Salsa

According to the dictionary of the “Real Academia Española,” salsa is a mixture of various edible substances used to add flavor in cooking. We, however, are concerned with another kind of salsa, whose ingredients are “condimentos musicales” (musical seasonings). From its foundation in Son Cubano all the way to Dominican Merengue, Colombian Cumbia, North American Jazz, Brazilian Samba, and other musical rhythms of the Caribbean. We cannot speak of salsa without taking into account the musical genre that constitutes its roots: el Son Cubano. This was born in the countryside of eastern Cuba in the second half of the last century, having as its ancestors the Spanish and French influence and, supposedly, the African one. This perfect union reached the cities at the beginning of this century, quickly meeting with approval and interest from everyone. The year 1909 marks its entry into Havana, brought by the soldiers of the standing army of the government of that era, but it was from 1920 onward, with the appearance of the group “Sexteto Habanero,” that the style that distinguishes Son Cubano was marked. In that decade other “Agrupaciones Soneras” appeared, such as the Septeto Nacional of Ignacio Piñeiro, born in 1927, a group that still exists. Songs like Échale Salsita, El Guanajo Relleno, and Suavecita are still known and performed internationally today. In the same way, the Trío Matamoros, founded in 1925, left us pieces like El Son de la Loma, El Que Siembra Su Maíz, La Mujer de Antonio, and Lágrimas Negras. The lineup that predominated in the groups of that era was: double bass, tres/guitar with three pairs of strings/guitar, clave, maracas, voice, and one conga (optional). In the 1940s a man named Arsenio Rodríguez appeared, who modified the lineup of the septeto and included in his orchestra, in addition to the instruments mentioned so far, the piano, the drum, and 3 or 4 trumpets, a lineup very similar to today’s groups. In 1950 Arsenio settled in New York and formed other groups, becoming one of the precursors of the salsa movement in the United States. Among Arsenio’s most famous tunes are: Fuego en el 23, El Guayo de Catalina, and Bruca Maniguá. Son continued its rise and diffusion thanks to Matamoros, Arsenio, and so on. El Son crossed beyond the arc of the country, reaching Venezuela, Colombia, and elsewhere. The 1950s stand out for the appearance of the greatest performer of the genre of all time: Benny Moré, with his Banda Gigante Benny, who still today continues to be a reference point for all salsa musicians. With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the appearance of the American economic blockade, the history of this music takes two different paths: what happened outside Cuba (above all in New York) and what happened inside the island itself.

Outside Cuba

A shortage of this kind of music appeared. North American entrepreneurs in the recording world found themselves obliged to turn to Cuban musicians and composers living outside the island, and to other Latin musicians who cultivated the rhythm. People began to hear Tito Puente, Xavier Cugat, los Palmieri, Johnny Pacheco, Tito Rodríguez, Celia Cruz, Ismael Rivera, and Sonora Matancera, among many others. People began to hear the name salsa applied to Son, which, despite the changes that these excellent musicians brought, continued to maintain the imprint that Arsenio had given it. Here the name salsa appears, but it would not be until 1974 that Willie Colón and Rubén Blades conferred upon it the medal of a true identity as the musical genre salsa. Despite the innovative harmonic composition they gave it, along with the use of 3 or 4 trumpets instead of one, the rhythmic base continued to be the same as that of Son. From here on it is another story. Pacheco, director of Fania, explained that they took Cuban music and inserted very advanced chords into it, placing emphasis on the rhythm, and removing certain details, but without altering its essence. Since the words salsa, sabor, and azúcar have always been tied to this music, they decided to name it in this way. This name served to present in Europe a rhythm previously known as Tropical. As Pacheco confesses, the intention was never to steal the music from the Cubans by inserting it under another name, because he has always recognized that the roots of salsa music are Cuban and that its school is in Cuba. Salsa continued its dizzying development. In the decade of the 1980s, Salsa Erótica or Balada Salsa appeared, distinguished by its romantic and sensual lyrics. In the 1990s the so-called Salsa Rap appeared. We can name some of the best-known salsa artists (besides those already mentioned): Oscar D’León (I consider him a sonero), Gilberto Santa Rosa, Lalo Rodríguez, Eddie Santiago, Luis Enrique, Marc Anthony, La India, Tito Nieves, José Alberto “El Canario,” DLG, and many others. It must be specified that when we speak of salsa, we are referring to music directly descended from Son. Merengue and Cumbia are also sold as salsa, a product of the American commercial logic that baptizes with a single, easy-to-remember name various rhythms from other countries. This was applied in the 1950s to the Bolero, Mambo and Cha Cha Cha, Son and Conga with the name Rumba.

