Cuban music

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Cuban music encompasses musical styles that originated on the Caribbean island of Cuba and have had a major impact on the development of various musical styles around the world from the 19th century to the present day.

The roots of most of the musical elements of Cuban music lie in the cabildos , a type of social association that came to Cuba with the colored slaves from Africa . These Cabildos preserved African cultural traditions, even after the abolition of slavery in 1886 . The compulsion to syncretize the African religions with Roman Catholic Christianity led to the emergence of the Santería , which soon spread across the entire island and also included the neighboring islands (for example Haiti ). The Santería influenced Cuban music with its religiously motivated emphasis on percussion instruments . Each of the Santería gods ( Orishas ) is associated with special colors, feelings, Catholic saints and rhythms. Since the 20th century elements of Santería music found their way into popular and folk music .

Family Tree of Cuban Music

Development of Cuban Music

Cuban music has its main roots in Spain and West Africa , but influences from other countries such as France , the USA and Jamaica have also been added over the years . Conversely, Cuban music also had a decisive influence on music in other countries, not only on the development of jazz and salsa (music) , but also on Argentine tango , Ghanaian high life , West African Afrobeat and Spanish “flamenco” Nuevo ".

Influences on Cuban Music

The street as a rehearsal room - Cuban band in Old Havana

The native inhabitants of Cuba were the Taíno , the Arawak and the Ciboney , whose musical style is called Areito (now the name of a Cuban record label). The Spanish conquerors almost completely exterminated the native indigenous population of Cuba in a few decades. Numerous slaves, who were brought to Cuba as labor to replace the murdered Indians, carried their music with them to the island. The European immigrants also brought their music and dances with them from their home countries: the Zapateo , the Fandango , the Zampado , the Retambico . Later, the northern European waltz , the minuet , the gavotte and the mazurka came to Cuba, which spread particularly among the urban white population. Fernando Ortíz Fernández , a Cuban anthropologist and ethnomusicologist , described the newly emerged Cuban music as a creation by slaves of the large sugar plantations and the Spaniards or Canary Islands with their small tobacco farms . The slaves built percussion instruments from their African homeland and thus generated the associated rhythms . The most important instruments of this type are the clave , the conga and the batá drums . 19th century Chinese contract workers added the cornetín chino , a Chinese wind instrument that is still used today by the comparsas , the active participants and dancers of the carnival groups in Santiago de Cuba .

Guajira

The original guajira music originated in the rural Cuban areas as peasant music and may have links to Jíbaro music from Puerto Rico . It was created at the beginning of the 20th century. Typical is the use of a 6-string Cuban guitar , called a tres , which is tuned in a very special way.

Música campesina

Música campesina (peasant music) is a rural form of improvised décimas (ten-verse stanzas), the verses themselves being called punto or punto cubano . This style of music became known outside of Cuba through artists such as Celina Gonzáles and influenced modern Son (see below).

While the original Música campesina retained its traditional form and thereby increasingly lost the interest of Cuban youth, some musicians have tried to modernize this style with new arrangements , texts and themes, initially encountering criticism from the purists of this style.

The Cuban TV program Palmas y Cañas is dedicated to maintaining the Música campesina .

Art music

In the 19th century there were some important composers of art music in Cuba. These included Robredo Manuel , who transformed the contradanza into various later musical styles, Laureano Fuentes , who wrote the still famous opera Celia , and Gaspar Villete , who also had success in Europe.

Ignacio Cervantes was one of the creators of an independent Cuban national music. He studied at the Paris Conservatory as well as with Marmontel , Nicolás Ruiz Espadero and Louis Moreau Gottschalk . In his compositions he used Afro-Cuban elements and guajiro techniques. Alejandro Caturla and Amadeo Roldán are among his successors .

After the Cuban Revolution of 1959 , a new generation of classical musicians emerged, including Leo Brouwer , who provided important impulses in the use of the classical guitar and is currently the director of the Havana Symphony Orchestra . In the early 1970s he was the head of the music department of the Cuban film institute ICAIC , where he contributed to the formation and promotion of the Nueva Trova movement.

Danzón

The European influence on Cuban music in the 19th and 20th centuries can be seen most clearly in the danzón , an elegant dance form that spread from Cuba across Latin America and particularly Mexico. Their roots are in the European ballrooms. Connections to English country dance , French contredanse and Spanish contradanza can be seen.

The danzón developed in the region of the Cuban city of Matanzas in the 1870s under the influence of African musical tradition and the habanera . It is played by a typical orchestra , for example a military band. Names such as Miguel Faildes are associated with the Danzón . Failde added elements of the French contredanse . Starting from him, artists such as José Urfe , Enrique Jorrín and Antonio María Romeu developed the musical style further.

