Mambo is a genre of Cuban dance music pioneered by the charanga Arcaño y sus Maravillas in the late 1930s and later popularized in the big band style by Pérez Prado. It originated as a syncopated form of the danzón, known as danzón-mambo, with a final, improvised section, which incorporated the guajeos typical of son cubano. These guajeos became the essence of the genre when it was played by big bands, which did not perform the traditional sections of the danzón and instead leaned towards swing and jazz. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, mambo had become a "dance craze" in Mexico and the United States as its associated dance took over the East Coast thanks to Pérez Prado, Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez and others. In the mid-1950s, a slower ballroom style, also derived from the danzón, cha-cha-cha, replaced mambo as the most popular dance genre in North America. Nonetheless, mambo continued to enjoy some degree of popularity into the 1960s and new derivative styles appeared, such as dengue; by the 1970s it had been largely incorporated into salsa.
Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, pianist, composer and arranger who popularized the mambo in the 1950s. His big band adaptation of the danzón-mambo proved to be a worldwide success with hits such as "Mambo No. 5", earning him the nickname "King of the Mambo". In 1955, Prado and his orchestra topped the charts in the US and UK with a mambo cover of Louiguy's "Cherry Pink ". He frequently made brief appearances in films, primarily of the rumberas genre, and his music was featured in films such as La Dolce Vita.
Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré Gutiérrez, better known as Benny Moré, was a Cuban singer, bandleader and songwriter. Due to his fluid tenor voice and his great expressivity, he was known variously as El Bárbaro del Ritmo and El Sonero Mayor. Moré was a master of the soneo – the art of vocal improvisation in son cubano – and many of his tunes developed this way. He often took part in controversias with other singers like Cheo Marquetti and Joseíto Fernández. Apart from son cubano, Moré was a popular singer of guarachas, cha cha cha, mambo, son montuno, and boleros.
The Trío Matamoros was a Cuban trova group. It was formed in 1925 by Miguel Matamoros, Rafael Cueto and Siro Rodríguez. All three were singers and composers. The group was originally called Trio Oriental, but changed their name to Trio Matamoros in 1928 after finding that a group called Trio Oriental already existed.
Roberto Torres is a Cuban singer, percussionist, bandleader and producer. Born in Güines, Cuba, he moved to the United States in 1959, where he became involved in the Latin music scenes of New York and Miami. In 1979, he founded two record labels, Guajiro Records and its subsidiary, SAR, both devoted to Cuban music. As a singer and musician, he is famous for his combination of Cuban and Colombian music, which he termed "charanga vallenata". His biggest hit was a cover version of Simón Díaz's "Caballo Viejo". He was a member of the Sonora Matancera for three years. He has also appeared in music documentaries such as Son sabrosón: antesala de la salsa.
Orquesta Aragón is a Cuban musical band formed on 30 September 1939, by Orestes Aragón Cantero in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The band originally had the name Ritmica 39, then Ritmica Aragón before settling on its final form. Though they did not create the Cha-cha-cha, they were arguably the best charanga in Cuba during the 1950s and 1960s. Their trade-marks included high-class instrumentalists playing in tight ensemble style, and rhythmical innovations which kept their sound up to date. Over the years they progressed from their start as a danzoneria to play a wider variety of styles, danzón, then cha-cha-cha, then onda-cha, pachanga and son fusions. They still perform today, based in Havana.
Pablo Rodríguez Lozada, better known as Tito Rodríguez, was a Puerto Rican singer and bandleader. He started his career singing under the tutelage of his brother, Johnny Rodríguez. In the 1940s, both moved to New York, where Tito worked as a percussionist in several popular rhumba ensembles, before directing his own group to great success during the 1950s. His most prolific years coincided with the peak of the mambo and cha-cha-cha dance craze. He also recorded boleros, sones, guarachas and pachangas.
Roberto Faz Monzón was a Cuban singer who reached the height of his popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. Like his contemporary Benny Moré, he specialized in many forms of Cuban music such as son, guaracha and bolero. He was a member of the Conjunto Kubavana for three years before joining the Conjunto Casino in 1944. At the Casino he sang alongside Agustín Ribot and Roberto Espí, achieving great success. In 1956 he left the Casino to establish his own conjunto, where he sang with Orlando Reyes and Roeangel Rodríguez "Rolito". He continued to tour and record with his band until his death in 1966.