The Evolution Inside Cuba

People listened to the Mozambique rhythms of Pello el Afrokán and el Pilón of Enrique Bonne. At the beginning of the 1960s came the first novelties of the post-revolutionary “Forma Sonera,” characterized by their emphasis on the rhythmic base. Later, maestro Juan Formell appeared with a new musical structure called Songo, which, with his orchestra “Los Van Van,” revolutionized the components by adding the drum set, the guitars, and the electric bass. The fact that inside Cuba there was no need to compete commercially in order to sell music allowed for experimentation with new forms and styles of playing Son or salsa. This new form is the result of a strong presence of African rhythm, achieved with orchestras full of combinations and nuances where the brass is used with a certain jazzed air, breaking away from the virtuosity of the instrumentalists, unlike the music made outside Cuba, where certain rigid schemes exist for the sake of commerce, in which everything works entirely around the voice of the soloist, over a homogeneous musical mattress. It should then be said that in Cuba, for about 10 years, the music was sold under its true name, Son. But the need to export it in order to make it known internationally led to the consequence that, even in Cuba, the name salsa began to be used for this music. Recently Juan Formell, together with other Cuban musicians, rebaptized it as Timba Cubana. As representatives of this genre we find: Los Van Van, NG La Banda, La Charanga Habanera, Paulito FG, El Médico de la Salsa, Isaac Delgado, Adalberto Álvarez, Manolito Simonet, Ángel Bonne, and many others. Currently we are witnessing a kind of reunion of Cuban music with its progenitor: Cuba. Because of the great cultural exchange between Cuba and the United States, we can notice a strong influence of Timba Cubana on New York salsa; we can see it in the music of Víctor Manuelle, Tito Nieves, and others, just as in numerous Cuban orchestras the influence of foreign salsa artists can be noticed. This can be seen in the Grammy Award given to the Afro-Cuban All Stars album, made by various traditional Cuban musicians, providing a legitimate recognition of the origin of Son, salsa, or Timba. We can say that salsa begins in Cuba, the country of its roots, then goes to the Caribbean, the zone that generated its seasonings, where throughout history Europeans, Asians, and North Americans, and above all Africans, meet, giving this music sensuality, aesthetic beauty, and “MUCHO SABOR.” For this reason, in every corner of the world where salsa arrives, IT STAYS.

Among the Latin American, and particularly Caribbean, dances, what is today called salsa is a mix of Afro-Caribbean rhythms such as son montuno, mambo, bomba y plena. Musically, salsa was born between the Caribbean and New York, and as a dance it blends its Afro-Cuban roots with some distinctly European characteristics. Undergoing important influences from other dances (modern jazz, tap dance, pachanga…), it found a further evolution in the Puerto Rican environment of New York. To summarize, one could say that everything concerning the rhythmic movements of the body (shoulders, torso, hips, bending of the legs…) originates from Afro-Caribbean culture, while the various figured evolutions in couples, the turn techniques, and so on, have, on the contrary, a European origin. It is also for this reason that salsa takes on different nuances and different styles depending on the place where it is danced and on the various artists who, over the years, have brought their way of interpreting it to the attention of the world’s audience. The movement that led to the birth of this musical genre began in New York, where Caribbean people who grew up in the BARRIO known as “Spanish Harlem,” together with other young musicians, sought a new ‘sound’ and created this special musical recipe that blended distinctly Caribbean bases with Jazz influences while maintaining the “flavor” (sabor) of the other Caribbean rhythms. These groups played in the streets of New York City long before Pacheco and Masucci founded Fania.

Fania All Stars

As the Colombian writer José Arteaga tells us: “The Fania All Stars was not just an orchestra formed by the most famous Latin American artists. The enchantment, the attraction it represented, went beyond the simple musical fact. Its voice was the most genuine expression of those places full of misery and infinite poverty, where people lived to the frenetic rhythm of the great city; where the scarce time that could be found for rest was devoted to the only thing that kept this gigantic community alive and united: the music of the Antilles. That same music that the Cubans called son and the Puerto Ricans bomba, the same that within a few years, thanks also to the great enthusiasm provoked by the Fania All Stars, ended up taking on, for this and later generations, the name salsa.”

