1 ­ Roots of Cuban Music

When people, in general, think or speak about Cuban music, they mostly refer to the music generally known as Afro-Cuban music. While it is true that Cuban music has a strong African element, there is a fundamental difference between the two: the Cuban sound has a strong melodic element that comes from Spanish roots. A marriage of traditional European music, flamenco (which in itself is a combination of traditional European folk and Arabian music) and Yoruba drums have given Cuban music the power to sweep the world. Danzon, Habanera, Son, Rumba, Mambo, Cha cha cha, Conga and Salsa are the main players in this impressive international lineup. Other genres of Cuban music, such as Guaguanco, Son, guaracha, Son Montuno and Guajira are less known outside of Cuba, but just as important in the Cuban scheme of things.
The Cuban sound has influenced the way music was played throughout the world in the 20th century and continuing right into the foreseeable future. Even flamenco has been impregnated with Cuban drums and this gave birth to the rumba flamenco! There are salsa orchestras in Japan with Japanese vocalists singing in flawless Spanish to the rhythms of the timbales and the conga drums. You can hear Cuban riffs in the middle 20th century's popular Vietnamese music. Salsa is wildly popular not only in Asia and Latin America, but also in Europe and North America. Only American rock 'n' roll can vie with Cuban music for the title of the world's most popular music. All this happened as the music evolved in the last century, but the roots go far beyond.

When the Spanish arrived in Cubanacan, as the aboriginal inhabitants called the island, they found it populated by the Tainos, Guanatabeyes and Siboneyes, people of Arawak origin who had emigrated from the Orinoco region of present-day Colombia and Venezuela. These people started arriving in the island possibly about 900 A.D. (estimates vary) and were established throughout the island.
The Taino lived an agricultural lifestyle and spent their days hunting and gathering. They were mostly colonists from the neighboring island of Quisquella (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), where the Tainos had a highly developed form of political organization based on the exploitation of rich maritime resources as well as agriculture.
In the central portion of the island, constantly being pushed westward by the more sophisticated Tainos lived another Arawak people ­ the Siboney ­ a hunting and gathering tribe. Totally marginated to the Pinar del Rio area on the westernmost tip of Cuba, lived the earliest arrivals in Cubanacan; the Guanatabeyes.
The Spanish with their firearms and superior technology easily conquered these tribes and tried to organize them in "Encomiendas," large plantations dedicated to the cultivation of tobacco, coffee and sugar cane. The Amerindians were not used to such hard labor and did not adapt well to the conditions of virtual slavery.
The same scourges that plagued most of the Americas, European diseases, greatly decimated their numbers. The Taino rose in revolt against their new masters and were brutally put down. The harsh conditions of slavery, plus disease and repression, took their toll on the natives and in less than one hundred years, these people were virtually extinct.

By the late 1500s, West African slaves were brought to the plantations and with them arrived the African rhythms and the wooden drum. The Taino people used gourds as rhythm instruments and it is believed that the African arrivals adopted them as well, although that is a debatable point as the West Africans also had knowledge of the use of gourds as rhythm instruments.
It is of interest to note that from the 1930s, Cuban music had begun to be heard in Africa and the Africans found in the Cuban music elements of their own musical heritage.
"This influence grew after World War II, when the record label EMI started the GV series of Latin music. It is curious that this series contained music accumulated during the three previous decades. The most popular number was "The Manisero" by the orchestra Apiazu. It soon became a staple of the repertoire of all the orchestras in West Africa where the influence of Cuban music was greater. The series comprised some 200 numbers, many as different as the Sextet Habanero, or the orchestra of Xavier Cugat. With the advent or recorded Latin, particularly Cuban, music, Afro-Cuban instruments began to be used in African orchestras and the old genres were adapted to the modern African taste. This influence was greater in the French and Belgian colonies of Guinea, Mali, Senegal and the Congo." Diaz Ayala, 1999

Meanwhile, back in the beginning of Cuba as a Spanish colony, the Spaniards had also brought their own music with them to the island of Cuba. Most of the early Spanish émigrés were from the Spanish provinces of Extremadura and Andalusia. The folk music played there was of the flamenco style, with the use of vihuelas (an early stringed instrument) and castanets as rhythm instruments. There was also much clapping of hands and stomping of feet in the "tablao" of flamenco dancing. This Spanish sound has a heavy rhythm component, so by the time the Africans arrived with their drums, it was not a totally foreign sound to the Spanish ears, but rather a natural extension of their own music, as we shall see in subsequent sections.
The first Cuban musicians were named Alonso Moron, Porras and Ortis. They came with Diego de Velazquez in the expedition that conquered Cuba in 1511. Porras was a cantor (singer), Alonso Moron played the vihuela (a lute-like instrument, much like the early guitar) and Ortis played the viola and the vihuela as well. It is also said that Ortis was a dance instructor. These three musicians, as well as later military musician arrivals, gave Cuba her early legacy of Spanish music.
In the 16th century, attacks by corsairs, pirates and hostile nations forced the Spanish to send the riches of the New World back to the homeland in fleets. Havana was the staging port where all the ships of the colonies came together before the voyage back to Spain. Every year, two fleets left Spain for the new World. One went to Mexico and Central America, the other to South America. Both fleets would rendezvous during the winter in Havana for the trip back to Spain in March. The idle time spent in Havana by the sailors of those fleets was often spent in parties and recreational activities, many of them musical.
The music of the Spanish soldiers and sailors mixed with the African music that was heard in Havana and other Spanish ports and the native Inca and Aztec musical constructions. When the fleet went back to Seville, new hybrid sounds came back with them, which rapidly became popular. These "cantes" or "cantos" (songs) went back and forth with the sailors, hence their denominations as "cantos de ida y vuelta" (songs of back and forth).
Alejo Carpentier points out that new musical forms were born which were named by the great Spanish writers of the period of "El Siglo de Oro" (the Golden Century). The Gayumba was mentioned as a dance from the Indies. Lope de Vega mentioned the Chacona. The Charambeque mentioned by Villaviciosa. Many other dances have been attributed to the Americas with names such as Zarabanda, Zambapalo and fandango. Many were probably put together and perfected in the long winters in Havana while waiting for the fleet to assemble and the weather to clear enough to return to Seville.
"There is a specific case in which you can prove that the origin (of a dance) was Havana. In 1776, a fleet arrived in the Mexican port of Vera Cruz, a fleet from Havana with immigrants of 'color quebrado.' (Literally, broken color or mulattoes) who brought with them a dance called El Chuchumbe which became very scandalous due to its suggestive steps and verses and it was condemned by the Mexican Holy Inquisition" Diaz Ayala 1999.

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