Salsa music

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Salsa
Stylistic
origins

Primarily Cuban son[1] and jazz[2]

1970s New York City immigrant

communities from Cuba and Puerto
Rico[1][3][4]
Piano, bongos, congas, timbales,
trumpet, trombone, claves, cowbell,
Typical
maracas, giro, double bass/bass
instruments
guitar, flute, saxophone, vibraphone,
violin, tres/cuatro
Subgenres
Salsa romntica - Salsa dura
Fusion genres
Charanga-vallenata Songo-salsa vallenato-salsa
Salsaton
Regional scenes
Colombia Cuba Dominican Republic Africa Panama Puerto Rico United States Venezuela
Cultural
origins

Conga drums, one of the foundational instruments of salsa music.

Salsa music is a general term referring to a genre that is based largely on Cuban and Puerto
Rican popular dance music. It initially arose in New York City during the 1970s. Salsa is the
product of various musical genres including the Cuban son montuno, guaracha, chachach,
mambo, and to a certain extent bolero, and the the Puerto Rican bomba and plena. Latin jazz,
which was also developed in New York City, has had a significant influence on salsa arrangers,
piano guajeos, and instrumental soloists.[5]

Salsa is primarily Cuban son, itself a fusion of Spanish cancin and guitar and Afro-Cuban
percussion, merged with North American music styles such as jazz. Salsa also occasionally
incorporates elements of rock, R&B, and funk.[6] All of these non-Cuban elements are grafted
onto the basic Cuban son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa.[7]
The first salsa bands were predominantly "Nuyorican" (New Yorkers of Puerto Rican descent) or
Puerto Ricans who moved to New York.[8][9][10] The music eventually spread throughout Colombia
and the rest of the Americas.[11] Ultimately, it became a global phenomenon. Some of the
founding salsa artists were Johnny Pacheco (the creator of the Fania All-Stars), Ray Barretto,
Willie Coln, Larry Harlow, Roberto Roena, Bobby Valentn, Eddie Palmieri, and Hctor Lavoe.
[12]

Contents

1 Salsa as a musical term

2 Issues of identity and ownership

3 Lyrics

4 Instrumentation
o 4.1 Son Conjunto
o 4.2 String charanga
o 4.3 Percussion

5 Music structure
o 5.1 Verse and chorus sections
o 5.2 Clave
o 5.3 Percussion and clave alignment
o 5.4 Guajeo
o 5.5 Bass tumbao
o 5.6 Moas

6 History

o 6.1 Pre-salsa: Cuban dance music in New York City 1940s-1970s

o 6.2 1970s
o 6.3 Divergence of salsa and Cuban popular music
o 6.4 1980s
o 6.5 "Salsa cubana" and the birth of timba
o 6.6 African salsa
o 6.7 1990s to the present

7 Films

8 See also

9 References

10 Further reading

11 External links

Salsa as a musical term

Salsa means 'sauce' in the Spanish language, and carries connotations of the spiciness common in
Latin and Caribbean cuisine.[13] In the 20th century, salsa acquired a musical meaning in both
English and Spanish. In this sense salsa has been described as a word with "vivid
associations."[14] Cuban and Dominican immigrants and Puerto Rican in New York have used the
term analogously to swing or soul music. In this usage salsa connotes a frenzied, "hot" and wild
musical experience that draws upon or reflects elements of Latin culture, regardless of the style.
[15][16]

Various music writers and historians have traced the use of salsa to different periods of the 20th
century. Max Salazar traces the word back to the early 1930s, when Ignacio Pieiro composed
"chale salsita", a Cuban son protesting tasteless food.[17] While Salazar describes this song as
the origin of salsa meaning "danceable Latin music", Ed Morales describes the usage in the same
song as a cry from Pieiro to his band, telling them to increase the tempo to "put the dancers into
high gear".[18] Morales claims that later in the 1930s, vocalist Beny Mor would shout salsa
during a performance "to acknowledge a musical moment's heat, to express a kind of cultural
nationalist sloganeering [and to celebrate the] 'hotness' or 'spiciness' of Latin American cultures".
[18]
World music author Sue Steward claims salsa was originally used in music as a "cry of
appreciation for a particularly piquant or flashy solo".[14] She cites the first use in this manner to a
Venezuelan radio DJ named Phidias Danilo Escalona;[14][19] In 1955 Cheo Marquetti created a

new band called Conjunto Los Salseros and recorded some new songs ( Sonero and Que no
muera el son ).In 1955 Jos Curbelo recorded some others salsa songs (La familia, La la la and
Sun sun sun ba bae). The contemporary meaning of salsa as a musical genre can be traced back
to New York City Latin music promoter Izzy Sanabria:[20]
"In 1973, I hosted the television show Salsa which was the first reference to this particular music
as salsa. I was using [the term] salsa, but the music wasn't defined by that. The music was still
defined as Latin music. And that was a very, very broad category, because it even includes
mariachi music. It includes everything. So salsa defined this particular type of music... It's a
name that everyone could pronounce."[21]
Sanabria's Latin New York magazine was an English language publication. Consequently, his
promoted events were covered in The New York Times, as well as Time and Newsweek
magazines. They reported on this "new" phenomenon taking New York by stormsalsa.[22]
But promotion certainly wasn't the only factor in the music's success, as Sanabria makes clear:
"Musicians were busy creating the music but played no role in promoting the name salsa."[23]
Johnny Pacheco, the creative director and producer of Fania Records, molded New York salsa
into a tight, polished and commercially successful sound. The unprecedented appeal of New
York salsa, particularly the "Fania sound," led to its adoption across Latin America and
elsewhere.
Globally, the term salsa has eclipsed the original names of the various Cuban musical genres it
encompasses. Ironically, Cuban-based music was promoted more effectively worldwide in the
1970s and 1980s by the salsa industry, than by Cuba. For a brief time in the early 1990s a fair
number of Cuban musicians embraced the term, calling their own music salsa Cubana.[24] The
practice did not catch on however.

Issues of identity and ownership

Graciela on claves and her brother Machito on maracas; Machito said that salsa was much like
what he had been playing from the 1940s.

There is considerable controversy surrounding the term salsa and the idea that it is its own
distinct genre. Several New York musicians who had already been performing Cuban dance
music for decades when salsa was popularized initially scoffed at the term. For example, Cubanborn Machito declared: "There's nothing new about salsa, it is just the same old music that was
played in Cuba for over fifty years."[23] Similarly, New York native Tito Puente stated: "The only
salsa I know is sold in a bottle called ketchup. I play Cuban music."[25] Eventually though, both
Machito and Puente embraced the term as a financial necessity.[26][27]
The salsa conflict can be summarized as a disagreement between those who do not recognize
salsa as anything other than Cuban music with another name,[14][25] and those who strongly
identify with salsa as a music and culture distinct from its Cuban primogenitor.[25]
The concept of salsa music which began as a marketing ploy created by Izzy Sanabria was
successfully exploited by Fania Records, then eventually took on a life of its own, organically
evolving into an authentic pan-Latin American cultural identity. Music professor and salsa
trombonist Christopher Washburne writes:
"This pan-Latino association of salsa stems from what Felix Padilla labels a 'Latinizing' process
that occurred in the 1960s and was consciously marketed by Fania Records: 'To Fania, the
Latinizing of salsa came to mean homogenizing the product, presenting an all-embracing PanAmerican or Latino sound with which the people from all of Latin America and Spanishspeaking communities in the United States could identify and purchase.' Motivated primarily by
economic factors, Fania's push for countries throughout Latin America to embrace salsa did
result in an expanded market. But in addition, throughout the 1970s, salsa groups from
Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, among other Latin American nations,
emerged, composing and performing music that related to their own specific cultural experiences
and affiliations, which posited salsa as a cultural identity marker for those nations as well."[28]
The Cuban origins of the music do not conveniently fit into the pan-Latino narrative. Many
leading salsa artists have described salsa in broad and inclusive, but vague terms, making no
mention of the music's Cuban foundation. For example, Johnny Pacheco has consistently
articulated a vision of salsa as a broad, multi-ethnic movement: "Salsa was, and still is, a
Caribbean musical movement."[29] Similarly, Willie Coln sees the scope of salsa's power to unite
in the broadest terms: "Salsa was the force that united diverse Latino and other non-Latino racial
and ethnic groups... It is a concept. An open, ever-evolving musical, cultural, socio-political
concept."[30] Rubn Blades' definition of salsa is also inclusive: "Salsa music is urban folklore at
the international level."[25] In the pivotal documentary movie Salsa: Latin Pop Music in Cities
(1979), the history of salsa is explained as a mixing of African, Caribbean, and New York
cultures and musics, with no mention of Cuba. In one scene, the Afro-Cuban folkloric genres of
bat and rumba are shown being performed in Puerto Rico, implying that they originated there.
In advancing the concept of salsa as a musical "sauce", containing many different ingredients
from various cultures mixed together, some point to the occasional use of non-Cuban forms in
salsa, such as the Puerto Rican bomba. The percentage of salsa compositions based in non-Cuban
genres is low though, and despite an openness to experimentation and a willingness to absorb
non-Cuban influences, salsa has remained consistently wedded to its Cuban templates.[31] It was