The Fania record label was founded, toward the end of the 1960s, by the Dominican Johnny Pacheco with the support of Jerry Masucci, a lawyer of Italian origin. They contacted emerging artists: Larry Harlow, Bobby Valentín, Ray Barretto, Willie Colón. The Fania label, taking advantage of the growing interest in the music it produced, soon signed almost all the Latin orchestras operating in the city. At that point it seemed inevitable to create, within the label, a group formed by the best artists under contract. This fantastic band took the name Fania All Stars and became one of the main architects of the salsa boom. The first gathering of the Fania All Stars took place in a small venue in the Bronx, the Red Garter. It was only a preview of what would be the orchestra’s official debut: the historic concert took place at the Cheetah (Broadway) on August 26, 1971. On that occasion, the Fania All Stars featured Ray Barretto on congas, Roberto Roena on bongó, and Orestes Vilató on timbales. Ismael Miranda, Héctor Lavoe, Bobby Cruz, Ricardo Ray, Cheo Feliciano (who came from Joe Cuba’s sextet). On August 24, 1973, the Fania All Stars performed at Yankee Stadium in New York. Amid the enthusiasm of the forty thousand people present, the Fania stars began to play, but the audience, in an attempt to get close to their idols, overran the barriers, security included, and invaded the field. The musicians barely managed to finish the first song, while a desolate voice announced the end of the concert. For salsa to truly become a millionaire enterprise, it had to go beyond the Latin market alone; it had to conquer the American public and then take flight toward the entire world. To achieve this goal, the entrepreneurs necessarily had to change the image of salsa. This was without a doubt one of the characteristics along which the boom developed—one that, on the one hand, would increase sales, and on the other, would distance salsa from its origins. In 1971 Celia Cruz officially became part of the group. Fania signed a contract with the very powerful CBS label for the distribution of its products at an international level. In the meantime, the stars of the group had been reduced to: Papo Lucca, piano; Ray Barretto, congas; Roberto Roena, bongó; Nicky Marrero, timbales; Bobby Valentín, bass; Johnny Pacheco, flute and orchestra direction. To them, in an attempt to also win over a different audience, was added Steve Winwood, a prestigious English multi-instrumentalist from the old epic of rock. In 1978 the orchestra released another album baptized “Spanish Fever,” riding the wave of the overwhelming success of John Travolta’s film “Saturday Night Fever.” The outcome of the album, however, was not enthusiastic. The fundamental mistake was precisely that of trying at all costs to enter the American market, a market that has always been hostile toward all those musical expressions with an authentically ethnic root. With the end of the salsa boom, the Fania All Stars definitively closed its golden experience, returning only sporadically to the stage or the recording studio, gathering the still-active stars from time to time. The Fania All Stars would in fact become a symbol: the salsa orchestra par excellence, an authentic point of reference, capable of marking a decisive turning point in the evolution of all Afro-Latin-Caribbean music.

Salsa brava. Brava in Spanish is a synonym for bad, hard. Salsa as an ethno-musical movement was born in New York at the end of the 1960s. It was born mainly in Spanish Harlem, the ghetto where most Latin immigrants lived. It is a music that has a deep Caribbean root (in particular Cuban music) but which is characterized from the very beginning by its typically urban nature. It reproduces the atmospheres of that ghetto through a very aggressive, dirty, almost piercing sound, characterized by trombones on the edge of being out of tune and by an atmosphere as dark as it is rebellious. This type of salsa is also called salsa-guaguancó, because it very closely recalls certain atmospheres typical of Cuban rumba. Guaguancó is in fact one of the variants of rumba. The term guaguancó, however, must not lead the newcomer to confuse these two musical genres, which are very different from one another.

Salsa gorda, on the other hand, is the one produced mainly in Puerto Rico (but also in Venezuela and Colombia). Gorda means fat, and that type of salsa gives precisely the idea of a round, sabrosa music, certainly more cadenced, but at the same time more playful, more cheerful, with lyrics that are often ironic and rich in double meanings. Characteristics that are, not by chance, typical of the guaracha (another musical genre very popular not only in Cuba and Puerto Rico but throughout the Caribbean).

Salsa conciencia (conscience) is in reality also born in New York and is characterized above all by its lyrics, which are very rich in social content. Among its main exponents we find Rubén Blades, considered something of the Bob Dylan of salsa.

Salsa romántica, instead, was born in the 1980s. It is a happy fusion between salsa and the Latin American balada. The balada is a musical genre very close to our own melodic songs. Beyond the very romantic lyrics, the music too is softer. In this case the rhythm leaves more space for the melody.

In salsa erótica everything becomes even more explicit, and explicit references are made to sex. It speaks of fiery sheets, of embraces, of endless orgasms. The music is even softer, the rhythmic part increasingly nuanced, and the voice of the singers increasingly whispered.

Techno salsa was born in the new millennium and is clearly a salsa that makes use of the massive use of electronics, with sampled sounds, pumped-up bass, synthesizers, and electronic drums that bring it closer to a younger audience.

Timba, on the other hand, is contemporary Cuban music. It was born in the 1990s and reflects the profound social changes that occurred precisely during the so-called “periodo especial.” It can be considered a logical evolution of songo, which was in turn an evolution of son. Among its creators we have José Luis Cortés “El Tosco,” former flutist of the group Irakere and current leader of the group NG La Banda. It has a musical philosophy very different from salsa, both in terms of orchestrations, sounds, timbres, arrangements, and vocal interpretations. It often tends to blend different musical genres, all through a happy and successful marriage between modernism and tradition.

Salsatón is very recent. It was born in Puerto Rico and tends to mix (with often questionable results) salsa with reggaeton. A similar trend is also emerging in Cuba, where there is already talk of timbatón.

By classic salsa we mean all the salsa produced between the 1960s and the 1990s—that is, the golden age of this musical expression, so rich yet at the same time so controversial.