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Sample Entry - Latin Band
In general usage, the word 'Latin,' applied to music, indicates
music from or inspired by the Spanish Caribbean, the islands
and the coastal areas from Venezuela to southern Mexico. The
term 'Latin band' implies a dance band and covers a wide range
of sizes, from the 'society orchestra' down to small combos.
Caribbean dance music is primarily in 2/4 or 4/4 rhythm, heavily
syncopated and punctuated with a rich array of percussion instruments:
claves, maracas, guiros, cencerros, bongos and assorted
other drums. These instruments are mostly of Afro-Caribbean
origin, whereas the melodic structures of the music they play
are eminently European.
The local music of Santiago de Cuba was notably influential
in the development of pan-Caribbean popular music. The carnival
bands, itinerant trios and later sextets of Santiago exerted
increasing influence on dance bands throughout the islands,
especially by means of recordings from early in the twentieth
century onward.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the dance music
of the middle and upper classes in the Americas was often identical
to that of London or Paris and quite distinct from that of the
lower classes of the Caribbean. But after World War I, the picture
changed. Prohibition, which came into effect in 1919 in the
United States, had a grave impact on supper clubs and nightclubs,
many of which closed their doors or survived precariously as
clandestine clubs known as 'speak-easies.' Tourists from the
United States flocked to Montréal, the Mexican border towns
and the Caribbean, with Havana being the most popular destination.
US musicians increasingly found employment there, among them
a young violinist named Enric Madriguera. Born in Barcelona
and brought to the United States at the age of 14, he subsequently
played with US dance bands, one of which took him to Havana
- as a violinist and as a Spanish interpreter. By 1924, Madriguera
was the conductor of the Havana Casino Orchestra during the
winter season and spent the rest of the year performing with
his own band on New York radio and making recordings, with other
engagements in New York and Florida. Adept at performing the
Cuban society dance, the elegant danzón, he introduced it to
Americans in the United States. US music became the staple of
the better clubs in Havana because the US tourists were timid
about revealing their ineptness in performing the danzón. Madriguera
was intensely interested in the dance music of the lower classes
and especially the Afro-Cuban son, a dance form considered
vulgar by the best Havana society. In order to lure North Americans
to the dance floor, he evolved a discreet form of the son,
blended with segments of pure fox trot and Charleston. It would
come to be known as the rumba and would have great success in
New York, London, Paris, Madrid and Berlin. The Cuban percussionists
in Madriguera's orchestra employed Afro-Caribbean instruments
such as claves, maracas, bongos, timbales, cencerros and guiros.
Simultaneously, a few small bands from the Caribbean began to
perform in Europe, especially in Paris.
The collapse of Wall Street in 1929 sent North Americans back
home and would keep them there for most of the following decade.
The dance floors of Havana were as empty as those of New York
had been a few years earlier. The formerly affluent US tourists
were nostalgic for their rum and rumba; both were to return.
Cuban musicians began to come to the United States. One of the
great all-time rumba hits was 'The Peanut Vendor' (‘El Manisero’),
recorded by the Havana Casino Orchestra and featured in the
Hollywood film The Cuban Love Song (1931). 'Peanut
fever' raged in the United States as well as in Europe through
dozens of different recordings. Other rumba recording successes
quickly followed, many of them supplied by Madriguera, who was
now director of Latin music at Columbia Records. Prohibition
was repealed in 1933 and, despite hard times, dance music -
with Latin music now a basic component - flourished. By this
time, Madriguera had serious competitors: Xavier Cugat (born
in Gerona, Spain) and Carlos Molina (from Colombia), both of
whom, curiously enough, had also been trained as violinists.
These three came to dominate the Latin band scene in the United
States. Meanwhile, the composer of 'El Manisero,' Moisés Simons,
had established himself in Paris with Rico's Creole Band. And
in 1933, just before the repeal of Prohibition, Cuba's distinguished
pianist-composer Ernesto Lecuona took his band, the Lecuona
Cuban Boys, on a tour of Europe (Spain, Italy, London and Paris),
where they recorded intensively. The group was enormously popular,
and its success exceeded all expectations; it extended the tour
for as long as possible, returning to Havana on the last boat
to depart from Holland in 1939.
Back in the United States, Latin music had become firmly established.
The Latin percussion instruments were combined into a single,
eccentric instrument, the drum battery, which became indispensable
for swing music and equally important for Latin music that was
increasingly being performed by non-Latin bands. A Latin number
would become a staple in both films and Broadway musicals for
several decades after Vincent Youmans included his ‘Carioca’
(a rumba) in the score for the movie Flying Down to Rio
(1933) and Cole Porter’s ‘Begin the Beguine’ (a bolero) was
performed in the musical Jubilee (1935). Such films
and musicals, together with the increasing recordings of Latin
and pseudo-Latin music, would intensify international interest
in Caribbean music. The British band leader known as Ambrose
was sometimes billed as the 'Latin from Mayfair,' and a US hit
lampoons the career of an Irish-American girl who masquerades
as authentic but is only a 'Latin from Manhattan.' The ability
to sing in Spanish became increasingly important for US band
vocalists.