common practice for salsa bands to resurrect pre-salsa Cuban classics. For example, several of
Arsenio Rodriguez's son montunos from the 1940s, such as "Fuego en el 23" (recorded by
Sonora Poncea) and "El divorcio" (recorded by Johnny Pacheco) were modernized by salsa
arrangers. The pan-Latin Americanism of salsa is found in its cultural milieu, more than its
musical structure.[32] Today, competing nationalities claim ownership of the music, as there are
musicians in New York City, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Venezuela, who claim salsa was
invented in their country.[33]
The salsa controversy is also closely tied to the decades-long estrangement between the
governments of the United States and Cuba, and the United States embargo against Cuba. Radio
stations in the United States would get bomb threats (presumably from Cuban exiles) for playing
Cuban records over the air.[citation needed] Homegrown salsa on the other hand, was embraced. For a
time the Cuban state media officially claimed that the term salsa music was a euphemism for
authentic Cuban music stolen by American imperialists, though the media has since abandoned
this theory.[34]
Mayra Martnez, a Cuban musicologist, writes that "the term salsa was used to obscure the
Cuban base, the music's history or part of its history in Cuba. And salsa was a way to do this so
that Jerry Masucci, Fania and other record companies, like CBS, could have a hegemony on the
music and keep the Cuban musicians from spreading their music abroad."[35] Izzy Sanabria
responds that Martnez was likely giving an accurate Cuban viewpoint, "but salsa was not
planned that way."[35]

Lyrics
Salsa lyrics range from simple dance numbers, and sentimental romantic songs, to risque and
politically radical subject matter. Music author Isabelle Leymarie notes that salsa performers
often incorporate machoistic bravado[disambiguation needed] (guapera) in their lyrics, in a manner
reminiscent of calypso and samba, a theme she ascribes to the performers' "humble backgrounds"
and subsequent need to compensate for their origins. Leymarie claims that salsa is "essentially
virile, an affirmation of the man's pride and identity." As an extension of salsa's macho stance,
manly taunts and challenges (desafio) are also a traditional part of salsa.[36]
Salsa lyrics often quote from traditional Cuban sones and rumbas. Sometimes there are
references to Afro-Cuban religions, such as Santeria, even by artists who are not themselves
practitioners of the faith.[37] Salsa lyrics also exhibit Puerto Rican influences. Hector LaVoe, who
sang with Willie Coln for nearly a decade used typical Puerto Rican phrasing in his singing.[38]
It's not uncommon now to hear the Puerto Rican declamatory exclamation "le-lo-lai" in salsa.[39]
Politically and socially activist composers have long been an important part of salsa, and some of
their works, like Eddie Palmieri's "La libertad - lgico," became Latin, and especially Puerto
Rican anthems. The Panamanian-born singer Ruben Blades in particular is well known for his
socially-conscious and incisive salsa lyrics about everything from imperialism to disarmament
and environmentalism, which have resonated with audiences throughout Latin America.[40] Many
salsa songs contain a nationalist theme, centered around a sense of pride in black Latino identity,
and may be in Spanish, English or a mixture of the two called Spanglish.[36]

Instrumentation
Son Conjunto

Bongos.
Salsa ensembles are typically based on one of two different Cuban instrument formats, either the
horn-based son conjunto or the string-based charanga. Some bands are expanded to the size of a
mambo big band, but they can be thought of as an enlarged conjunto. The traditional conjunto
format consists of congas, bongos, bass, piano, tres, a horn section, and the smaller hand-held
percussion instruments: claves, guro, or maracas, played by the singers. The Cuban horn section
traditionally consists of trumpets, but trombones are frequently used in salsa. The section can
also use a combination of different horns. Most salsa bands are based on the conjunto model, but
the tres is almost never used.

String charanga
The traditional charanga format consists of congas, timbales, bass, piano, flute, and a string
section of violins, viola, and cello. The claves and giro are played by the singers. Bongos are
not typically used in charanga bands. Tpica 73 and Orquesta Broadway were two popular New
York salsa bands in the charanga format.

Percussion
New York based Machito's Afro-Cubans was the first band to make the triumvirate of congas,
bongo, and timbales the standard battery of percussion in Cuban-based dance music.[41] The three
drums are used together in most salsa bands and function in ways similar to a traditional folkloric
drum ensemble. The timbales play the bell pattern, the congas play the supportive drum part, and
the bongos improvise, simulating a lead drum. The improvised variations of the bongos are
executed within the context of a repetitive marcha, known as the martillo ('hammer'), and do not
constitute a solo. The bongos play primarily during the verses and the piano solos. When the
song transitions into the montuno section, the bongo player picks up a large hand held cowbell
called the bongo bell. Often the bongocero plays the bell more during a piece, than the actual
bongos. The interlocking counterpoint of the timbale bell and bongo bell provides a propelling
force during the montuno. The maracas and guro sound a steady flow of regular pulses
(subdivisions) and are ordinarily clave-neutral.

Music structure

Verse and chorus sections

Most salsa compositions follow the basic son montuno model of a verse section, followed by a
coro-pregn (call-and-response) chorus section known as the montuno. The verse section can be
short, or expanded to feature the lead vocalist and/or carefully crafted melodies with clever
rhythmic devices. Once the montuno section begins, it usually continues until the end of the
song. The tempo may gradually increase during the montuno in order to build excitement. The
montuno section can be divided into various sub-sections sometimes referred to as mambo,
diablo, moa, and especial.[42]

Clave

Pair of claves.
The most fundamental rhythmic element in salsa music is a pattern and concept known as clave.
Clave is a Spanish word meaning 'code,' 'key,' as in key to a mystery or puzzle, or 'keystone,' the
wedge-shaped stone in the center of an arch that ties the other stones together.[43] Clave is also the
name of the patterns played on claves; two hardwood sticks used in Afro-Cuban music
ensembles. The five-stroke clave represents the structural core of many Afro-Cuban rhythms,
both popular and folkloric.[44] Just as a keystone holds an arch in place, the clave pattern holds
the rhythm together. The clave patterns originated in sub-Saharan African music traditions,
where they serve the same function as they do in salsa.[45]
The two most common five-stroke African bell parts, which are also the two main clave patterns
used in Afro-Cuban music, are known to salsa musicians as son clave and rumba clave.[46][47][48][49]
[50]
Son and rumba clave can be played in either a triple-pulse (12/8 or 6/8) or duple-pulse (4/4,
2/4 or 2/2) structure.[51] Salsa uses duple-pulse son clave almost exclusively.[52][53]
The contemporary Cuban practice is to write clave in a single measure of 4/4.[54] Clave is written
in this way in the following example in order to illustrate the underlying metric structure of four
main beats, which is fundamental to the dynamism of the pattern.[55]

Son and rumba clave in simple meter (duple-pulse) and compound meter (triple-pulse) variants.
Concerning the role of clave in salsa music, Charley Gerard states: The clave feeling is in the
music whether or not the claves are actually being played.[56] Every ostinato part which spans a
cycle of four main beats, has a specific alignment with clave, and expresses the rhythmic
qualities of clave either explicitly or implicitly. Every salsa musician must know how their
particular part fits with clave, and with the other parts of the ensemble.
The basic conga tumbao, or marcha sounds slaps (triangle noteheads) and open tones (regular
noteheads) on the "and" offbeats.[57] The single tone coinciding with the third stroke of clave is
known as ponche, an important syncopated accent.[58] The specific alignment between clave and
the conga is critical.

Top: clave. Bottom: basic conga tumbao on one drum. S: slap, O: open tone, h: palm heel, t:
finger tips.
The concept of clave as a form of music theory with its accompanying terminology, was fully
developed during the big band era of the 1940s, when dance bands in Havana and New York City
were enlarged.[59] By the time salsa emerged in the 1970s, there was already a second generation

of clave savvy composers and arrangers working in New York. John Santos stresses the
importance of this skill:
"One of the most difficult applications of the clave is in the realm of composition and
arrangement of Cuban and Cuban-based dance music. Regardless of the instrumentation, the
music for all of the instruments of the ensemble must be written with a very keen and conscious
rhythmic relationship to the clave . . . Any breaks and/or stops in the arrangements must also
be in clave. If these procedures are not properly taken into consideration, then the music is 'out
of clave' which, if not done intentionally, is considered an error. When the rhythm and music are
in clave, a great natural swing is produced, regardless of the tempo. All musicians who write
and/or interpret Cuban-based music must be clave conscious, not just the percussionists."[60]
Salsa is a potent expression of clave, and clave became a rhythmic symbol of the musical
movement, as its popularity spread. Clave awareness within the salsa community has served as a
cultural "boundary marker," creating an insider/outsider dichotomy, between Cuban and nonCuban, and between Latino and non-Latino. At the same time though, clave serves its ancient
function of providing a means of profound inclusion. As Washburne observes:
"Clapping clave at a concert in sync with the performing musicians provides for a group
participation in music-making even for a novice. However, the messages transmitted can be, and
often are, imbued with more meaning than simply, 'Let's all participate!' A newcomer to salsa,
whether performer, dancer, listener, or consumer, must acquire some level of clave competence
before engaging in these 'clave dialogues' in a deeper, more significant way."[61]
Before salsa pianist Eddie Palmieri takes his first solo at a live concert, he will often stand up,
and start clapping clave. Once the audience is clapping clave along with him, Palmieri will sit
back down at the piano and proceed to take his solo. Palmieri's solos tend to be rhythmically
complex, with avant-garde elements such as harmonic dissonance. By clapping clave along with
Palmieri's solo, the audience is able to both "de-code" its rather esoteric musical "message," and
participate in its creation at a fundamental level.
Clave is the basic period, composed of two rhythmically opposed cells, one antecedent and the
other consequent. Clave was initially written in two measures of 2/4 (below).[62] When clave is
written in two measures, each cell or clave half is represented within a single measure. The
antecedent half has three strokes and is referred to as the three-side of clave in the parlance of
salsa. In Cuban popular music, the first three strokes of son clave are also known collectively as
tresillo, a Spanish word meaning 'triplet' (three equal beats in the same time as two main beats).
[63]
However, in the Cuban vernacular, the term refers to the figure shown below in the first
measure.[64] The consequent half (second measure) of clave has two strokes and is called the twoside by salsa musicians.