Haitians in Cuba: Charanga

Another form of Cuban folk music is the bolero . These are ballads from Santiago de Cuba that are played by charangas (small French-Creole bands). Charangas originated among the Cuban Haitians with a French Creole background. Haitian refugees came to Cuba as early as 1791 during the slave revolt there. To this day there are always groups of Haitian refugees who settle in Cuba, especially in the town of Caibarién . Their form of the cabildo is called Tumba Francesa and became known through its own form of danzón, the comparsas , the mambo , the cha-cha-cha and other types of folk music.

Changuí

Changuí is a fast form of Son from the eastern provinces of Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo (for example Elio Revé ). It is not entirely clear where the changuí comes from and whether it is a forerunner of the son. Rather, it seems that both forms developed parallel to each other. Changuí is characterized by its strong emphasis on offbeat . He's fast and has a heavy emphasis on drums. Elio Revé modernized the Changuí , Candido Fabré and recently Los Dan Den gave it its current form. Los Van Van , led by Juan Formell , added trombones , synthesizers and more percussion , creating the songo .

Sun

Son is a major trend in Cuban music and has laid the foundation for many styles that have come after him. It originated in the east of the island among farmers of Spanish descent. It is believed that it is derived from Changuí, which also combined the Spanish guitar and African rhythms.

The characteristics of the Son vary greatly today, with a basic element being the bass impulse that comes before the downbeat (anticipated bass). This gives the son and the directions derived from it (including the salsa rhythm) their typical shape.

Traditionally, the son has themes such as love and patriotism. Modern artists are socially and politically oriented. Typical is the use of the decimas, with ten-verse stanzas, eight-syllable verses and 2/4 time. The son is rhythmically oriented towards the clave .

Batá and Yuka drums

One of the most influential Cabildos was the Lucumí , known for its Batá drums, which are traditionally played in initiation rites. The Gourd ensembles are called Abwe . In the 1950s, Batá drummers, known as Santeros , brought the Lucumí style into mainstream music. Musicians like Mezcla and Lázaro Ros associated this style with other forms, including the zouk .

The Congo Cabildo is known for its use of the yuka drums, the gallos (a kind of singing competition), makuta and mani dances, the latter being closely related to Brazilian capoeira . The yuka drum may have given rise to rumba , which is popular around the world. Rumba bands traditionally use different drums , palitos , claves and the alternating vocals .

rumba

Outside of Cuba, rumba is commonly seen as the ballroom ballroom dance, but its roots lie in the spontaneous, improvised, and lively dance of Havana and Matanzas dock workers . Percussion instruments such as the quinto , the tumbadora drums and the palitos (sticks) are combined with the Cáscara rhythm and vocal interludes (singer and choir) to form a danceable and popular form of music.

The word rumba is derived from the verb rumbear ( having a good time, partying ). The rhythm is the crucial element of rumba, which is primarily dance music .

There are three types of rumba rhythm with the associated dances:

  • Columbia in 6/8 time, danced by a man, is very fluid, with aggressive and acrobatic movements;
  • Guaguancó in 2/4 time is a partner dance with an erotic component;
  • Yambú , also known as "rumba of the old people", is a precursor to guaguancó and is very slow. Yambú is hardly danced anymore and is only played by a few folklore ensembles today.

Spread and formation of Cuban musical styles

1920-1940

The Son came to Havana around 1920 through legendary music groups such as the Trío Matamoros . The urbanized son received trumpets and other new instruments and influenced most later forms of Cuban music. In Havana, elements of popular US music and jazz were also included in the Son , which made their way to Cuba particularly via the radio .

The Son trio extended in part to septet with guitar or Tres , Marímbulas or double bass, bongos , claves and maracas . The trumpet was added in 1926. Singers improvised lyrics while the clave rhythm laid the foundation for the melody .

Over time, the Son became more and more "whiter" due to the increasing tourism in Havana's nightclubs : tourists had problems with the complex African rhythms.

The influence of Cuban music in the USA

In the 1930s, the Lecuona Cuban Boys and Desi Arnaz popularized the conga in the United States . Don Aspiazu did the same with the son montuno , while Arsenio Rodríguez developed the conjunto band. The popularity of rumba grew. Conjunto Son , Mambo , Cha-Cha-Cha , Rumba and Conga had the most important influence on the creation of Salsa.

The mambo first came to the United States in the 1940s. The first mambo was written by Orestes López (the brother of Israel "Cachao" López ) in 1938. Five years later, Perez Prado performed the dance at the Tropicana nightclub in Havana . The Mambo differed from its immediate predecessor, the Danzón , through the new elements of Son Montuno and jazz . In 1947 the mambo was danced across the United States, but the fever only lasted a few years.