Pachanga is a genre of music which is described as a mixture of son montuno and merengue and has an accompanying signature style of dance. This type of music has a festive, lively style and is marked by jocular, mischievous lyrics. Pachanga originated in Cuba in the 1950s and played an important role in the evolution of Caribbean style music as it is today. Considered a prominent contributor to the eventual rise of salsa, Pachanga itself is an offshoot of Charanga style music. Very similar in sound to Cha-Cha but with a notably stronger down-beat, Pachanga once experienced massive popularity all across the Caribbean and was brought to the United States by Cuban immigrants post World War II. This led to an explosion of Pachanga music in Cuban music clubs that influenced Latin culture in the United States for decades to come.
Rock and roll music was introduced in Cuba in the late 1950s, with many Cuban artists of the time covering American songs translated into Spanish, as was occurring in Mexico at the same time. "The Batista police never looked kindly on Rock and Roll, and much less after the screening of films like Rebel Without a Cause and The Bad Seed, among others. After 1959, Rock and Roll followed the same path, although artists like Argentinean Luis Aguile emerged."
Juan Pablo Knipping Pacheco, known as Johnny Pacheco, was a Dominican musician, arranger, composer, bandleader, and record producer. Born in the Dominican Republic, Pacheco became a leading figure in the New York salsa scene in the 1960s and 1970s as the founder and musical director of Fania Records.
Yotuel Omar Romero Manzanares, mononymously known as Yotuel, is a Cuban singer, actor, and current lead singer and co-writer of the 2003 Latin Grammy Award-winning Platinum album-selling rap group Orishas. Among other recordings, Emigrante won the 2003 Latin Grammy Award for Best Rap/Hip-Hop Album. This same album was also nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album.
King África is an Argentine dance music project that caught interest in 2000 due to the remake of their own 1993 song "Salta", and also for their cover version of "La Bomba" by the Bolivian group Azul Azul. It was founded in the early 1990s by DJ Martin Laacré.
René Touzet y Monte was a Cuban-born American composer, pianist and bandleader.
Cecilia Valdés is both a novel by the Cuban writer Cirilo Villaverde (1812–1894), and a zarzuela based on the novel. It is a work of importance for its quality, and its revelation of the interaction of classes and races in Havana, Cuba.
Roberto Fonseca is a Cuban jazz pianist. From an early age, Fonseca was surrounded by music: his father was drum player Roberto Fonseca, Sr, his mother, Mercedes Cortes Alfaro, a professional singer, and his two older half-brothers from his mother's previous marriage to the pianist and musician Jesús "Chucho" Valdés are Emilio Valdés (drums) and Jesús "Chuchito" Valdés Jr. (piano).
Roberto Angleró Pepín was a Puerto Rican music composer and singer, notable for writing various hit songs in the bolero, salsa and Afro-Puerto Rican music genres. He is known for having written various major Spanish language music singles such as "La Pared", "Si Dios fuera negro", "La boda de ella", "Soy Boricua" and others.
Eduardo Davidson (1929–1994) Was born Claudio Cuza on October 30, 1929, in Baracoa, Cuba and died June 10, 1994, in New York City, US. He is best known as the creator of the pachanga, style of music. His 1959 song "La Pachanga" hybridized Afro-Cuban Lucumí and Bembé rhythms from their Nigerian Yoruba traditions, pairing them with Brazilian Samba. Davidson also is credited with choreographing the original form of the Pachanga dance. The song La Pachanga debuted on May 21, 1959, on the CMQ television's musical program “Casino de la Alegria”. Davidson was a writer for the program and specifically wrote it for vocalist Ruben Rios and chose Orquesta Sublime to play the instrumentation. It was also first recorded by Orquesta Sublime with vocals by Ruben Rios. Though other sources incorrectly contend that José Fajardo's charanga band was the first to perform a pachanga. Fajardo, was critical to making Pachanga a mainstream success, composed many Pachanga orchestrations, and was forever associated with the Pachanga style of music.
Pachanga is a genre of music which is described as a mixture of son montuno and merengue and has an accompanying signature style of dance.
