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The music of Cuba, including its instruments, performance, and dance, comprises a large set of unique traditions influenced mostly by west African and European music. Due to the syncretic nature of most of its genres, Cuban music is often considered one of the richest and most influential regional music in the world. For instance, the son cubano merges an adapted Spanish guitar (tres), melody, harmony, and lyrical traditions with Afro-Cuban percussion and rhythms. Almost nothing remains of the original native traditions, since the native population was exterminated in the 16th century.
Bongos are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. The pair consists of the larger hembra and the smaller macho, which are joined by a wooden bridge. They are played with both hands and usually held between the legs, although in some cases, as in classical music, they may be played with sticks or mounted on stands.
Rhumba, also known as ballroom rumba, is a genre of ballroom music and dance that appeared in the East Coast of the United States during the 1930s. It combined American big band music with Afro-Cuban rhythms, primarily the son cubano, but also conga and rumba. Although taking its name from the latter, ballroom rumba differs completely from Cuban rumba in both its music and its dance. Hence, authors prefer the Americanized spelling of the word (rhumba) to distinguish between them.
Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría Rodríguez was a Cuban percussionist and bandleader who spent most of his career in the United States. Primarily a conga drummer, Santamaría was a leading figure in the pachanga and boogaloo dance crazes of the 1960s. His biggest hit was his rendition of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. From the 1970s, he recorded mainly salsa and Latin jazz, before retiring in the late 1990s.
Ernesto Lecuona y Casado was a Cuban composer and pianist, many of whose works have become standards of the Latin, jazz and classical repertoires. His over 600 compositions include songs and zarzuelas as well as pieces for piano and symphonic orchestra.
Machito was a Latin jazz musician who helped refine Afro-Cuban jazz and create both Cubop and salsa music. He was raised in Havana with the singer Graciela, his foster sister.
Prudencio Mario Bauzá Cárdenas was an Afro-Cuban jazz, and jazz musician. He was among the first to introduce Cuban music to the United States by bringing Cuban musical styles to the New York City jazz scene. While Cuban bands had had popular jazz tunes in their repertoire for years, Bauzá's composition "Tangá" was the first piece to blend jazz harmony and arranging technique, with jazz soloists and Afro-Cuban rhythms. It is considered the first true Afro-Cuban jazz tune.
Cándido Camero Guerra, known simply as Cándido, was a Cuban conga and bongo player. He is considered a pioneer of Afro-Cuban jazz and an innovator in conga drumming. He was responsible for the embracing of the tuneable conga drum, the first to play multiple congas developing the techniques that all players use today, as well as the combination of congas, bongos, and other instruments such as the foot-operated cowbell, an attached guiro, all played by just one person. Thus he is the creator of the multiple percussion set-up.
"El manisero", known in English as "The Peanut Vendor", is a Cuban son-pregón composed by Moisés Simons. It has been recorded more than 160 times, sold over a million copies of the sheet music, and was the first million-selling 78 rpm single of Cuban music. In 1933, artist Len Lye created a short film by the same name.
"Para Vigo me voy", known in English as "Say Si Si", is a popular song written in 1935 by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona with lyrics by Francia Luban and Al Stillman. Early bands to record the song include Xavier Cugat's orchestra (1935) and Lecuona Cuban Boys (1937). The song was copyrighted in the United States in 1940. It became a hit in the US when it was recorded by The Andrews Sisters and Glenn Miller in 1940, and The Mills Brothers in 1953.
Orquesta Riverside was a highly successful Cuban big band that was amongst the most popular ensembles of the 1940s and 1950s. Founded in 1938, it was originally directed by local musician Enrique González Mantici until 1945. Other directors were Antonio Sosa (1945–47), Pedro Vila (1947–57), Adolfo Guzmán (1957–62), Argelio González and Nelson Arocha.