Clave has a binary structure.

The first measure of clave is considered "strong," contradicting the meter with three cross beats
and generating a sense of forward momentum. The second measure is considered "weak." Clave
resolves in the second measure when the last stroke coincides with the last main beat of the
cycle.[65] John Amria describes the rhythmic sequence of clave:
"[With] clave . . . the two measures are not at odds, but rather, they are balanced opposites like
positive and negative, expansive and contractive or the poles of a magnet. As the pattern is
repeated, an alternation from one polarity to the other takes place creating pulse and rhythmic
drive. Were the pattern to be suddenly reversed, the rhythm would be destroyed as in a reversing
of one magnet within a series . . . the patterns are held in place according to both the internal
relationships between the drums and their relationship with clave . . . Should the [music] fall out
of clave the internal momentum of the rhythm will be dissipated and perhaps even broken."[66]

Percussion and clave alignment

Since a chord progression can begin on either side of clave, percussionists have to be able to
initiate their parts in either half (a single measure in 2/2 or 2/4). The following examples show
clave with the bongo bell and timbale bell parts in both a 3-2 and a 2-3 sequence. The timbale
bell comes from a stick pattern (cscara) used in the Afro-Cuban folkloric rhythm guaguanc.

Timbale bell and bongo bell (bottom) in 3-2 clave.

Timbale bell and bongo bell (bottom) in 2-3 clave.

The following example shows the most common conga (two drums), timbale bell, and bongo bell
pattern combination used in salsa music.[67]

From top: 2-3 clave, timbale bell, bongo bell, two congas.
According to Bobby Sanabria, the 3-2, 2-3 concept and terminology was developed in New York
City during the 1940s by Cuban-born Mario Bauz, when he was music director of Machito's
Afro-Cubans.[68] The 3-2, 2-3 concept is a basic tenet of salsa, but it is not widely used in Cuba.
[69][70]

Guajeo
A guajeo is a typical Cuban ostinato melody, most often consisting of arpeggiated chords in
syncopated patterns. Guajeos are a seamless blend of European harmonic and African rhythmic
structures. A piano guajeo may be played during the verse section of a song, but it is at the center
of the montuno section. That is why some salsa musicians refer to piano guajeos as montunos.
Piano guajeos are one of the most recognizable elements in salsa music. As Sonny Bravo
explains: "In salsa, the piano is more of a percussion instrument than a melodic one, especially in
ensemble playing. When you're backing a soloist, you play a riff over and over again. This is
what we call guajeo. The pianist uses this guajeo to provide the rhythm section with its drive."[71]
Clave and guajeos are commonly written in two measures of cut-time (2/2) in salsa charts. This
is most likely an influence of jazz conventions.[72][73]
Most guajeos have a binary structure that expresses clave. Kevin Moore states: "There are two
common ways that the three-side is expressed in Cuban popular music. The first to come into
regular use, which David Pealosa calls 'clave motif,' is based on the decorated version of the
three-side of the clave rhythm."[74] The following guajeo example is based on a clave motif. The
three-side (first measure) consists of the tresillo variant known as cinquillo.

Piano guajeo: clave motif.

A chord progression can begin on either side of clave. In salsa one can be on either side of
clave, because the harmonic progression, rather than the rhythmic progression is the primary
referent.[75] When a chord progression begins on the two-side of clave, the music is said to be in
two-three clave. The following guajeo is based on the clave motif in a two-three sequence. The
cinquillo rhythm is now in the second measure.

2-3 piano guajeo: clave motif.

Moore: "By the 1940s [there was] a trend toward the use of what Pealosa calls the
'offbeat/onbeat motif.' Today, the offbeat/onbeat motif method is much more common."[74] With
this type of guajeo motif, the three-side of clave is expressed with all offbeats. The following I
IV V IV progression is in a three-two clave sequence. It begins with an offbeat pick-up on the
pulse immediately before beat 1. With some guajeos, offbeats at the end of the two-side, or
onbeats at the end of the three-side serve as pick-ups leading into the next measure (when clave
is written in two measures).

3-2 guajeo: offbeat/onbeat motif.

This guajeo is in two-three clave because it begins on the downbeat, emphasizing the onbeat
quality of the two-side. The figure has the same exact harmonic sequence as the previous
example, but rhythmically, the attack-point sequence of the two measures is reversed. Most salsa
is in two-three clave, and most salsa piano guajeos are based on the two-three onbeat/offbeat
motif.

2-3 guajeo: onbeat/offbeat motif.

When salsa uses non-Cuban rhythms, such as a Puerto Rican plena, guajeos are essential to tie
that genre in with the salsa format. The expression of the 2-3 onbeat/offbeat motif is more
abstract in this guajeo than in others previous mentioned.[76] The offbeat and onbeat pick ups
begin at their extreme limit in the preceding measures. The third measure outlines a G7 chord.
The other measures outline C.

2-3 plena guajeo: onbeat/offbeat motif.

Bass tumbao
Most salsa bass tumbaos are based on the tresillo pattern. Often the last note of the measure
(ponche) is held over the downbeat of the next measure. In this way, only the two offbeats of
tresillo are sounded. This tumbao is clave-neutral.

Clave-neutral tresillo-based tumbao.

Some salsa tumbaos that have a specific alignment with clave. The following 2-3 bass line
coincides with three of the clave's five strokes.

Moas
A moa is a horn guajeo, which can be written or improvised.[77] Whats known as the Cuban
tpico style of soloing on trombone draws upon the technique of stringing together moa
variations. The following example shows five different variants of a 2-3 trombone moa
improvised by Jos Rodrguez on Bilongo" (c. 1969), performed by Eddie Palmieri.
Moa 1 sounds every stroke of 2-3 clave except the first stroke of the three-side. Melodic variety
is created by transposing the module in accordance to the harmonic sequence, as Rick Davies
observes in his detailed analysis of the first moa:
The moa consists of a two-measure module and its repetition, which is altered to reflect the
montuno chord progression. The module begins with four ascending eighth-notes starting on the
second [quarter-note of the measure]. This configuration emphasizes the . . . two-side of the
clave. In both of the modules, these four notes move from G3 to Eb4. Although the first, third,
and fourth notes (G3, C4, and Eb4) are identical in both modules, the second note reflects the
change in harmony. In the first module, this note is the Bb3 third of the tonic harmony; in the
module repetition, the A3 is the fifth of the dominant. Of the final five notes in the module, the
first four are [offbeats]; the final D4 is on the [last quarter-note] in the second measure of the
module. Along with the final D4, the initial D4 on the [last offbeat] in the first measure of the
module and the Eb4 on the [offbeat] immediately preceding the final note of the module are
identical in both modules. The [offbeats] in the second-module measure reflect the harmonic

changes. The first version of the module is over the dominant chord and contains the pitches A3
(the fifth) and C4 (the seventh). A Bb3 is sounded twice on the two [offbeats] in the modules
repetition and represents the third G minor tonic chord.[78]
A section of layered, contrapuntal horn guajeos is also referred to sometimes as a moa. Moas
differ from typical rhythm section guajeos in that they often will rest for a beat or two within
their cycle. Those beats within a measure not sounded by the moa are often "filled" by a chorus,
or counter moa. The trumpet and trombone moas shown below ("Bilongo") can be repeated
verbatim, or altered. Improvisation is within a framework of repetition and the melodic contour
of the moas. In this way, multiple instrumentalists can improvise simultaneously while
reinforcing the rhythmic/melodic momentum of the rhythm section.[79]

2-3 trumpet and trombone moas, "Bilongo" (c. 1969) Top: trumpet; bottom: trombone.
The next moa layers are from the descarga "Guatacando" by the Fania All-Stars (1968). Listen:
Guatacando." The trumpet figure is one clave in length, while the trombone figure is two claves.
This is a classic example of how moas are layered. The trombone Moa consists of two parts, a
call-and-response structure. The trumpet moa begins on the last note of first half of the
trombone moa. The second half of the trombone moa begins on the pulse (subdivision)
immediately following the last note of the trumpet moa.

