(New York) Salsa is a term of unclear origin that emerged and became popular in New York in the late 1960s. It has remained controversial since. For some, salsa is nothing more than a marketing handle for Afro-Cuban Son (Sound) music as updated and reinterpreted by Latinos in New York. Others hear it as a distinctive New York-Caribbean style, pointing out the grittier sound and the pan-Latin elements (e.g.: Puerto Rican, Panamanian and Dominican as well as Afro-Cuban), along with R&B and jazz influences. Example: Most of the Material interpreted by Ruben Blades, Willy Colon and/or Johnny Pacheco. Lately one of the most successful salsas has been the late Celia Cruz’s “La Vida Es Un Carnaval”.

(Cuba) Most music historians agree that the Cuban son is the backbone for contemporary salsa and was probably the most popular dance music genre to emerge from Cuba during the early 20th century. Son developed in the late 1800’s in the mountainous Oriente province, located in the eastern regions of Cuba. Son began as an Afro-Cuban popular dance of the rural working classes and was performed with percussion alone. Son is believed to be the first musical genre to use drums played with bare hands. Music historian Vernon Boggs notes that Son possesses numerous African musical influences including syncopated rhythms and melodic line that had no connection to the underlying percussion. Example: Most of the material interpreted by The Buenavista Social Club (such as Compay Segundo’s “Chan Chan”) or Afro Cuban Allstars.

(Cuba) Mambo is an umbrella term for a popular dance and hybrid music style, developed in the 40's and 50's.(1) The musical section that evolved in the late 1930's and 1940's from the Nuevo Ritmo of the Danzón. (2) An up tempo Afro-Cuban musical style that evolved in the 1940's and 50's as a blending of the Mambo section, elements of the Son and some influences of American Jazz orchestras. (3) A section of an arrangement usually following or developing from the Montuno section featuring new arranged (or sometimes improvised) material such as Moñas in the horn section. (4) The Afro-Cuban dance that evolved from the son and is of the same name, popularized in New York, later becoming Salsa. Example: Tito Puente’s “Ran Kan Kan” and “Para Los Rumberos”. By the way, though of Puerto Rican heratige, Tito was a native New Yorker, born and raised.

(Cuba) Cha Cha Cha is a dance and musical style that also evolved from the "nuevo ritmo" of the Danzón style. "Enganadora", by Cuban bandleader Enrique Jorrin, is generally considered to be the first chachachá, in 1953. As a dance, "Cha Cha" became popular in the 1950' and 60's and is descended from Mambo through triple Mambo.  Example: Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va” or lately the Burger King commercial song - “I Like It Like That”.

(Cuba) Bolero is an Afro-Cuban ballad form, with a slow tempo and mostly romantic lyric content. Pepe Sanchez has been credited with creating the Cuban "bolero" in 1885 with a composition called "Tristeza”. Example: Everybody's party favourite “Besame Mucho”.

(Dominican Republic)While there are similarly named dances in other countries, this merengue, a fast-paced music danced in a tight two-step, is the national dance of the Dominican Republic. Born in the Dominican countryside in the 19th century of African and European traditions, merengue was traditionally played by small groups featuring accordion, güiro (metal scraper) and the two-headed tambora drum. It became enormously popular in the 1980s played by brassy, big band-like orchestras.Example: Elvis Crespo’s “Suavemente”.

(Dominican Republic) Emerged from and belongs to a long-standing Pan-Latin American tradition of guitar music, música de guitarra, which was typically played by trios or quartets comprised of one or two guitars, with percussion provided by maracas and/or other instruments such as claves (hardwood sticks used for percussion), bongo drums, or a güiro scraper. When bachata emerged in the early 1960s, it was part of an important subcategory of guitar music: romantic guitar music. This was distinguished from guitar music intended primarily for dancing such as the Cuban son or guaracha- although in later decades, as musicians began speeding up the rhythm and dancers developed a new dance step, bachata began to be considered dance music as well. Example: Almost anything by Grupo Aventura.

(Colombia) Cumbia, a sweetly syncopated dance music from the Atlantic coast of Colombia, is a classic example of the Creole fusion of indigenous, European and African cultural elements in the Americas. The original cumbia featured percussion and voice but as it evolved, instruments were added. By the time it reached Colombia's urban centers in the 1940s, it was played by large dance orchestras. Cumbia has reached far and wide, but has been especially influential in Mexico and Central America. Example: The Juan Valdez coffee commercial song
“La Colegiala”.

(Colombia) Vallenato is the accordion music from the Atlantic coast of Colombia. The traditional instrumentation features accordion, caja (a single-head drum) and guacharaca (ridged cane scraper). The lyrics once suggested an oral newspaper account of local events and people. Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, a vallenato scholar in his own right, once called his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude a "350-page vallenato". The genre reached a new, younger audience in the '90s with the success of soap opera star-turned-singer Carlos Vives, who updated the music with rock and pop elements. Example: Though an Escalona song, it made Vallenato come into vogue via Carlos Vives - “La Gota Fria”.

(Mexico) The dramatic ranchera, which emerged during the Mexican Revolution, is considered by many the country's quintessential popular music genre. Sung to different beats including the waltz and the bolero, its lyrics traditionally celebrate rural life, talk about unrequited love and tell of the struggles of Mexico's Everyman. Tejano/conjunto and norteño acts favor rancheras with romantic themes played to a polka beat. Mariachis and grupos prefer the gentler boleros and waltzes. Example: the music Mariachis sing.

