Into The Twentieth Century
i- Cuban Music in the New Century
If you go to the mountains of Andalucia you can still find country
folks singing folk songs which are the precursors of many of the
folk song traditions of Latin America. Men stand in line with
guitars, mandolins and violins while a "cantaor" carries
the tune and tells the story. A lot of improvising goes on, just
like in the Cuban "son montuno." In another Cuban folk
song form, "the decimas," two singers compete against
each other, agreeing on a theme to start and answering each other's
stanzas. These are ten lines long, improvised and perfectly rhymed,
the winner declared when one singer falters or fails to rhyme.
These song forms, Spanish folk song, and decimas are the precursor
and form one of the pillars of one of Cuba's most important music
genre: the son. In the son
the melodies sometimes are of definite Spanish origin, while other
times they take on a distinctly Cuban flavor. The son grows and
evolves during the struggle for independence and early in the
century is already wildly popular in the whole country. Another
pillar of the son is the danzon. From it we get European instrumentation
and the cinquillo African rhythm beat. Now we have guitars, lauds,
(descendant of the mandolin), African drums and rhythm instruments
and European instrumentation from the danzon, albeit with a cinquillo
African beat. Only one element is missing: the rumba.
The word rumba today is a term that covers a variety of Cuban
rhythms such as son, danzon, guajira and guaracha. The native
African folk dance on which the rumba is based is essentially
a sex pantomime, usually danced fast with exaggerated hip movements
and a sensually aggressive attitude on the part of the woman.
The music is played with an staccato beat in keeping with the
movements of the dancers. The instruments played in the native
rumba are all rhythm instruments such as drums, maracas, other
shakers and claves. One of these African dances, still done in
Cuba, is the "Rooster and the Hen." In this dance the
man is the rooster and tries to 'get' the hen making a gesture
with the hips, while
heavy sexual overtones. This is the native rumba, the third pillar
of son music today, which is in itself the foundation of the Cuban-derived
rhythms so widespread all over the world today.
The son, already wildly popular all over the country, finally
hit Havana around 1910 where it received a mixed reception. For
the authorities, the son was an unruly manifestation of black
culture and thus difficult to control. Thus the son, along with
the various drum musics was to be strictly controlled: "It
was necessary to apply for permission to put on popular music
events, and this was rarely granted, especially in sensitive areas
such as black suburbs like Guanabacoa. Illegal son parties were
raided by the guardia civil and the participants arrested. For
this reason, the son became widespread among the population of
Havana only when it had penetrated the higher strata of society."Sweeney,
2001:54
But the son did become wildly popular. This was the result of
two factors: the music was very attractive and it could be played
by smaller groups than the orchestras, thus making it accessible
to more people. By 1917, the son was king and in the twenties
it reached new heights with the formation of the Matamoros group
which have given us Cuba's most famous son, "Son De La Loma."
Although the danzon is considered the Cuban
national dance, the son is truly the soul of the Cuban people
and its foremost musical manifestation. By forging together a
new song form out of African and Spanish roots it became the people's
music, appealing to all the Cubans, regardless of their social
or economic status. It evolved from a rural dance in Eastern Cuba
to the national music of the island. As more percussion was added,
it became a very danceable and catchy genre. You can not understand
the Cuban people and the Cuban character unless you hear and dance
the son. During the 1930s Arsenio Rodriguez, one of Cuba's foremost
composers started reconnecting the son with its African roots.
"It is said that Arsenio brought the music back to its roots
and in doing that moved the music forward. Through his many innovations
in styling and instrumentation, Rodriguez expanded the son sound
to emphasize or re-incorporate many of the African element that
many of the earlier son conjuntos omitted or simplified. He synthesized
and maintained the integrity of African and Spanish elements."
Http://buffy.eecs.berkeley.edu/Staff/Social/cubatranscript.shtm.
Arsenio introduced the improvising or vamping element to the son
and his style became know as son montuno.
ii-Cross-pollination with America
In 1913, Latin American music made its first appearance in force
in the United States with the tango. The tango, an Argentine dance,
was originally a variation of the Cuban habanera. The tango became
a national pastime in the United States and it opened the doors
for Cuban music. In 1913, band leaders Lew Quinn and Joan Sawyer
made the first serious attempts to introduce the rumba to America
though it wasn't very successful. Ten years later, band leader
Emil Coleman imported some rumba musicians and a pair of rumba
dancers to New York.
