Interview clips from the Cuban Music Legends Series, hosted by music historian Eloy Cepero.

As stated, authentic rumba belongs to the island’s Afro-Cuban folklore. It is a communal act involving a lead singer, known as the gallo (rooster) and a chorus, called vasallo (vassal). Three tumbadoras, or congas, provide the percussion. The quinto, the smallest of the three drums, produces a high-pitched sound. The salidor sustains the rhythm while the medium-sized tres-golpes gives guaguancó its cadence.

Rumba is composed of three distinct rhythmic dances, each with its accompanying percussion, derived from the West African mimetic rituals of the slave population, particularly during the formative 19^th century. Hence, one should more accurately refer to rumba yambú, rumba guaguancó, and rumba columbia.

 In yambú, the tempo is slow. The dance mimics the gestures of the elderly. It is known as the “old people’s” dance. Columbia is the most complex form of rumba. It flourished in the rural areas of Matanzas.  A male solo, rather than a couple, performs the choreography. His mimetic movements and acrobatic gestures imitate those of local members in the community such as a sugarcane-cutter, for example. Guaguancó, the most modern and urban rumba, synthesizes elements of both yambú and columbia. In guaguancó, the man performs pelvic movements of a sexual nature while the woman evades him until finally surrendering.  The figurative act of possession and surrender is termed vacunao.

The puntos criollos and guajiras were sung during the traditional rural dance brought from Spain by early colonists, the zapateo. In the zapateo, the man gracefully dances in a circle around the woman while she turns in place with coquettish gestures of her own.  Both stamp their toes and heels in a lively manner.

 Guillermo Portabales (1914-1961), a bolero singer, popularized country genres with his refined, urbane renditions termed guajiras de salón. Singer-songwriter Celina González (b. 1928), known as the “Queen of Cuban Country Music,” has been a leading performer of guajiro genres, first with husband Reutilio Domínguez and later with their son Lázaro Reutilio Domínguez, since the 1950s. The guajira-son Guantanamera, first adapted and interpreted by Joseíto Fernández (1908-1979) in 1928, and later rearranged with lyrics from the poetry of José Martí by classical composer Julián Orbón, became the best-known work in the genre. American folksinger Pete Seeger adopted and played the song to U.S. audiences in 1963. Albita Rodríguez (b. 1962) introduced a modern, neo – guajiro style in the 1990s with the international success of her U.S. debut album, No se parece a nada.

 However, others had paved the way for Pérez Prado’s innovations, beginning with the orchestra of “Arcaño y sus Maravillas” which introduced the ritmo nuevo in the 1930s. One of its composers, Orestes López (1908- 1991), wrote a danzón entitled Mambo in 1939. The López brothers, Orestes and his younger sibling Israel “Cachao” (b.  1918), inserted fast, syncopated motifs from the son. The effect was a more forceful rhythm to which younger dancers responded eagerly. Another eminent musician, Arsenio Rodríguez (1911-1970), set the new standard by emphasizing the percussion and brass sections of the son.  Others whose musical arrangements prefigured that of the mambo were René Hernández and Emilio “Bebo” Valdés, borrowing from American jazz and swing and freeing the sounds from the danzón’ s form.

Finally, Perez Prado liberated the final montuno from the ritmo nuevo thereby creating something altogether new.  In his words, “all is in the syncopation ···the saxophones accentuate it without respite while the trumpets charge the melody. The bass, in combination with tumbadoras and bongós, take care of the rest. There’s the making of mambo.” Recording his music for the RCA Victor label in Mexico City, Pérez Prado’s style took the musical world by storm.  Among his many 1950s hits were Mambo No. 5, Mambo No. 8, El ruletero, La chula linda, and, with vocalist Benny Moré (1919-1963), the King of Mambo, recorded Pachito e‘ché, Bonito y sabroso, and other popular songs in the new genre.

The next major development in Cuban music, the cha-cha-chá, shared common roots with its rival, the mambo.  In the   United States, Pérez Prado’s greatest success on the charts was Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White (1958).  Patricia (1958), another hit, became the theme song of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960).  Though fading, especially in Cuba and Latin America, by the early 1960s, mambo would be an important ingredient in the formation of the salsa genre and retain a loyal following for years to come.

 Many, if not most, guaguancós were anonymous compositions. The oldest, dating from late Spanish colonial era, are known as rumbas “de tiempo España.” Though African in rhythm, the guaguancó reveals certain Spanish influences, especially by way of flamenco and the rural décimas, in the text of its songs. According to Mongo Santamaría (b. 1927), one of the genre’s leading interpreters, guaguancó came about when Afro­- Cubans tried to sing flamenco.

Founded in the 1950s, the ensemble “Muñequitos de Matanzas” has performed traditional rumba, especially guaguancó, in the urban Matanzas style. Since the late 1990s, authentic Cuban rumba has experienced an international revival, largely due to groups like the “Muñequitos de Matanzas,” Los Papines, AfroCuba, and others.

 Jorrín crafted his new style with dancers in mind. He originally composed works for the danzón-mambo genre, gradually simplifying the form with melodies that have no syncopation. Thus, dancers simply follow the melody and may improvise their own steps. The typical pattern, the escobillo, takes a 1-2, 1-2-3 alternating sequence that caught on as quickly as the music itself. Another typical feature of Jorrín’s new style was the vocal participation of the orchestra.  He entrusted the singing of the lyrics, in unison, to the band, a feature that the public enjoyed.

During the 1950s, cha-cha-chá competed with mambo both in Cuba and abroad. Following Jorrín’s success, other talents rode cha-cha-chá wave such as Antonio Sánchez with Yo sabía, Félix Reina with Angoa, Rosendo Ruiz and his Rico vacilón, Rosendo Rosell with Calculadora, and Eduardo “Richard” Egües with the classic El bodeguero. The “Orquesta Aragón,” more so than any other band, specialized in the new genre.