(Mexico & US)Tejano, Spanish for "Texan", is a hybrid of traditional Mexican rancheras, polkas and cumbias infused with elements of country, blues and pop. Bandleader and saxophonist Isidro "El Indio" López is credited with creating modern Tejano music in the late 1950s by bringing together the sounds of the big band Tejano orchestra and the accordion-centered conjunto. By the '90s, Tejano had blossomed into many sub-genres including Tejano/pop, Tejano/R&B and Tejano/country. Example: Most of the material by the late Selena.

(Mexico)Norteño, Spanish for "northern", is a genre rooted in rural folk music but enriched by many elements from the music of German and Czech immigrants. A norteño band typically features an accordion and a bajo sexto (a 12-string bass guitar), but modern groups such as Los Tigres del Norte and Bronco also include electric bass, sax and keyboards. Example: As mentioned above the music interpreted by Los Tigres Del Norte and Bronco.

(Argentina & Uruguay)Tango emerged in the 1880s in the outskirts of both Buenos Aires and Montevideo as a blend of indigenous styles and elements of African and European music. Many believe tango takes its name from an Afro-Uruguayan Candombe term, as the newly arrived Africans called their drums “Tangó” (accent on the second syllable), and used this term to also refer to their dances as well as their places of gathering. Tango was largely instrumental until the late 1910s when the tango-canción (tango-song) and its greatest interpreter, Carlos Gardel, emerged. The 1940s are generally considered the golden era of tango with great band leaders like Francisco Canaro who exported this sound to France and Anibal Troilo who made it popular amongst the young. Yet it was the late composer, bandleader and bandoneonist Astor Piazzolla and his revolutionary New Tango that not only energized the genre but, in the 1980s, brought it to a new global audience. Today we are experiencing a new wave of tango fused with electronic progressive music. Example: The most famed tango in the world is by Gerado Matos Rodrigues, it is called “La Cumparsita” and contrary to public belief it is not from Argentina... it is from Uruguay.

(Spain)Flamenco is the result of a blend of cultures, including Gypsy, Muslim and Jewish, all of which at some point settled in Andalusia in the south of Spain. Traces of these roots can be heard in the rhythms, the harmonies and the elaborate melisma of the singers. Like blues or tango, it began as the forbidden dance and music of the disenfranchised. Cuba and Latin America became a point of interest for flamenco in the late 50’s and early 60’s adopting many elements such as the rumba. In recent years flamenco artists have successfully explored the links of this music with other genres and traditions such as jazz, rock, hip hop and other contemporary music, finding a new, broader audience. Example: anything by Paco de Lucia or, on the commercial tip, The Gipsy Kings.

(US & Cuba) The term "Latin Jazz" has been largely a misnomer, as it has generally referred to Afro-Cuban jazz, a fusion of jazz harmonies and improvisation over Afro-Cuban rhythms that took shape in the 1940s or some Brazilian-tinged blend. In recent years, due to the efforts of musicians such as Cuban saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera and the emergence of young artists such as Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez and Puerto Rican saxophonist David Sanchez, who have brought their roots to the music, Latin jazz has developed more of a true pan-Latin sound. Example: the King and forefather of Latin Jazz is Mario Bauza; anything from his arsenal is good. One of my picks would be “Tanga” and all it’s variations.

(Brazil) Perhaps the most famous Brazilian popular music style, samba is characterized by a 2/4 meter, and simple rhythms woven into a dense, intricate, interlocking texture and a call-and-response structure. It emerged as an urban style in Rio de Janeiro in the 1910s. The samba that evokes images of carnival and large samba schools — with their floats and hundreds of drummers on parade performing a song with a narrative, is known as samba de enredo. But there are other samba styles such as the samba canção, a slower, softer, more sentimental samba; the samba do morro, an earthier, heavily percussive, neighborhood samba; and the samba reggae, which takes on the reggae backbeat. Example: Jorge Ben Jor / Sergio Mendes “Mas Que Nada”; also in samba de enredo form, it is the music of the Rio Carnaval.

(Brazil) A style of samba as well, which at carnival is an ally to the samba de enredo. It is an intense, polyrhythmic percussion that perhaps emphasizes the Brazilian culture's African heritage more than any other sound. Example: the music of the Rio Carnival.

(Brazil) Bossa (as many call it) is the music born from a marriage between Brazilian rhythms and American Jazz. A suave, romantic style which started in the 1950s, replacing samba as the national music. Typically, bossa nova (which means "new way" in Portuguese) is very mellow and laid-back, and very, very cool. In the early 1960s, bossa nova rhythms became popular with jazz and pop musicians in the U.S. and Europe. Today we are once again seeing a strong interest and increased popularity of this music. Example: Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “The Girl From Ipanema”.

(Brazil) Remember this one…anyhow, the word lambada refers both to the rhythm - a fusion of carimbó and merengue - and to the dance, which incorporates elements of forró, samba, merengue and maxixe (the 19th century Brazilian dance which was a tremendous success in Europe). The dance is sexy, yes, but it is danced by all kinds of people, of all ages and sexes, without the "dirty" connotations given to it by very bad Hollywood movies. It's very graceful and fast-paced, though the rhythm originated in the Amazon it was later adopted by the people of Bahia who proceeded to later create the dance. Example: Kaoma’s “Lambada” (what other song did you think I was going to pick?)

I hope that now you have a little bit wider picture of Latin Music. Parts have been extracted from the liner notes of Universe of Rhythms: The GRAMMY Guide to Latin Music, which was produced by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc. in 2000. back to top