Salsa Music Ups and Downs, Series Intro
Posted on 04. Aug, 2009 by Hector Aviles in Feature, Latino Music
As I’ve been thinking of the highs and lows Salsa music has gone through in my lifetime, I came up with the idea of sharing my experiences and thoughts through a series of blogs. I think you’ll find it interesting to retrace Salsa’s steps starting some 50 years ago, and describing the different challenges it has faced, and how I believe it survived those challenges. We’ll be retracing those steps back from the 50’ and 60’s until today. This series of blogs on Salsa’s Ups and Downs will set the stage for another series of articles on Latin music, but I’ll keep that other subject as a surprise for now.
Salsa: definition of the term:
This will be a 5-part series of blogs, starting with this one, which will spread through the month of August. At least that’s my plan. Remember I have a day job and sometimes it comes in conflict for time with writing this blog, as it has been happening these past couple of months.
Salsa is a term that may mean different things to different people, so let’s define the term for the purposes of this blog series:
Salsa = term used to described the rythms mostly from Cuba and Puerto Rico, mixed with the enhanced brass (wind instruments) elements of jazz. It referes mostly to the rythms of guaguanco, son, son montuno, guaracha, rumba, bomba and plena. I’ll exclude “merengue” and keep this rhythm as its own musical genre.
As an example of the use of this terminology, in my teens you could ask the orchestra or disc jockey to play a “salsa”, a “merengue” or a “bolero” to dance to. Salsa meant a guaguanco, son, son-montuno, etc., different from a merengue.
El Libro de la Salsa
My attempt here is not to correctly define the term ‘Salsa”, but to use it in its most popular way, as I know it. The great Venezuelan music writer Cesar Miguel Rondón, in his book “El Libro de la Salsa” traces the origin of the popularity of the term to the mid 1970’s. I beg to differ from Rondón, as by that time the term had been well coined for a while. As an example, when Willie Colón recorded the album “Asalto Navideño” in 1971, he had a song titled “Traigo la Salsa”, which means the terms was very mainstream by then. Further back in the 1930’s, the Wikipedia says that the great Cuban musician Igancio Piñeiro composed the song “Echale Salsita” referring to putting some spice to tasteless food, but also implying to his band to spice up the music to “put the dancers in high gear”. It also cites “that later in the 1930s, vocalist Beny Moré would shout “salsa” during a performance ‘to acknowledge a musical moment’s heat, to express a kind of cultural nationalist sloganeering [and to celebrate the] ‘hotness’ or ’spiciness’ of Latin American cultures’.”
The term has been controversial ever since it came to use. According to the Salsa Wikipedia, Rubén Blades once claimed that Salsa is merely “a concept”, as opposed to a definite style or rhythm, while Celia Cruz is quoted as saying that “”salsa is Cuban music with another name. It’s mambo, chachachá, rumba, son … all the Cuban rhythms under one name”. I can relate to Rubén Blades’ idea, but for the purposes of this blog-series, we’ll be closer to Celia Cruz’s description, with the addition of the Puerto Rican rhythms, as I indicated above.
The challenges and evolution of Salsa:
Since the Big 3 (Machito, Tito Puente, and Tito Rodriguez - shown in a 60’s photo on the top of this article) had their climax in the 50’s and 60’s in New York, and Rafael Cortijo did the same in Puerto Rico around the same time, Salsa has had several key challenges to survive. The most significant challenges I recall where:
1. The rock & disco popularity of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.
2. The merengue threat
3. The popularity of Reggeaton
Within those threats, Salsa Romantica played a dual role of saving Salsa, only to later cause its decline. I will be elaborating on these topics during the upcoming blogs.
Send me your ideas:
As always, I like to try to make this a conversation with you rather than a monologue by just me. Send me your ideas and opinions on the topic, either by writing in the comments section under this blog, or to my email address hector@latinowebcafe.com. I will try to incorporate you comments or thoughts in the blog series.
Stay tuned!
3 Comments
The Latin Jazz Corner » Blog Archive » Latin Jazz This Week
10. Aug, 2009
[...] Hector Aviles over at Latino Web Cafe recently introduced a series of articles that follow the ups and downs of salsa, from his perspective as a long-time listener. It sounds like a great series of articles that touch upon both the dance and jazz worlds. Check out his introductory thoughts HERE. [...]
Canuco
16. Oct, 2009
Throughout the years the music has gone thru countless changes. If you take a beginning point anywhere in the 20th century, let’s say Danzon or Trio music for example, you’ll find that there is as strong fiber the connects it to the music as we know today. If one were to lay out a musical tree with Afro-Cuban percussive figures and European orchestrations as it’s base, one can actually make direct connections to the musical landscape today. The commercial aspect of the business has propelled musicians to become creative in ways that have left many of us latinos wondering, “what the heck is that?”. On the other hand, this same commercial animal has produced some of the best compositions as well. In the past there have been some trends, (Boogaloo, Merencumbe, Pachanga,) that have made an attempt to cash in on the music and then there is that sector, (Rumba, Seis Chorreao, Yambu, Cumbia, Joropo, etc), that have stayed true to it’s roots despite the money. Salsa music will never be limited to any single source, it is an art form unto itself, not unlike painting or sculpture. Salsa a true mixture of ideas and experiences that reflect our multi-ethnic melding of cultures. Salsa……what a concept!
Name
20. Oct, 2009
Canuco; you are correct! There are music blends that were created for monetizing on a new trend. Those include the trends you identified in the 1st group (Boogaloo, Pachanga). The genres on the 2nd list are true folk music, and therefore driven by culture not by money. Like anywhere else, there is a little of everything. I believe Salsa was an accidental creation, kind of like penicilin or nylon. At the time, there was a need for taking the traditional latin rythms and giving them a Barrio sound and flavor. Rageatton was born very similarly. Lukcy for us, Salsa continued to evolve to improve its sound and maintain all its flavor.
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