2-3 trumpet and trombone moas, "Guatacando" (1968). 1. trumpets; 2. trombones.

History
Pre-salsa: Cuban dance music in New York City 1940s-1970s

The Palladium Ballroom, home of the mambo, c. 1950s.

Salsa emerged from New York City in the mid-1970s, then spread throughout Latin America and
the Western Hemisphere.[11] However, the music had already been going strong in the city for
several decades prior to the use of the label salsa. New York had been a center of Cuban-style
dance music since the 1940s, when landmark innovations by Machito's Afro-Cubans helped
usher in the mambo era. Tito Puente worked for a time in the Afro-Cubans before starting up his
own successful band. By the early 1950s, there were three very popular mambo big bands in
New York: Machito and his Afro-Cubans, Tito Puente, and Tito Rodrguez. There were many
other working bands as well. The Palladium Ballroom was the epicenter of mambo in New York.
At the height of its popularity, the Palladium attracted Hollywood and Broadway stars, especially
on Wednesday nights, when a free dance lesson was offered. The mambo and its "temple," the
Palladium, were racially and ethnically integrated phenomena.
The next Cuban "dance craze" to hit the United States was the chachach. The chachach
originated in the Cuban charanga bands, but was adopted by the horn-based groups in New York.
By the early 1960s, there were several charanga bands in New York, led by future salsa icons
Johnny Pacheco, Charlie Palmieri, and Ray Barretto. Mongo Santamara also had a charanga
during this period. The pachanga was popularized by Orquesta Sublime and other Cuban
charangas. The pachanga was the last Cuban popular dance to take ahold in New York's Latin
community. The U.S. embargo against Cuba (1962) halted the two-way flow of music and
musicians between Cuba and the United States.
The first post-Revolution Cuban dance music genre was the short-lived, but highly influential
mozambique (1963).[citation needed] Neither the dance, nor the music caught on outside of Cuba. In
spite of this, members of Eddie Palmieri's Conjunto la Perfecta did hear this new music over
shortwave radio, inspiring them to create a similar rhythm which they also called mozambique.
Although the two rhythms share no parts in common, the band received death threats because
some right wing Cuban exiles thought Palmieri's band was playing contemporary Cuban music.
[citation needed]

There was one final distinct Latin music era in New York before salsa emerged, and it was an
original, home-grown hybrid: the Latin boogaloo (or boogal). By the mid-1960s, a hybrid
Nuyorican cultural identity emerged, primarily Puerto Rican but influenced by many Latin
cultures as well as the close contact with African Americans.[80] The boogaloo was a true
Nuyorican music, a bi-lingual mix of R&B and Cuban rhythms. It had two Top 20 hits in 1963:
Mongo Santamara's performance of the Herbie Hancock piece "Watermelon Man" and Ray

Barretto's "El Watusi," which in a sense, established the basic boogaloo formula. The term
boogaloo was probably coined in about 1966 by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz. The biggest
boogaloo hit of the 60s was "Bang Bang" by the Joe Cuba Sextet, which achieved unprecedented
success for Latin music in the United States in 1966 when it sold over one million copies. "El
Pito" was another hit by this popular combo. Hits by other groups included Johnny Coln's
"Boogaloo Blues", Pete Rodrguez's "I Like It like That", and Hector Rivera's "At the Party". Joe
Bataan and the Lebron Brothers are two other important boogaloo bands.
In 1966, the same year as Joe Cuba's pop success, the Palladium closed because it lost its liquor
license.[81] The mambo faded away, and a new generation came into their own with the boogaloo,
the jala-jala and the shing-a-ling.[81] Some of the older, established band leaders took a stab at
recording boogaloosTito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, and even Machito and Arsenio Rodrguez.[82]
But the establishment didn't have their hearts in it. As Puente later recounted: "It stunk . . . I
recorded it to keep up with the times.[83] The young boogaloo upstarts were outselling their older
counterparts. Johnny Coln claims that "Boogaloo Blues" sold over four million copies
domestically.[84] By the end of the 1960s though, the Latin music establishment shut down
boogaloo airplay and the movement fizzled out.[84] Some of the young boogaloo artists, like
Willie Coln, were able to transition into the next phasesalsa.
The late 1960s also saw white youth joining a counterculture heavily associated with political
activism, while black youth formed radical organizations like the Black Panthers. Inspired by
these movements, Latinos in New York formed the Young Lords, rejected assimilation and
"made the barrio a cauldron of militant assertiveness and artistic creativity".[85] The musical
aspect of this social change was based on the Cuban son, which had long been the favored
musical form for urbanites in both Puerto Rico and New York.[86] The Manhattan-based recording
company Fania Records introduced many of the first-generation salsa singers and musicians to
the world. Founded by Dominican flautist and band-leader Johnny Pacheco and impresario Jerry
Masucci, Fania was launched with Willie Coln and Hctor Lavoe's El Malo in 1967. This was
followed by a series of updated son montuno and plena tunes that evolved into modern salsa by
1973. Pacheco put together a team that included percussionist Louie Ramirez, bassist Bobby
Valentn and arranger Larry Harlow. The Fania team released a string of successful singles,
mostly son and plena, performing live after forming the Fania All-Stars

1970s

Roger Dawson hosted a very popular New York radio show featuring salsa.
In 1971 the Fania All Stars sold out Yankee Stadium.[87] By the early 1970s, the music's center
moved to Manhattan and the Cheetah, where promoter Ralph Mercado introduced many future
salsa stars to an ever-growing and diverse crowd of Latino audiences. In 1975 New York, DJ and
conga drummer, Roger Dawson created the "Sunday Salsa Show" over WRVR FM which
became one of the highest rated radio shows in the New York market with a reported audience of
over a quarter of a million listeners every Sunday (per Arbitron Radio Ratings). Ironically,
although New York's Hispanic population at that time was over two million, there had been no
commercial Hispanic FM. Given his jazz and salsa conga playing experience and knowledge
(working as a sideman with such bands as salsa's Frankie Dante's Orquesta Flamboyan and jazz
saxophonist Archie Shepp), Dawson also created the long running "Salsa Meets Jazz" weekly
concert series at the Village Gate jazz club where jazz musicians would sit in with an established
salsa band, for example Dexter Gordon jamming with the Machito band. Dawson helped to
broaden New York's salsa audience and introduced new artists such as the bi-lingual Angel
Canales who were not given play on the Hispanic AM stations of that time. His show won
several awards from the readers of Latin New York magazine, Izzy Sanabria's Salsa Magazine at
that time and ran until late 1980 when Viacom changed the format of WRVR to country music.[88]
From New York, salsa quickly expanded to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia,
Mexico, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries. The number of salsa bands, both in New
York and elsewhere, increased dramatically, as did salsa-oriented radio stations and record labels.

A Puerto Rican cuatro with ten strings

The 1970s saw a number of musical innovations among salsa musicians. Willie Coln introduced
the cuatro, a rural Puerto Rican plucked string instrument, as well as some songs with jazz, rock,
and Panamanian and Brazilian music influences.[89]
Celia Cruz, who had a successful career in Cuba, was able to transition well to salsa in the
United States. She became known as the Queen of Salsa. Larry Harlow, a band leader and
arranger for Fania Records, modernized salsa by adding an electric piano. Harlow also stretched
out from the typical salsa formula with his ambitious opera Hommy (1973), inspired by the
Who's Tommy, and integral to Celia Cruz's comeback from an early retirement. In 1979 Harlow
released his critically acclaimed La raza latina, a Salsa Suite.
The slick, highly produced Fania sound was too predictably formulaic for some tastes. There was
a niche for more adventurous bands, such as Eddie Palmieri, and Manny Oquendo's Libre. The
two bands were the main proponents of NY-style mozambique, drew inspiration from the classic
Cuban composers, and Afro-Cuban folkloric rhythms, while pushing the limits of salsa, and
incorporating jazz elements. They also featured some of the best trombone soloists in the
business, several of whom were "Anglo" jazz musicians who had mastered the tpico style. Most

famous of these was Barry Rogers. The Gonzalez brothers, Jerry and Andy, played congas and
bass respectively, in Libre. Prior to the founding of Libre, they had played in one of Palmieri's
most experimental salsa bands. Andy Gonzalez recounts: "We were into improvising. . . doing
that thing Miles Davis was doingplaying themes and just improvising on the themes of songs,
and we never stopped playing through the whole set."[90] While in Palmieri's band (1974-1976),
the Gonzalez brothers started showing up in the Down Beat Reader's Poll. Palmieri and Libre
caught the attention of jazz critics and reached listening audiences who were not necessarily a
part of the salsa culture.
By the end of the decade, Fania Records' longtime leadership of salsa was weakened by the
arrival of the labels TH-Rodven and RMM.