However, the bolero reached an international audience with Aquellos ojos verdes. Nilo Menéndez (1902-1987) composed the music to lyrics written and sung by tenor Adolfo Utrera.  First recorded in 1930 with musical accompaniment by Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963) at the piano, it achieved immediate success and remains a classic in the genre. Distinguished among contemporary bolero composers, René Touzet’s (b.1916) songs have been interpreted by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Tony Martin.

From the 1920s onward, the bolero fused with the son to create hybrid styles such as the bolero-son, the bolero-mambo, etc. Another genre, that termed filin (“feeling”), evolved from the bolero in the late 1940s. Spreading first to Mexico and Puerto Rico, the genre flourished in virtually every Latin American nation. Thus, the contemporary pan-Latin balada (pop ballad) and salsa romantica trace their musical heritage back to the bolero.

The son combines rhythmic and percussion patterns of African (primarily Bantu) origin with string instruments of Spanish origin (e.g., guitar, tres), creating a uniquely Cuban sound within a universally Latin lyrical tradition.  Music characterized by its strong syncopation, the clave beat defines the son rhythmically.  The beat takes its name from the claves, Afro-Cuban instruments made of hardwood cylinders that produce a resonant, high-pitched sound.  Lyrically, the decima and the punto guajiro, Spanish poetic forms sung in Cuban countryside, are salient influences accounting for the improvisational nature of the son.  In the son, the sung verses alternate with a refrain in a question-answer arrangement between the singer and the chorus.  Themes addressed in the son’s popular poetry range from the amorous to patriotic and socio-political topics in Cuban history.

The genre flourished in its purest form in the 1920s and 1930s.  In addition to Ignacio Piñerio (1888-1969) and his “Sexteto (later Septeto) Nacional,” with classic compositions such as Échale salsita (1933), leading interpreters of the son genre included Miguel Matamoros (1894-1971) and his “Trío Matamoros” with their perennial Son de la loma (1928) and Moisés Simons (1889-1945) who composed El Manisero (1930).

Singer-composer Benny Moré (1919-1963) and his band energized the son with renditions in the 1940s and 1950s, both in Cuba and internationally, particularly in Mexico.  Many of the so-called “rumbas” popular during the Latin dance craze that swept the United States in the 1930s, resembled the son.  Miguelito Valdés (1916-1978), a vocalist-percussionist who rose to fame with the “Casino de la Playa” orchestra, popularized the son in the U.S. with the big Latin band sounds of Xavier Cugat (1900-1990).  Valdés was the original Mr. Babalú.  However, a second Mr. Babalú eclipsed the first in American pop culture: Desi Arnaz, of I Love Lucy fame, who also began his entertainment career performing in New York with Cugat’s band.  Likewise, the mambo and cha-cha-chá of the 1940s and 1950s were up-tempo forms of the son.  However, it was Arsenio Rodríguez (1911-1970) who modernized the son by adding one or more trumpets in his conjunto (ensemble or group) and breaking the septet mold.  After arriving in New York City in 1949, Rodríguez established a veritable following among local Latin musicians (particularly Puerto Ricans).  Indeed, salsa, defined by one music scholar as the “son’s rebellious daughter,” owes much to the innovations introduced by Arsenio Rodríguez.

During the 19^th century, Enrique Guerrero (d. 1887) composed famous guarachas for the bufo state.  His La pluma de tu sombrero, La prieta santa, and Mi bandera cubana are considered classics in the genre. Antonio Fernández, better- known as Ñico Saquito, and Los Guaracheros de Oriente popularized guaracha music, especially the guaracha-son, in the 1940s, and 1950s with such tunes as Compay gallo Maria Cristina, Jaleo, No dejes caminar por vereda, La negra Leonor, etc.  Like many other Cuban music genres, guaracha has also contributed to the formation of salsa.  Celia Cruz (b.1924), recognized as “Reina de as salsa” (Queen of Salsa), was first known as the “Guarachera de Cuba’ (Roughly, Cuba’s Guaracha Singer) par excellence.  Celia Cruz revived the guaracha tradition by incorporating and interpreting the genre within contemporary salsa.

The danzon was, in reality, an offspring of the danza criolla and, ultimately, the contradanza.  Choreographically, the danzon retained the traditional cedazo during which the couples separate, face one another, and rest in place.  By the second half of the 19^th century, the contradanza evolved into the danza which, when danced by couples rather than collectively, was already known in vernacular speech as danzón.  When Faílde and his wind orchestra performed the first danzón proper, however, they introduced syncopation and improvisation into the traditional form.  The result was a slower-paced, cadenced music and choreography that the island’s public quickly adopted.  In the 1880s and 1890s, the danzón benefited from enthusiastic support by liberal, pro-independence Cubans, a fact that contributed to its identification with republican nationhood and the genre’s subsequent ascendancy until about 1920.  With the rise of the son after 1910, and its propagation thanks to radio broadcasting in the 1920s, the traditional danzón entered a period of decline.  In 1910, the musician-composer Jose Urfé (1879-1957) and the “Orquesta de Enrique Peña” revitalized the danzón inserting rhythmic elements taken from the Oriente region’s typical son), with the premier of his El bombín de Barreto.  Other important exponents and innovators in the history of the danzón were Raimundo Valenzuela (1848-1905), Antonio María Romeu (1876-1955), and Aniceto Díaz (1887-1964), credited with reviving the danzon with the creation of the danzonete in 1929.

The legacy of the music carried over into the 1940s and 1950s with the arrival of the cha-cha-chá, the mambo, and the ritmo nuevo, each of which inherited, interpreted, and modernized elements of the danzón for an international audience.