Anacaona is the name of an all-female orchestra, founded in Havana in the early 1930s by Concepción "Cuchito" Castro Zaldarriaga and her sisters. Eventually, all 11 sisters joined the band. The band was formed during the Machado era when the political situation led to university closings, forcing Cuchito Castro to abandon her studies and her plan to start a dental practice. Instead, she chose a different career in 1932 by proposing a female septet to challenge the male-dominated son music. At the time, it was believed women were not capable of playing son. The band enjoyed close musical ties with well-known Cuban performers, in particular with Ignacio Piñeiro and Lázaro Herrera of the Septeto Nacional. Graciela, whose brother Machito laid the foundations of Latin Jazz, was Anacaona's lead singer for a decade.
Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda, known as Rita Montaner, was a Cuban singer, pianist and actress. In Cuban parlance, she was a vedette, and was well known in Mexico City, Paris, Miami and New York, where she performed, filmed and recorded on numerous occasions. She was one of Cuba's most popular artists between the late 1920s and 1950s, renowned as Rita de Cuba. Though classically trained as a soprano for zarzuelas, her mark was made as a singer of Afro-Cuban salon songs including "The Peanut Vendor" and "Siboney".
Early Cuban bands played popular music for dances and theatres during the period 1780–1930. During this period Cuban music became creolized, and its European and African origins gradually changed to become genuinely Cuban. Instrumentation and music continually developed during this period. The information listed here is in date order, and comes from whatever records survive to the present day.
Julio Cueva was a Cuban trumpeter, composer and band leader. He was an important figure in the spread of Cuban popular music in the 1930s.
Eliseo Grenet Sánchez was a Cuban pianist and a leading composer/arranger of the day. He composed music for stage shows and films, and some famous Cuban dance music. Eliseo was one of three musical brothers, all composers, the others being Emilio and Ernesto (1908–1981). Emilio went on composing even after having a leg bitten off by a shark in 1930; Ernesto was a drummer who became leader of the Tropicana's orchestra.
Moisés Simons, was a leading Cuban composer, pianist, and orchestra leader. He was the composer of El Manisero which is considered by many to be the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician and has since been recorded by other musicians from around the world hundreds of times.
Armando Oréfiche was a Cuban composer and pianist in the mid-20th century.
Carlos Barbería began his career in Havana, Cuba in the 1950s playing night clubs such as Monmatre and Tropicana. An early album titled "Carlos Barbería and his Orquesta "Kubavana" featured singer Yvette De La Fuente who performed with the band during the mid-1950s in Havana. "Bésame Mucho", Consuelo Velazquez' classic bolero, sung and recorded internationally by many artists and which was later recorded by the Beatles and the 2008 recording by Luis Miguel of another old classic "La Gloria Eres Tu" by Jose Antonio Mendez, were two of the songs on the album. During the 1950s Barberia also directed a smaller ensemble or combo, which featured Regino Tellechea and also Ivette de la Fuente as singers. His jazz band in Havana also featured famous sonero/bolerista singers like Raúl Planas, Juan Antonio Jo "El Fantasmita" and sometimes Rudy Calzado and Carlos Embale. In his day Barberia was very talented and a great host. In Havana he met the famous Ava Gardner. That same night the actress invited him out; she loved the way he conducted his orchestra, the way he would wear the "habanera", a typical Cuban shirt. Barberia with his band and combo steadily recorded for various Cuban labels. He was featured in Cuba's foremost TV and radio stations as well as featured in Havana's top night clubs and theatres. During the 1970s and 1980s Barbería led a Cuban big band, Orquesta Kubavana, in New York. Artists who performed with him included Paquito D'Rivera, Willy 'El Baby' Rodríguez, and Meñique. as well as a featured performance by Yvette De La Fuente.
Tocororo is a jazz album by Alfredo Rodríguez, the third under his leadership. Named after a Cuban bird that dies of sadness in captivity, the theme of the album is mourning and celebrating lost beauty after Rodríguez' leaving Cuba and living in USA for seven years.
References
- ↑ Information from liner notes to the Harlequin LCB series of LPs and CDs, derived from a surviving member of the band, Gerardo Bruguera.
- ↑ Sublette, Ned 2004. Cuba and its music: from the first drums to the mambo. Chicago. p408
- ↑ Harlequin Records put out on CDs the complete sequence of the LCB 78rpm recordings with detailed liner notes; the conga features in six numbers on the first CD.