Divergence of salsa and Cuban popular music

Ironically, Cuban popular music during the 1970s incorporated North American jazz, rock, and
funk in much more significant ways than did salsa. Whereas salsa occasionally superimposes
elements of another genre, or incorporates a non-salsa style in the bridge of a song, Cuban
popular music since the 1970s has fully integrated North American jazz and funk to the point of
true hybrid. It began with Juan Formell, the former director for Orquesta Rev (1968), and the
founder and current director of Los Van Van. Formell fused American pop with clave-based
Cuban elements. Moore states: "The harmonies, never before heard in Cuban music, were clearly
borrowed from North American pop [and] shattered the formulaic limitations on harmony to
which Cuban popular music had faithfully adhered for so long."[91] The Cuban super group
Irakere fused bebop and funk with bat drums and other Afro-Cuban folkloric elements. The
1970s was the songo era in Cuba, with groups like Los Van Van and Orquesta Ritmo Oriental
playing a highly syncopated, rumba-influenced form of charanga.
For the most part, salsa music was not influenced by developments in Cuban popular music
during the 1970s. One notable exception was Sonny Bravo of Tpica '73, who arranged songs by
contemporary Cuban charangas. In 1979 Tpica '73 travelled to Havana to record Tpica '73 en
Cuba, a collaboration between the band and Cuban musicians.

1980s

Oscar D'Leon (2011).

In 1980 the Mariel boatlift brought thousands of Cuban refugees to the United States. Many of
these refugees were musicians, who were astonished to hear what sounded to them like Cuban
music from the 1950s. It was as if the 60s never happened. Cuban conguero Daniel Ponce
summarized this sentiment: "When the Cubans arrived in New York, they all said 'Yuk! This is
old music.' The music and the feelings and arrangements [haven't] changed."[92] In fundamental
ways, salsa is the preservation of the late 1950s Cuban sound.[citation needed]
The influx of Cuban musicians had more of an impact on jazz than salsa. After the boatlift
though, there was obviously more awareness of the modern Cuban styles. Tito Puente recorded
the Irakere composition "Bacalao con pan" (1980), and Rubn Blades covered Los Van Van's
"Muevete" (1985). The bands Batacumbele and Zaperoko of Puerto Rico fully embraced songo.
Led by Angel "Cachete" Maldonado and featuring a young Giovanni Hidalgo, Batacumbele
interpreted songo in a horn-based format, with a strong jazz influence.
By the early 1980s a generation of New York City musicians had come of age playing both salsa
dance music and jazz. The time had come for a new level of integration of jazz and Cuban
rhythms. This era of creativity and vitality is best represented by the Gonzalez brothers of
Conjunto Libre (as the band was originally called). Jerry Gonzalez founded the jazz group the
Fort Apache Band, which included his brother Andy and established a new standard for Latin
jazz. During this same period, Tito Puente changed to performing and recording primarily Latin
jazz for the remainder of his career. By 1989 Eddie Palmieri had also switched to playing mostly
Latin jazz.
The 1980s saw salsa expand to Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Europe and Japan, and diversify into
new stylistic interpretations. Oscar D'Len from Venezuela is a huge salsa star. In Colombia, a
new generation of musicians began to combine salsa with elements of cumbia and vallenato; this
fusion tradition can be traced back to the 1960s work of Peregoyo y su Combo Vacana. However,
it was Joe Arroyo and La Verdad, his band, that popularized Colombian salsa beginning in the
1980s.[93] The Colombian singer Joe Arroyo first rose to fame in the 1970s, but became a
renowned exponent of Colombian salsa in the 1980s. Arroyo worked for many years with the
Colombian arranger Fruko y sus Tesos (Fruko and his band Los Tesos).[94] Grupo Niche is based

in Cali, Colombia, and enjoys great popularity throughout Latin America. One of their biggest
hits, "Cali Pachanguero" (1989), was seemingly arranged oblivious to clave.[95] As salsa grew and
flourished in other countries, removed by both time and space from the New York epicenter, it
adopted local sensibilities and drifted away from its Afro-Cuban moorings.

A panoramic showing of Cali, main city in western Colombia, where salsa is very popular.[96][97]
[98]

The 1980s was a time of diversification, as popular salsa evolved into sweet and smooth salsa
romantica, with lyrics dwelling on love and romance, and its more explicit cousin, salsa erotica.
Salsa romantica can be traced back to Noches Calientes, a 1984 album by singer Jos Alberto
with producer Louie Ramirez. A wave of romantica singers, found wide audiences with a new
style characterized by romantic lyrics, an emphasis on the melody over rhythm, and use of
percussion breaks and chord changes.[99] Some viewed salsa romantica as a rhythmically
watered-down version of the genre. Critics of salsa romntica, especially in the late 80s and
early 90s, called it a commercialized, diluted form of Latin pop, in which formulaic, sentimental
love ballads were simply put to Afro-Cuban rhythmsleaving no room for classic salsa's
brilliant musical improvisation, or for classic salsa lyrics that tell stories of daily life or provide
social and political commentary. The marketing of salsa romntica singers has often been based
more on their youthful sex appeal than on the quality of their music. For these reasons, the form
sometimes has been derided as salsa monga (limp or flaccid salsa), as opposed to salsa gorda or
salsa dura (fat or 'hard salsa'). Salsa lost popularity among many Latino youth, who were drawn
to American rock in large numbers, while the popularization of Dominican merengue further
sapped the audience among Latinos in both New York and Puerto Rico.[100]
Along with the salsa-pop fusion of salsa romntica, the 1980s saw the combining elements of
salsa with soul, R&B, and hip hop music. The dilution of Afro-Cuban rhythmic principles
created problems for some. Washburne recounts: "As arrangers struggled to 'fit' these music
styles into a salsa format, a variety of 'clave discrepancies,' or clashes, like in 'Cali Pachanguero,'
often resulted. As the salsa style became more culturally diverse, Nuyorican and Puerto Rican
traditionalists often reacted by emphatically positing clave as a representative of, or essential to,
Puerto Rican cultural identity."[101]

"Salsa cubana" and the birth of timba

In the mid-1980s salsa finally caught on in Cuba. However, the development of Salsa Cubana is
drastically different. Moore:
"Venezuelan salsa star Oscar DLens 1983 tour of Cuba is mentioned prominently by every
Cuban Ive ever interviewed on the subject. Rubn Blades album Siembra was heard
everywhere on the island throughout the mid-80s and has been quoted extensively in the guas
and coros of everyone from Van Vans Mayito Rivera (who quotes [Blades'] 'Plstico' in his guas
on the 1997 classic Llvala a tu vaciln), to El Mdico de la Salsa (quoting another major hook
from 'Plstico''se ven en la cara, se ven en la cara, nunca en el corazn'in his final
masterpiece before leaving Cuba, Dis sabe)."[102]
Prior to D'Len's performance, Cuban musicians had for the most part, rejected salsa,
considering it bad imitation Cuban music. Something changed after d'Len's performance. By
that time, Cuban popular music had moved way beyond the old Cuban templates used in salsa.
Cuba's momentary "salsa craze" brought back some of those older templates. For example
Orquesta Ritmo Oriental started using the most common salsa timbale bell and bongo bell
combination. That bell arrangement became the standard for timba, which emerged at the end of
the 1980s.
The release of En la calle (1989) by NG La Banda, marked the beginning of the post-songo era.
This new music shared more with salsa than the Cuban music of the previous decade. Departing
from the rumba-inspired percussion parts of the previous songo era, "La expresiva" uses typical
salsa bell patterns creatively incorporated into a Cuban-style timbales/drum kit hybrid. The
tumbadora ('conga') plays elaborate variations on the son montuno-based tumbao, rather than in
the songo style. In contrast to salsa though, NG's bass tumbaos are busier, and rhythmically and
harmonically more complex than typically heard in salsa. The breakdown sections in En la calle
have more in common with both the folkloric guaguanc of that time, and hip-hop, than with
salsa.
Some Cuban musicians referred to this late-80s sound as salsa cubana, a term which for the first
time, included Cuban music as a part of salsa.[24] In the mid-1990s California-based Bembe
Records released CDs by several Cuban bands, as part of their salsa cubana series. Those bands
included Manolito y su Trabuco, Orquesta Sublime, and Irakere which was nominated for a
Grammy. Other North American labels such as Qbadic and Xenophile also released CDs by
contemporary Cuban bands. It would seem at last that Cuban popular music could be marketed
as salsa. In 1997, the film and CD Buena Vista Social Club, produced by Ry Cooder, was a big
hit in the United States. America "discovered" Cuban music once again. However, for the most
part, the music of the BVSC and its spin-offs was from the pre-mambo era. They do not play
salsa. One exception was the BVSC spin-off, the Afro-Cuban All Stars. When touring the United
States the All Stars performed arrangements that began very much like salsa tunes, but they
would also employ breakdowns about half way through the pieces. The Buena Vista Social Club
and its spin-off groups did not exist in Cuba as working bands. They were put together for
touring outside of Cuba. The bands that were playing in Havana had meanwhile been steadily
evolving into something quite distinctly Cuban, and less like salsa. The Cuban jazz pianist
Gonzalo Rubalcaba developed a technique of pattern and harmonic displacement in the 1980s,
which was adopted into timba guajeos in the 1990s. The guajeo (shown above) for Issac

Delgado's "La temtica" (1997) demonstrates some of the innovations of timba piano. A series of
repeated octaves invoke a characteristic metric ambiguity. Techniques like guajeo pattern
displacement often make the music difficult for non-Cubans to dance to.[citation needed]
The term salsa cubana which had barely taken hold, eventually fell out of favor, and was
replaced with timba. Some of the other important timba bands include Azcar Negra, Bamboleo,
Manoln "El Mdico de la salsa". Charanga Habanera, Havana d'Primera, Klimax, Paulito FG,
Pupy y Los Que Son, Salsa Mayor, and Tiempo Libre. Cuban timba musicians and New York
salsa musicians have had positive and creative exchanges over the years, but the two genres
remain somewhat separated, appealing to different audiences. Nevertheless, some people today
include Cuban groups in the salsa category.