Real interest with the rumba started in the mid 1920's with Xavier
Cugat. He was a Spanish-born, Cuban-raised musician and illustrator
who gave up an unpromising career as a classical musician to become
a cartoonist. An accomplished pianist, he was asked by his friend
Charlie Chaplin to help him find a musical theme for his movie
"City of Lights." Cugat played Chaplin many different
types of music and all were rejected until he played him the Spanish
couple "La Violetera," (The Violet Seller) which Chaplin
instantly liked and became the musical theme for the movie. Cugat
went on to play the piano for the movie and that led to other
musical movie gigs. Rudolph Valentino then asked Cugat to put
together a tango orchestra for his movie and that's how Xavier
Cugat's band started. He became known as the "King of the
Rhumba," and made over 200 recordings into the 1940s. He
was the one who gave Desi Arnaz a break into show business, another
Cuban who with Lucille Ball was very influential in the development
of American entertainment.
Meanwhile, the cultural exchange worked both ways. While Cuban
musicians were bringing rumba into the US, they themselves were
picking up American voicings and orchestrations from the jazz
styles in vogue at the time which they incorporated into Cuban
music. Thus trumpet and saxes made their way into Cuban music,
as well as jazz playing styles. By the 1940s, Cuban orchestras
had similar instrumentation to jazz orchestras, albeit with a
much larger percussion section to accommodate Cuban rhythms.
Another factor to the growing popularity of the Cuban sound in
the US was that during Prohibition millions of Americans made
their way into the island for
legal drinking and gambling. There they were exposed to Cuban
rhythms and brought that taste back with them. Thus, ragtime which
was the St. Louis jazz sound was itself heavily influenced by
Cuban rhythms. Hollywood also helped to popularize Cuban music
by picking up Cuban influences and making a number of movies with
a toned down and Anglicized Cuban sound. It all hit a peak in
the forties with the mambo craze, a music based on the rumba with
American band instruments. Then in the 50s came the cha cha. The
cha cha, interestingly enough, is based on the middle part of
the danzon, the improvising section we discussed earlier. It was
created by Enrique Jorrin, a Cuban bandleader, as a medium tempo
dance. It became an immediate international success.
iiii. Other Cuban Music Forms
One of the most important Cuban song forms is la trova, a direct
descendant of European song forms. The development of the trova
occurred in Santiago de Cuba as a genre started by singer-songwriters
of the 19th Century. Like European medieval troubadours they traveled
the countryside singing and accompanying themselves with stringed
instruments, usually guitars. Thus they became known as trovadores
and their songs as trova. The first song in this style regarded
as
typically "Cuban" was "La Bayamesa" (The Girl
From Bayamo) and it was written by Carlos Manuel de Cespedes and
some friends as a serenade for a girlfriend. Later, when Cespedes
rose in rebellion in 1868 and started the Ten Year War against
Spain, the song became one of the favorites of the Cuban patriots
along with others such as "La Guerrilla," "Cuba
Para Los Cubanos," and "La Caida de Guacamayo."
The song impressed the listeners as strongly creole and its cadences
were different from the European model, thus introducing the era
of typical Cuban song forms and melodies. It is also interesting
to note that about one hundred years later the trova once again
evolved into protest song themes as Cuban singers sang against
Yankee Imperialism and it inspired the Latin American "Nueva
Cancion."
Another important Cuban song form is the bolero. The bolero's
European influences include operatic arias and Neapolitan song,
but it's the fusion with African percussion that creates a new
genre of music. The first boleros were created in Santiago de
Cuba in the last half of the nineteenth century by the early trovadores.
By the 1920's and 1930's the bolero had become an important song
genre across all the countries of the world. Another song genre
that evolved from the bolero and the trova was the filin. It also
incorporated North American
jazz elements, both in instrumentation and vocalization.
Many other song forms were also derived of the Cuban son. The
sucu sucu, guajira son, pregon son, afro son, son montuno and
guaracha all had their moment and have been rescued from obscurity
by modern Cuban bands. Probably the most popular of these derivatives
is the guaracha, a son form that emerged from the Havana's music
halls in the twenties and thirties. It is performed by guitars,
percussion and tres and its sly, bawdy lyrics encourage improvisation.
Two of Cuba's great singers, Benny Moret and Celia Cruz have performed
guarachas as a mainstay of their careers.
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