Cincinnati's Premier Salsa Dance Classes with Doni
SALSA, the term "Salsa" would be a great marketing case study, since it was created to give the music an easy to remember name, and to represent all the mix of musical generes (son montuno, rumba, jazz, mozambique, danzón, guaracha, bomba, mambo, conga, and more).
The history of Salsa and Casino.
The ORIGIN of SALSA....
After having explained the literal meaning of the term SALSA, it is now important for all the dancers and lovers of this music genre to know how SALSA originates, where its roots are, why this name.
We can see its history in a song by Willy Chirino. In a refrain of "Medias Negras" he says:
«….y si en la calle Serra te la encuentras dile que le he escrito un 'SON' de corazón...»
(«….and if on Serra street you see her, just tell her I have written for her a 'SON' from my heart...»).
Here Willy Chirino, a Cuban musician living in Miami and considered one of the world's great 'Salseros', says he has written a "SON". This is the origin of SALSA or, from a different point of view, SALSA is nothing else but a modernized Cuban SON, enriched by other musical elements, styles and peculiar interpretations.
SON was originally brought to Havana from Cuba's eastern provinces during the 1920s by the Troubadours. Pursuing better lives and with only their guitars and their voices to make a living, they performed improvised versions of the so-called SON montuno making people dance to the "Tumbáo" beat at the glittering parties of Havana and even along the city streets.
Among the first early performers of this rhythm were Ignacio Piñero, María Teresa Vera, and Miguel Matamoros.
They played guitar in a way that was influenced by music of the Spanish colonization, and made clever use of Maracas and Gûiros (instruments of the aboriginal Taino tribes of Cuba) as well as the classic Clave Cubana.
To this new sound was added extemporaneous verse they sang with the extemporization and the controversy techniques. Their musical narrative seduced the chattering classes of Cuba's aristocratic capital.
So in the best dance halls and in popular clubs, such as Casino Deportivo or Casino de la Playa, one could dance not only Waltz, Danza, Contradanza and Danzón were danced, but also this new rhythm called SON.
With time, the SON rhythm blanketed the nation and was adopted by all kinds of Cuban bands, from Trios to Septets and more. New instruments were introduced and, as the bands sonorities were improved, Orquestras and Charangas, such as La Sonora Matanzera (1929), were formed. They included not only guitars, Gûiros and Claves but also with Congas, Timbales, Bongó, Piano and Trumpet (1927 by Félix Chapotin).
Because of the poor economy in Cuba, many Cuban musicians travel abroad in search of better earnings. . These travels introduced the Cuban son to musicians in other Latin cultures, and in Mexico and New York City in particular, where some of the largest and most successful record labels resided. Far from its island home, the SON rhythm was performed in a variety of styles and with an increasingly larger range of interpretations by musicians from different Latin-American countries.
Soon thereafter, in the late 1960s, Latinos in the United States mixed the Cuban SON with elements of the burgeoning Rock and Roll scene as well as other, more traditional forms of Latin music. They added favorite bits of Merengue, Bossanova, Cumbia, Cha Cha Cha, Mambo, and Boogie-Woogie. The resulting crazy quilt of rhythm was known affectionately as "BOOGALOO". The celebrated musician Tito Puente, observing this tremendous mixture of styles at a Fania All Stars concert in New York's Madison Square Garden, gazing out at the dancing sea of interpretations and amalgamations, remarked,
«¡Esto es una gran SALSA!».
His words were borrowed from a well-known old Cuban SON called "Echale Salsita!" The term SALSA proved to be a short and memorable label under which to gather the many undulating strands of the son. Recording companies also found it to be a convenient term for finding and marketing new acts. The SALSA name has stuck, ever since.
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