African salsa

Orchestra Baobab
Cuban music has been popular in sub-Saharan Africa since the mid twentieth century. To the
Africans, clave-based Cuban popular music sounded both familiar and exotic.[103] The
Encyclopedia of Africa v. 1. states:
"Beginning in the 1940s, Afro-Cuban [son] groups such as Septeto Habanero and Trio
Matamoros gained widespread popularity in the Congo region as a result of airplay over Radio
Congo Belge, a powerful radio station based in Lopoldville (now Kinshasa DRC). A
proliferation of music clubs, recording studios, and concert appearances of Cuban bands in
Lopoldville spurred on the Cuban music trend during the late 1940s and 1950s."[104]
Congolese bands started doing Cuban covers and singing the lyrics phonetically. Soon, they were
creating their own original Cuban-like compositions, with lyrics sung in French or Lingala, a
lingua franca of the western Congo region. The Congolese called this new music rumba,
although it was really based on the son. The Africans adapted guajeos to electric guitars, and
gave them their own regional flavor. The guitar-based music gradually spread out from the
Congo, increasingly taking on local sensibilities. This process eventually resulted in the
establishment of several different distinct regional genres, such as soukous.[105]
Cuban popular music played a major role in the development of many contemporary genres of
African popular music. John Storm Roberts states: "It was the Cuban connection, but
increasingly also New York salsa, that provided the major and enduring influencesthe ones

that went deeper than earlier imitation or passing fashion. The Cuban connection began very
early and was to last at least twenty years, being gradually absorbed and re-Africanized."[106] The
re-working of Afro-Cuban rhythmic patterns by Africans brings the rhythms full circle.
The re-working of the harmonic patterns reveals a striking difference in perception. The I IV V
IV harmonic progression, so common in Cuban music, is heard in pop music all across the
African continent, thanks to the influence of Cuban music. Those chords move in accordance
with the basic tenets of Western music theory. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, performers
of African popular music do not necessarily perceive these progressions in the same way: "The
harmonic cycle of C-F-G-F [I-IV-V-IV] prominent in Congo/Zaire popular music simply cannot
be defined as a progression from tonic to subdominant to dominant and back to subdominant (on
which it ends) because in the performers appreciation they are of equal status, and not in any
hierarchical order as in Western music."[107]
The largest wave of Cuban-based music to hit Africa was in the form of salsa. In 1974 the Fania
All Stars performed in Zaire (known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Africa, at
the 80,000-seat Stadu du Hai in Kinshasa. This was captured on film and released as Live In
Africa (Salsa Madness in the UK). The Zairean appearance occurred at a music festival held in
conjunction with the Muhammad Ali/George Foreman heavyweight title fight. Local genres were
already well established by this time. Even so, salsa caught on in many African countries,
especially in the Senegambia and Mali. Cuban music had been the favorite of Senegal's nightspot
in the 1950s to 1960s.[108] The Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab plays in a basic salsa style with
congas and timbales, but with the addition of Wolof and Mandinka instruments and lyrics.
According to Lise Waxer, "African salsa points not so much to a return of salsa to African soil
(Steward 1999: 157) but to a complex process of cultural appropriation between two regions of
the so-called Third World."[109] Since the mid-1990s African artists have also been very active
through the super-group Africando, where African and New York musicians mix with leading
African singers such as Bambino Diabate, Ricardo Lemvo, Ismael Lo and Salif Keita. It is still
common today for an African artist to record a salsa tune, and add their own particular regional
touch to it.

1990s to the present

Marc Anthony performing at the White House (2009).

Play media
World Games 2013 in Cali, Colombia - Dancesport Competition - Salsa Sport, 1st Place - Gold
Medal World Champions.
Producer and pianist Sergio George helped to revive salsa's commercial success in the 1990s by
mixing salsa with contemporary pop styles with artists like Tito Nieves, La India, and Marc
Anthony. George also produced the Japanese salsa band Orquesta de la Luz. Brenda K. Starr,
Son By Four, Vctor Manuelle, and the Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan enjoyed crossover
success within the Anglo-American pop market with their Latin-influenced hits, usually sung in
English.[110] More often than not, clave was not a major consideration in the composing or
arranging of these hits. Sergio George is up front and unapologetic about his attitude towards
clave: "Though clave is considered, it is not always the most important thing in my music. The
foremost issue in my mind is marketability. If the song hits, that's what matters. When I stopped
trying to impress musicians and started getting in touch with what the people on the street were
listening to, I started writing hits. Some songs, especially English ones originating in the United
States, are at times impossible to place in clave."[111] As Washburne points out however, a lack of
clave awareness does not always get a pass:
"Marc Anthony is a product of George's innovationist approach. As a novice to Latin music, he
was propelled into band leader position with little knowledge of how the music was structured.
One revealing moment came during a performance in 1994, just after he had launched his salsa
career. During a piano solo he approached the timbales, picked up a stick, and attempted to play
clave on the clave block along with the band. It became apparent that he had no idea where to
place the rhythm. Shortly thereafter during a radio interview in San Juan Puerto Rico, he
exclaimed that his commercial success proved that you did not need to know about clave to make
it in Latin music. This comment caused an uproar both in Puerto Rico and New York. After
receiving the bad press, Anthony refrained from discussing the subject in public, and he did not
attempt to play clave on stage until he had received some private lessons."[112]
Salsa remained a major part of Colombian music through the 1990s, producing popular bands
like Sonora Carruseles, while the singer Carlos Vives created his own style that blends salsa with
vallenato and rock. Vives' popularization of vallenato-salsa led to the accordion-led vallenato
style being used by mainstream pop stars such as Gloria Estefan. The city of Cali, is known as
Colombia's "capital of salsa", having produced such groups as Orquesta Guayacan, Grupo Niche,
songwriter Kike Santander, and Julian Collazos, the producer of the Marco Barrientos Band.[113]
Cabijazz from Venezuela plays a unique blend of timba-like salsa with a strong jazz influence.
The most recent innovations in salsa genre include hybrids like Latin house, salsa-merengue and
salsaton, alongside salsa gorda.

Films

1979 - Salsa: Latin Music in the Cities. Directed by Jeremy Marre.

1988 - Salsa. Former Menudo member Robi Draco Rosa plays a teenager who wants to
win a dance contest. Celia Cruz, Wilkins and Tito Puente also appear.

2007 - El Cantante. El Cantante is a biographical film which stars singers Marc Anthony
and Jennifer Lopez. The film is based on the life of the late salsa singer Hctor Lavoe,
who is portrayed by Anthony.

2014 - Sex, Love & Salsa. Directed by Adrian Manzano

See also
North America portal
Cuba portal
Puerto Rico portal
Latin America music portal

Latin Grammy Award for Best Salsa Album

Salsa (dance)

Son Cubano

Timba

Twoubadou

References
Notes
1.
Waxer 2002, pp. 9194
Gerard 1989, pp. 89.
Salazar, Max (January 26, 1985). "Salsa Losing Popularity To Ballads On City
Airwaves". Billboard (Nielsen Business Media) 97 (4): 58. ISSN 0006-2510.
Salazar, Max (2001). Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, ed.
All Music Guide: World Music (4 ed.). Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 884. ISBN 0-87930-627-0.

