there are four types of clave rhythms, the 3-2 and 2-3 Son claves being the most important, and the 3-2 and 2-3 Rumba claves. Most salsa music is played with one of the son claves, though a rumba clave is occasionally used, especially during rumba sections of some songs. As an example of how a clave fits within the 8 beats of a salsa dance, the beats of the 2-3 Son clave are played on the counts of 2, 3, 5, the "and" of 6, and 8.

There are other common rhythms found in salsa music: the chord beat, the tumbao, and the Montuno rhythm.

The chord beat (often played on cowbell) emphasizes the odd-numbered counts of salsa: 1, 3, 5 and 7 while the tumbao rhythm (often played on congas) emphasizes the "off-beats" of the music: 2, 4, 6, and 8. Some dancers like to use the strong sound of the cowbell to stay on the Salsa rhythm. Alternatively, others use the conga rhythm to create a jazzier feel to their dance since strong "off-beats" are a jazz element.

Tumbao is the name of the rhythm that is typically played with the conga drums. Its most basic pattern is played on the beats 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8. Tumbao rhythm is helpful for learning to dance contra-tiempo ("On2"). The beats 2 and 6 are emphasized when dancing On2, and the Tumbao rhythm heavily emphasizes those beats as well.

The Montuno rhythm is a rhythm that is often played with a piano. The Montuno rhythm loops over the 8 counts and is useful for finding the direction of the music. By listening to the same rhythm, that loops back to the beginning after eight counts, one can recognize which count is the first beat of the music.

Musical structure

Most salsa compositions follow the basic son montuno model based on the Afro-Cuban clave rhythm and composed of a verse section, followed by a coro-pregón (call-and-response) chorus section known as the montuno. The verse section can be short, or expanded to feature the lead vocalist and/or carefully crafted melodies with clever rhythmic devices. Once the montuno section begins, it usually continues until the end of the song. The tempo may gradually increase during the montuno in order to build excitement. The montuno section can be divided into various sub-sections sometimes referred to as ''mambo'', ''diablo'', ''moña'', and ''especial''.

History

1930s and 1940s: Origins in Cuba

Many musicologists find many of the components of salsa music in the Son Montuno of several artists of the 30s and 40s like Arsenio Rodríguez, Conjunto Chappottín (Arsenio's former band now led by Félix Chappottín and featuring Luis "Lilí" Martínez Griñán) and Roberto Faz. Salsa musician Eddie Palmieri once said "When you talk about our music, you talk about before, or after, Arsenio.....Lilí Martínez was my mentor". Several songs of Arsenio's band, like ''Fuego en el 23'', ''El Divorcio'', ''Hacheros pa' un palo'', ''Bruca maniguá'', ''No me llores'' and ''El reloj de Pastora'' were later covered by many salsa bands (like Sonora Ponceña and Johnny Pacheco).

On the other hand, a different style, Mambo, was developed by Cachao, Beny Moré and Dámaso Pérez Prado. Moré and Pérez Prado moved to Mexico City where the music was played by Mexican big band wind orchestras.

1950s-1960s: Cuban music in New York City

During the 1950s, New York became a hotspot of Mambo with musicians like the aforementioned Pérez Prado, Luciano "Chano" Pozo, Mongo Santamaría, Machito and Tito Puente. The highly popular Palladium Ballroom was the epicenter of mambo in New York.

Ethnomusicologist Ed Morales notes that the interaction of Afro-Cuban and jazz music in New York was crucial to the innovation of both forms of music. Musicians who would become great innovators of mambo, like Mario Bauzá and Chano Pozo, began their careers in New York working in close conjunction with some of the biggest names in jazz, like Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others. Morales noted that: "The interconnection between North American jazz and Afro-Cuban music was taken for granted, and the stage was set for the emergence of mambo music in New York, where music fans were becoming accustomed to innovation." He later notes that Mambo helped pave the way for the widespread acceptance of salsa years later.

Another popular style was cha-cha-cha, which originated in the Charanga bands in Cuba. By the early 1960s, there were several charanga bands in New York led by musicians (like Johnny Pacheco, Charlie Palmieri, Mongo Santamaría and Ray Barretto) who would later become salsa stars.

In 1952, Arsenio Rodríguez moved for a short period to New York City taking with him his modern son montuno. During that period his success was limited (NYC was more interested in Mambo), but his guajeos (who influenced the musicians he shared the stage with, such as Chano Pozo, Machito, and Mario Bauzá), together with the piano tumbaos of Lilí Martínez, the trumpet of Félix Chappottín and the rhythmic lead vocals of Roberto Faz would become very relevant in the region a decade later.Waxer 2002, pp. 91–94

In 1966, the Palladium closed because it lost its liquor license.Steward, Sue 1999. ''Salsa: the musical heartbeat of Latin America''. Thames & Hudson, London. p. 60 The mambo faded away, as new hybrid styles such as boogaloo, the jala-jala and the shing-a-ling had brief but important success. Elements of boogaloo can be heard in some songs of Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Machito and even Arsenio Rodríguez. Nonetheless, Puente later recounted: "It stunk ... I recorded it to keep up with the times. Popular Boogaloo songs include "Bang Bang" by the Joe Cuba Sextet and "I Like It Like That" by Pete Rodríguez and His Orchestra.

During the late 1960s, the Dominican musician Johnny Pacheco and Italian-American businessman Jerry Masucci founded the recording company Fania Records. They introduced many of the artists that would later be identified with the salsa movement, including Willie Colón, Celia Cruz, Larry Harlow, Ray Barretto, Héctor Lavoe and Ismael Miranda. Fania's first record album was "Cañonazo", recorded and released in 1964. It was panned by music critics as 10 of the 11 songs were covers of previously recorded tunes by such Cuban artists as Sonora Matancera, Chappottín y Sus Estrellas and Conjunto Estrellas de Chocolate. Pacheco put together a team that included percussionist Louie Ramírez, bassist Bobby Valentín and arranger Larry Harlow to form the Fania All-Stars in 1968. Meanwhile, the Puerto Rican band La Sonora Ponceña recorded two albums named after songs of Arsenio Rodriguez (''Hachero pa' un palo'' and ''Fuego en el 23'').

1970s: Songo in Cuba, salsa in NYC

The 1970s was witness to two parallel modernizations of the Cuban son in Havana

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