Table 1 lists chronologically the major Latin bands known internationally
via recordings, live appearances and film. The creation of the
'Good Neighbor Policy' in the United States initiated the golden
age for Latin bands. US films of the 1940s often included segments
featuring the Cugat and Madriguera orchestras. Carnival
in Costa Rica (1947) was a major vehicle for the Lecuona
Cuban Boys, who also toured Latin America extensively. A plethora
of new groups flourished. Latin American musicians increasingly
performed with US orchestras - for example, Juan Tizol played
with Duke Ellington, Chano Pozo with Dizzy Gillespie, and Machito
with Stan Kenton. Indeed, in the late 1940s these musicians
would develop a new jazz concert style called 'Cubop.' More
recent films such as The Mambo Kings (1992) feature
the orchestras of Machito and Tito Puente.
From the 1920s onward, a succession of Latin dances increasingly
blended US and Caribbean dances - for example, the son
plus the fox trot became the rumba, and fast rumba plus swing
became the mambo. Although a number of Puerto Rican musicians
were successful and influential in these developments, the scene
was dominated by Cubans until the end of the 1950s. Thus, the
Cuban revolution - aided and abetted by the overwhelming success
of rock music - all but wiped Latin music off the orchestral
and instrumental map. Attempts to popularize the Dominican merengue
at this time had little success, although the Brazilian bossa
nova filled the Latin dance gap, briefly, in the 1960s. For
the time being, US and European youth idolized Elvis Presley
and the Beatles. Open form dance choreography predominated.
Meanwhile, large Puerto Rican and Cuban communities in the United
States continued to supply a demand, so that, for a time, Latin
bands were the staple of a self-imposed segregated society.
The band type known as charanga (flutes, violins, piano,
bass and timbales) was now enhanced by the addition of such
Afro-Cuban instruments as the bongos and the conga drum. Especially
popular were the charangas of Charlie Palmieri and
Johnny Pacheco. Puerto Rican musicians now dominated, particularly
in New York. Orchestras and combos proliferated and created
a new sequence of dance forms that now blended elements from
rock music, the major producers of this type of music being
Carlos Santana and Cal Tjader. Dancers performed as often in
pairs (close dancing) as in free form, the former imposing more
structured rhythmic patterns. As immigration to the United States
from the Dominican Republic and the coastal regions of Colombia
increased, the merengue now proliferated and the cumbia found
favor. By this time, the dances as well as the musicians were
likely to be pan-Caribbean, especially in New York. Thus was
salsa invented, the word itself a catchall for a general style
(percussion-based) that, with free improvisation, can change
tempo and rhythm at any moment. During the 1980s and 1990s,
salsa finally penetrated mainstream music, the more permanent
Latin bands again gaining recognition in the United States as
well as abroad. At the same time, nostalgia for the music of
earlier Latin bands grew considerably. A large selection from
earlier recordings has continued to be provided on compact disc
by Harlequin Records (Interstate Music of East Sussex, England).
Radio broadcasting in Spain has actively revived the careers
of earlier Latin bands. Toward the end of the twentieth century,
Spanish groups combined Andalusian, Caribbean and rock music
to create new hybrids such as the rumba flamenca and
the macarena (a line dance), which have both remained
extremely popular with Latin bands.
Such developments have continued and have shown no evidence
of decline; in any event, Latin bands constituted a significant
element in the music of Western society for most of the twentieth
century. An elegant gala benefit, held in May 1998 on Audubon
Terrace in New York City, featured the orchestra of Tito Puente
and was attended by guests spanning three generations. Puente
began his repertoire with a number of famous boleros, interspersed
with a few rumbas and followed by several mambos and cha-cha-chas.
Next came a concert segment featuring Puente on the timbales
in a master performance of ‘Cubop.’ A healthy sequence of salsa
followed, with the last segment devoted to Latin soft rock.
During the earlier segments, members of the oldest generation
were predominant on the dance floor. Gradually, they were joined
by members of the other two generations. The evening provided
a clear illustration of the current status of Latin bands and
their music.