 Gerard 1989, pp. 89. "From jazz came a harmonic vocabulary based on extended
harmonies of altered and unaltered ninths, elevenths and thirteenths, as well as quartal harmony
chords built on fourths. These harmonic devices entered salsa in the piano styles of Eddie
Palmieri and the Puerto Rican Papo Lucca. They would take traditional piano figures based on
simple tonic-dominant harmony and elaborate them with modern harmonies. These modern
harmonies are now a staple of salsa arrangers such as Marty Sheller and Oscar Hernndez."
Morales 2003, p. 33. Morales writes that "While many Afro-Cuban music purists
continue to claim that salsa is a mere variation on Cuba's musical heritage, the hybridizing
experience the music went through in New York from the 1920s on incorporated influences from
many different branches of the Latin American tradition, and later from jazz, R&B, and even
rock." Morales' claim is confirmed by Unterberger's and Steward's analysis.
Maulen 1993, p. 215. Maulen codifies this approach with examples of bomba, plena,
and merengue arrangements for salsa ensemble. When adapting these non-Cuban rhythms to
salsa it is common to alter them in order to fit into the Cuban template. For example, Maulen's
merengue chart includes clave, which is essential to Cuban popular music, although it is not a
component of the traditional Dominican rhythm.
Boggs 1992, pp. 187-193
Hutchinson 2004, p. 116. Hutchinson says salsa music and dance "both originated with
Cuban rhythms that were brought to New York and adopted, adapted, reformulated, and made
new by the Puerto Ricans living there."
Catapano 2011. "Although a great number of New York's stars and sidemen in the 1970s
were Puerto Rican, the basic musical elements of salsa were derived mainly from Cuba."
Manuel, Popular Music of the Non-Western World, p. 46
Unterberger, p. 50
Waxer 2002, p. 6
Steward 2000, p. 488. Celia Cruz said, "salsa is Cuban music with another name. It's
mambo, chachach, rumba, son... all the Cuban rhythms under one name."
Jones and Kantonen, 2000. "The word salsa ('spicy sauce') had long been used by Cuban
immigrants as something analogous to the term swing."
Manuel 1990, p. 46. "On one level, as Singer and Friedman note, salsa is to Latinos as
'soul' is to blacks; salsaliterally, 'hot sauce'spicy, zesty, energetic, and unmistakably Latino."
Salazar 1991; Waxer 2002, p. 6; Morales 2003, pp. 5659. Morales dates the song to
1932.
Morales 2003, p. 56
Waxer 2002, p. 6; Rondn 1980, p. 33
Boggs 1992, pp. 187-193.
Boggs 1992, p. 190
Boggs 1992, p. 192. Izzy Sanabria: "In Santo Domingo... they told me that they don't
recognize a Dominican artist as having made it in New York City unless a photograph and
something written on this artist appears in Latin New York. I said 'but why?' And what he said:
'Because we consider Latin New York a North American publication.' You see what I mean? In
other words, it's an American publication. It was in English. So because it was in English,
because it was from America, then it's legitimate. That in a sense, was the major impact of Latin
New York."
Izzy Sanabria 2005
Maulen 1999, p. 80

 Aparicio 1998, p. 65. Prez Prado: "There is no such thing as salsa."

Willie Coln: "Salsa is the harmonic sum of all Latin culture that meets in New York."
Concierto Expo 92, Seville, Spain: "Salsa is Puerto Rico."
In 1983, Machito won a Grammy Award in the Best Latin Recording category for
Machito and his Salsa Big Band '82 Timeless CD 168.
Izzy Sanabria 2005. "Years later, [Tito] Puente told me, 'Izzy you remember how much I
hated and resisted the term salsa? Well I've had to accept it because wherever I travel, I find my
records under the category of salsa.'"
Washburne 2008, p. 105
Steward 1999, pp. 67
Fuentes 2003, p. 59
Gerard 1989, p. 7. The popularity of Puerto Rican tpica music peaked in New York City
in 1957, more than a decade before the emergence of salsa. "It is ironic that in a music dominated
by Nuyorican and Puerto Rican musicians, the use of the folk music of Puerto Rico has never
been very popular. According to Frankie Malabe, 'In a live performance... you'll rarely get any
bombas and plenas.'"
Washburne 2008, p. 40. Washburne notes that Willie Coln is an exception. He advocated
a broader Latin American identity, while creating salsa that deliberately drew upon a variety of
Latin American and Caribbean musics.
The five-part VHS series Salsa (Bongo Video Productions, London, c. early 1990s)
interviews people from Cuba, New York City, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Venezuela, all of
whom claim that salsa was invented in their country.
Steward 2000, p. 494
Boggs 1992, p. 189
Leymarie, pp. 268-269
Steward, pp. 495-496 Steward mentions Celia Cruz as not being an adherent of Santeria,
yet who refers to the goddess Yemaya in her performances.
Gerard 1989 p. 7
Manuel, Caribbean Currents, p. 74
Manuel, Caribbean Currents, pg. 80
Bobby Sanabria 2008 Latinjazz.
Bobby Sanabria 1998 Latinjazz.
Pealosa 2010 p. 85.
Agawu: Gerhard Kubik claims that a time-line pattern represents the structural core of
a musical piece, something like a condensed and extremely concentrated expression of the
motional possibilities open to the participants (musicians and dancers) 2006 p. 1.
Jones refers to both "clave" patterns, and the seven-stroke "6/8 bell" as the standard
pattern, claiming all three to be "basically one and the same pattern." 1959 p. 211-212.
Pealosa: "[C.K.] Ladzekpo cites several genres of music in Ghana alone that use both
the triple and duple-pulse versions of 'son clave': the Ewes fofui and alfi and the Ashantis sekwi
and akom. The Gas kinka, oge and kpanlogo use duple-pulse 'son clave.'" 2010 p. 247
Harington (1995 p. 63) identifies the duple-pulse form of "rumba clave" as a bell pattern
used by the Yoruba and Ibo of Nigeria.
Ignacio Berroa: "There are just two clavesson clave and rumba clave." Mastering the
Art Afro-Cuban Drumming (1996: Warner Brothers VHS).

 Bobby Sanabria: "Son montuno clave [is] the rhythm most used in Afro-Cuban dance
music, which is better known as salsa Most Latin musicians call it son clave for short" 1986: p.
76.
The Centro de Investigacin de la Msica Cubana (CIDMUC) refers to son clave as la
clave de La Habana (Havana clave) and attributes the pattern to Havana-style rumba. In the
first half of the twentieth century, what we now call son clave was the clave pattern used in
Havana-style yamb and guaguanc. It is generally agreed that the son adopted clave from
rumba when the son migrated to Havana from the eastern end of the island at the turn of the
twentieth century. CIDMUC refers to rumba clave as guaguanc clave. 1997 p. 63.
Kevin Moore: "In reality, as Pealosa explains in great detail in The Clave Matrix, theres
really only son and rumba clave, each of which can be played with a pure triple pulse structure
feel, a pure duple pulse structure feel or somewhere inbetween. Needless to say, the terms son
and rumba came much later." 2010. Beyond Salsa Piano v. 3 p. 72.
Maulen 1993 p. 52.
In his chapter "La Clave" (pp. 13-32), Gerard only address duple-pulse son clave.
Moore 2010 p. 65.
Pealosa 2010 p.5
Gerard 1989 p. 14.
Sometimes clave is written in two measures of 4/4 and the open tone of the conga drum
are referred to as the last beat of the measure (see Maulen 1993 p. 63)
Maulen 1993 p. 257.
Bobby Sanabria: "The concept of utilizing 3-2 and 2-3 as a terminology developed in
New York City. I have done research on this with many of the legendary figures in this tradition,
most notably Mario Bauz, who I played with for eight years." Pealosa 2010 p. 248.
Santos 1986 p. 32.
Washburne 2008 p. 195.
Maulen 1999: p. 6.
Pealosa 2010 p. 38.
Maulen 1993 p. 51.
Emilio Grenet: "[The] melodic design is constructed on a rhythmic pattern of two
measures, as though both were only one, the first is antecedent, strong, and the second is
consequent, weak." 1939 p. XV.
Amira 1992 pp. 23-24.
According to Changuito, this timbale bell pattern was created by the percussionist
Agapito of Orquesta Aragn. Evolution of the Tumbadoras. Changuito. Alfred Publishing Co
(1996: VHS).
Bobby Sanabria quoted by Pealosa 2010 p. 248
Mongo Santamaria: "Dont tell me about 3-2 or 2-3! In Cuba we just play. We feel it, we
dont talk about such thingsquoted by Washburne 2008 p. 190.
The contemporary Cuban bassist, composer and arranger Alain Prez flatly states: "In
Cuba we do not use that 2-3, 3-2 formula . . . 2-3, 3-2 [is] not used in Cuba. That is how people
learn Cuban music outside CubaTimba.com 2002.http://www.timba.com/artist_pages/alain-prez-interview-part-2?lang=en-US
Boggs, Vernon W., ed. 1991 p. 318. Sonny Bravo quote in "Secrets of Salsa Rhythm."
Maulen 1999 p. 6.

