Salsa music is a popular dance music that initially arose in New York City during

the 1960s. Salsa is the product of various musical genres including the Cuban son
montuno, guaracha, cha cha ch�, mambo, and to a certain extent bolero, and 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 canci�n 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 Cubans and Puerto Ricans who moved to New
York since the 1920s.[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), Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto, Rub�n Blades, Willie Col�n, Larry Harlow, Roberto
Roena, Bobby Valent�n, Eddie Palmieri, and H�ctor Lavoe.

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] Cubans and Puerto Ricans 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 Pi�eiro 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 Pi�eiro 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 storm�salsa.[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, Cuban-born 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 Puerto Rican, Pan-American or Latino sound
with which the people from all of Latin America and Spanish-speaking 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 Col�n 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] Rub�n 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 Ponce�a) 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 Mart�nez, 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 Mart�nez 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 (guaper�a) 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 Col�n 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 - l�gico", 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, gu�ro, 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 g�iro are played
by the singers. Bongos are not typically used in charanga bands. T�pica 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 gu�ro 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-preg�n (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, mo�a,
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]

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.

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 non-Cuban, 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 two-side by salsa musicians.