Table 1
| Decade |
Performer/Band |
Musical Forms |
| 1920s |
Enric Madriguera
Rico's Creole Band |
danzón
son |
| 1930s |
Don Azpiazu
Carlos Molina
Lecuona Cuban Boys
Xavier Cugat
Jose María Romeu
Ambrose
José Morand
Casino de la Playa
|
rumba
bolero |
| 1940s |
Desi Arnaz
Sacasas
Brillo's Caracas Boys
Alfredo Mendez
Noro Morales
Chuy Reyes
Pérez Prado
Machito
Tito Puente
Tito Rodriguez
Edmundo Ros
|
conga
guaracha
mambo |
| 1950s |
Miguelito Valdés
Charlie Palmieri
José Curbelo |
cha-cha-cha |
| 1960s |
Eddie Palmieri
Johnny Pacheco
Ray Barreto
Johnny Colon
Carlos Santana
Cal Tjader
|
pachanga
guaguancó
bugalú
Latin rock
|
| 1970s |
Willie Colon
El Chicano
Joe Bataan
Cachao
|
salsa
Latin disco
Latin soul
descarga
cumbia
|
| 1980s |
Miami Sound Machine
Los Van Van |
areito
merengue |
| 1990s |
Son de Azucar |
songo |
Bibliography
Alberti, Luis. 1975. De música y orquestras bailables dominicanas
[On Dominican Music and Dance Orchestras]. Santo Domingo: Museo
del Hombre Dominicano.
Beardsley, Theodore S., Jr. 1980-86. 'Rumba-Rhumba: problema
internacional músico-léxico' [Rumba-Rhumba: International Musical-Lexical
Problem]. Revista Interamericana X: 527-33.
Beardsley, Theodore S., Jr. 1992. 'Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963):
Noticias bibliodiscográficas' [Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963):
Bibliodiscographical Notes]. Noticias de Arte (Nov.-Dec.):
9-12.
Beardsley, Theodore S., Jr. 2001. 'Hispanic Music in the United
States.' In The Guide to United States Popular Culture,
ed. Ray B Browne and Pat Browne. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling
Green State University Popular Press, 388-89.
Bloch, Peter. 1973. La-Le-Lo-Lai: Puerto Rican Music and
Its Performers. New York: Plus Ultra.
Collazo, Bobby. 1987. La última noche que pasé contigo
[The Last Night I Spent with You]. San Juan: Cubanacan. Diáz-Ayala,
Cristóbal. 1981. Música cubana [Cuban Music]. San Juan:
Cubanacan.
Figueroa, Frank M. 1994. Encyclopedia of Latin American
Music in New York. St. Petersburg, FL: Pillar Publications.
Loza, Stephen. 1993. Barrio Rhythm: Mexican-American Music
in Los Angeles. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Madriguera, Enric. 1994. Caribbean Music (1920-1941),
ed. T.S. Beardsley, Jr. Harlequin CD 44.
Molina, Carlos. 2000. Caribbean Music (1932-1946),
ed. T.S. Beardsley, Jr. Harlequin CD 156.
Pérez Perazzo, Alberto. 1988. Ritmo Afrohispano antillano
[Afro-Hispanic Rhythm of the Antilles]. Caracas: Editorial Sucre.
Polin, Bruce. 1998. Descarga. Flatbush, NY: Descarga.
[Comprehensive (365 pp.) catalog of currently available Latin
CDs, including reissues of original recordings from 1920 onward,
as well as current recordings. See also www.descarga.com.]
Roberts, John Storm. 1979. The Latin Tinge: The Impact of
Latin American Music on the United States. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Santana, Sergio. 1992. Qué es la salsa? [What Is Salsa?].
Medellin: Ediciones Salsa y Cultura.
Valverde, Umberto, and Quintero, Rafael. 1996. Abran paso.
Historia de las orquestas femeninas de Cali [Make Way:
History of the Female Orchestras of Cali]. Cali: Editorial Universidad
del Valle.
Sheet Music
Porter, Cole, comp. and lyr. 1935. 'Begin the Beguine.' New
York: T.B. Harms.
Simons, Moisés, comp. and lyr. (English lyrics by L. Wolfe Gilbert
and Marion Sunshine). 1930. 'The Peanut Vendor' ('El Manisero').
New York: Edward B. Marks Music.
Youmans, Vincent, comp., and Kahn, Gus, & Eliscu, Edward, lyrs.
1933. 'Carioca.' New York: T.B. Harms.
Filmography
Carnival in Costa Rica, dir. Gregory Ratoff. 1947.
USA. 96 mins. Musical. Original music by Ernesto Lecuona, Harry
Ruby, Sunny Skylar, Al Stillman.
The Cuban Love Song, dir. W.S. Van Dyke. 1931. USA.
80 mins. Musical/Romance. Original music by Charles Maxwell
(II), Herbert Stothart.
Flying Down to Rio, dir. Thornton Freeland. 1933. USA.
89 mins. Musical. Original music by Edward Eliscu, Gus Kahn,
Vincent Youmans.
The Mambo Kings, dir. Arnold Glimcher. 1992. France/USA.
100 mins. Drama. Original music by Carlos Franzetti, Robert
Kraft. |
THEODORE S. BEARDSLEY, JR. |
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