 While most salsa charts are written in cut-time, the common-time (4/4) time signature is
often used. In other words, the time signature that is used does not literally reflect actual metric
structure. This has led to the practice of counting eight beats (quarter-notes) per clave, while
tapping one's foot four times (half-notes) per clave (see: Maulen 1993: 47-48, and Pealosa
2010: 218-219).
Moore 2011 p. 32. Understanding Clave.
Pealosa 2010 p. 136.
After Maulen 1993 p. 213.
Maulen, Rebeca (1993: 256). Salsa Guidebook for Piano and Ensemble. Petaluma,
California: Sher Music. ISBN 0-9614701-9-4.
Davies, Rick (2003: 149). Trompeta; Chappottn, Chocolate, and the Afro-Cuban
Trumpet Style. ISBN 0-8108-4680-2.
Davies, Rick (2003: 149). Trompeta; Chappottn, Chocolate, and the Afro-Cuban
Trumpet Style. ISBN 0-8108-4680-2.
Steward 2000, p. 489.
Steward, Sue 1999. Salsa: the musical heartbeat of Latin America. Thames & Hudson,
London. p. 60
Boggs 1991 p. 247.
Boggs 1991 p. 246. Tito Puente quote.
Boggs 1991 p. 270.
Manuel 2006, p. 90
Manuel 1995, p. 73
Steward 2000, pp. 488489
Manuel 1990, p. 48
Leymarie 2003, pp. 272273, Leymarie cites the 1972 double Christmas album Asalto
navideo as the "first time that (the cuatro) and Puerto Rico's country music appeared in salsa."
Boggs 1992 p. 290. Andy Gonzalez quote.
Moore, Kevin (2011). "The Roots of Timba, Part II; Juan Formell y Los Van Van."
Timba.com. Web. http://www.timba.com/encyclopedia_pages/juan-formell-y-los-van-van
Gerard 1989 p. 6. Daniel Ponce quote
Steward 2000, pp. 379, 502
Steward 2000, pp. 493497
Washburne 2008 p. 182-183.
http://www.metrocuadrado.com/decoracion/content/cali-la-capital-mundial-de-la-salsa
http://www.salsa.ch/news_view.php?idnews=178
http://www.hsbnoticias.com/vernoticia.asp?WPLACA=14272
Steward 2000, p. 493; The crux of Steward's claims are confirmed by Leymarie 2003, p.
287, who nevertheless describes Noches Calientes as Ramirez's, with Ray de la Paz on vocals,
without mentioning Alberto.
Manuel 1990, p. 49
Washburne 2008 p. 190.
Moore, Kevin 2011 p. 73. Beyond Salsa Piano v. 11. Csar Pupy Pedroso: The Music
of Los Van Van, Part 2. Santa Cruz, CA: Moore Music/Timba.com.ISBN 1460965426
Nigerian musician Segun Bucknor: "Latin American music and our music is virtually the
same"quoted by Collins 1992 p. 62
The Encyclopedia of Africa v. 1. 2010 p. 407.

 Roberts, John Storm. Afro-Cuban Comes Home: The Birth and Growth of Congo Music.
Original Music cassette tape (1986).
Roberts 1986. 20: 50. Afro-Cuban Comes Home: The Birth and Growth of Congo Music.
Kubik 1999 p. 105.
Stapleton 1990 116-117.
Waxer 2002 p. 12.
Steward 2000, pp. 488499
Washburne 2008 p. 191. Sergio George quote.
Washburne 2008 p. 192
Steward 2000, p. 504

1.
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Aparicio, Frances R. (1998). Listening to Salsa: Gender, Latin Popular Music, and
Puerto Rican Cultures. Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 9780-8195-6308-8.

Agawu, Kofi 2006. Structural Analysis or Cultural Analysis? Comparing Perspectives

on the Standard Pattern of West African Rhythm Journal of the American
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Boggs, Vernon W., ed. (1991). Salsiology: Afro-Cuban Music and the Evolution of Salsa
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Hutchinson, Sydney (2004). "Mambo On 2: The Birth of a New Form of Dance in New
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Jones, A.M. 1959. Studies in African Music. London: Oxford University Press. 1978
edition: ISBN 0-19-713512-9

Jones, Alan; Kantonen, Jussi (1999). Saturday Night Forever: The Story of Disco. A
Cappella Books. ISBN 1-55652-411-0.

Kubik, Gerhard 1999. Africa and the Blues. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi.
ISBN 1-57806-145-8.

Leymarie, Isabelle (1979). "Latin Jazz, the Best of Both Worlds". Jazz Spotlite News.
New York.

Leymarie, Isabelle (1985). "Salsa and Latin jazz". In Quill. Hot Sauces: Latin and
Caribbean Pop. New York. pp. 94115. ISBN 0-688-02193-X.

Leymarie, Isabelle (1993). La Salsa et le Latin jazz. Paris: PUF. ISBN 2130453171.

Leymarie, Isabelle (1995). Du tango au reggae: Musiques noires dAmrique latine et

des Carabes. Paris: Flammarion. ISBN 2082108139.

Leymarie, Isabelle (1997). "Du boogaloo la salsa". In Gallimard. La musique sudamricaine: rythmes et danses d'un continent. Paris. pp. 8285. ISBN 2-07-053391-3.

Leymarie, Isabelle (1998). "La salsa". In Ediciones Akal. Msicas del Caribe. Madrid.
pp. 107108. ISBN 84-460-0894-7.

Leymarie, Isabelle (1998). "Du tango la salsa: le bal sous influence latinoamricaine". In Cit de la Musique. Histoires de bal. Paris. pp. 115122. ISBN 2906460-69-9.

Leymarie, Isabelle (2000). "La salsa". In Editions Autrement. Danses Latines. Paris.
pp. 113123. ISBN 2-7467-0118-9.

Leymarie, Isabelle (2002). Cuban Fire: The Story of salsa and Latin jazz. New York:
Continuum. ISBN 0826455867.

Maulen, Rebeca (1993). Salsa: Guidebook for Piano and Ensemble. Petaluma,
California: Sher Music.

Maulen, Rebeca (2005). 101 Montunos. Petaluma, California: Sher Music. ISBN 1883217-07-5.

Manuel, Peter (1990). Popular Musics of the Non-Western World: an introductory

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Manuel, Peter (1995). Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-338-8.

Manuel, Peter (2006). Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae (2
ed.). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-59213-463-7.

Morales, Ed (2003). The Latin Beat. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81018-2.

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145054553X

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of Los Van Van, Part 2. Santa Cruz, CA: Moore Music/Timba.com.ISBN 1460965426

Moore, Kevin 2011. Understanding Clave and Clave Changes. Santa Cruz, CA: Moore
Music/Timba.com. ISBN10: 1466462302

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Roberts, John Storm. Afro-Cuban Comes Home: The Birth and Growth of Congo Music.
Original Music cassette tape (1986).

Roberts, John Storm (1972). Black Music of Two Worlds. New York: Praeger.

Rondn, Csar Miguel (1980). El libro de la salsa: crnica de la msica del Caribe
urbano (in Spanish). Caracas: Editorial Arte.

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Magazine. Retrieved April 4, 2012.

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Sanabria, Bobby 2008. Posting to the Latinjazz discussion.

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Sanabria, Izzy (2005). "What is Salsa? Where and How Did it Start?". Salsa Magazine.
Retrieved April 4, 2012.

Santos, John 1986. The Clave: Cornerstone of Cuban Music Modern Drummer
Magazine p. 32 Sept.

Stapleton, Chris, and Chris May 1990. African Rock: The Pop Music of a Continent. New
York: Dutton.

Steward, Sue (2000). "Salsa: Cubans, Nuyoricans and the Global Sound". In Broughton,
Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla. World Music:
Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific 2. London: Rough Guides.
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Unterberger, Richie (1999). Music USA. The Rough Guide. ISBN 1-85828-421-X.

Washburne, Christopher (2008). Sounding Salsa: Performing Latin Music in New York
City. Temple University Press. ISBN 1-59213-315-0.

Waxer, Lise A. (2002). The City of Musical Memory: Salsa, Record Grooves, and Popular
Culture in Cali, Colombia. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.
ISBN 0-8195-6442-7.

Waxer, Lise 2002. Situating Salsa: Global Markets and Local Meanings in Latin Popular
Music. Routledge. ISBN 0815340206

Further reading

Arteaga, Jos (1990). La Salsa (in Spanish) (2 ed.). Bogot: Intermedio Editores.

Baz, Juan Carlos (1989). El vnculo es la salsa (in Spanish). Caracas: Fondo Editorial
Tropykos.

Garca, David F. (2006). Arsenio Rodrguez and the transnational flows of Latin popular
music. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-59213-386-X.

Kent, Mary (2005). Salsa Talks!: A Musical Heritage Uncovered. Digital Domain.
ISBN 978-0-9764990-0-8.

Loza, Steven (1999). Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press.

Manuel, Peter, ed. (1991). Essays on Cuban Music: North American and Cuban
Perspectives. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.

Marre, Jeremy; Hannah Charlton (1985). Beats of the Heart: Popular Music of the
World. New York: Pantheon.

Roberts, John Storm (1979). The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on
the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rondn, Csar Miguel, The Book of Salsa: A Chronicle of Urban Music from the
Caribbean to New York City, translated by Frances R. Aparicio with Jackie White,
University of North Carolina Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8078-5859-2

Salazar, Max (March 2000). "Gabriel Oller: Aguinaldos de Salsa,". Latin Beat Magazine
(in Spanish).[dead link]

Santana, Sergio (1992). Que es la salsa? Buscando la meloda (in Spanish). Medelln:
Ediciones Salsa y Cultura.

Washburne, Christopher (Fall 1995). Clave: The African Roots of Salsa. Kalinda!,
newsletter for the Center for Black Music Research.

Waxer, Lise, ed. (2002). Situating Salsa: Global Markets and Local Meanings in Latin
Popular Music. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-8153-4019-2.

External links
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Latin Music USA, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) TV documentary, October 2009.
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