Other influential musicians of pre-revolutionary Cuba were Chano Pozo , Bola de Nieve and Mario Bauzá , who, together with the " Nuyoricans " Ray Barretto and Tito Puente, brought innovations to the Mambo, so that it gradually became Latin jazz and later salsa music . Many musicians left Cuba between 1966 and 1968 when the revolutionary Cuban government nationalized the nightclubs and record industry. Among these musicians was Celia Cruz , a guarache singer who gave salsa a strong boost. Later on, Cubans were very active in the Latin jazz and early salsa scenes, such as the drummer Patato Valdés of the Cuban-oriented Tipica '73 with connections to the Fania All Stars . Former Iraqi members also had great success in the US, including Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval .

Habanera

The habanera originated in the late 19th century from the contradanza that had come to Cuba from Haiti at the end of the 18th century . The main innovation was rhythm, as the habanera had Spanish and African influences.

In the 1930s, the habanera musician Arcano y sus Maravillos incorporated the influences of the conga and the montuno (as in the son) into his music. In doing so, he paved the way for mixing various Latin American music, including the guarache played by a Charanga orchestra. The Guaracha (sometimes simply called Charanga) with its Haitian roots has remained very popular to this day.

Nevertheless, it was not until 1995 that a Cuban artist recorded an entire record of habanera music: It was Liuba Maria Hevia who recorded some songs that had been researched by the music ethnologist Maria Teresa Linares , the director of the Cuban Museum of Music . The reason was to produce sound documents for the museum that should represent this genre. Hevia was dissatisfied with the recordings, which were made under the poor material conditions of the Cuban economic crisis of 1993, and made new recordings of most of the songs in 2005.

The fact that the Habaneras CD was mainly sold in Barcelona after 1995 shows the low level of interest in this music in Cuba itself, especially when you consider the enormous spread of Habanera on the Spanish Mediterranean coast.

1940-1960

Arsenio Rodríguez , one of the most important Cuban Soneros, brought the Son back to its African roots in the 1940s by adapting the Guaguancó style and introducing cowbells and the conga in the rhythm area. He also expanded the role of the tres so that it now appeared as a solo instrument . Rodríguez introduced the Son den Montuno (or Mambo part) as melodic solos. His new style became known as Son montuno .

In the 1940s, it was Chano Pozo who participated in the bebop revolution in jazz by playing the conga and other Afro-Cuban drums. Conga became an integral part of Latin Jazz , which began among Cubans in New York City in 1940 .

Cuban music in the USA

A Charanga group called Orquesta America , led by violinist Enrique Jorrín , helped invent the cha-cha-cha, which had international success in the 1950s. Cha-Cha-Cha became known through the bands of Tito Puente , Perez Prado and other superstars. Many of these artists also adapted the mambo for modern audiences.

1960-1980

Modern Cuban music is known for its unrestrained mix of different musical genres . For example, Los Irakere used the Batá drums in a big band known as Son-Batá or Batá-Rock in the 1970s . Later artists created the Mozambique , which mixes the conga and mambo, and the Batá rumba , which mixes the rumba and the Batá drum music. Mixtures including the use of elements of hip-hop , jazz and rock 'n' roll are also common as in the Rockoson by Habana Abierta .

Cuban music in and outside of Cuba

The impact of the Cuban Revolution of 1959 on music has two important aspects:

  • There was a wave of emigration, especially from members of the Cuban upper class, to Puerto Rico , Florida , and New York .
  • The revolutionary state promoted culture and music and created the state record company EGREM .

The songwriting movement of the Nueva Trova (including Pablo Milanés , Silvio Rodríguez , Sara Gonzales ) formulated the political mood in Cuban youth in their music and lyrics, quite politically, but also very lyrically and individually.

Young Cubans were given the opportunity to study in a comprehensive system of music and art schools (ENA, Escuela Nacional del Arte), both with the aim of an artistic career and for the leisure sector.

The nationalized Cabaret Tropicana , previously a meeting place for the Cuban upper class and tourists, was now open to the entire population. It was not until the beginning of mass tourism in the mid-1980s that visits were largely reduced to tourists.

Casas de la Trova were set up in all cities , meeting places for mostly non-professional musicians who cultivated Cuban musical traditions here. Well-informed tourists also looked for the roots of Cuban music here.

After graduating from the conservatory, musicians received a fixed salary, foreign exchange income was taxed at 90% in favor of the Ministry of Culture, which also took care of management through its own agency.

In the course of the economic crisis around 1993, caused by the collapse of COMECON , like the rest of the population, the cultural workers also got into a difficult economic situation, which was made particularly difficult by the fact that additional income was hardly an option. The Cuban state therefore relaxed the regulations so that artists now had the opportunity to market their works themselves at home and abroad.

Well-known Cuban artists outside of Cuba are or were La Lupe , Willy Chirino , Gloria Estefan , Arturo Sandoval , Paquito D'Rivera , Bebo Valdés and Celia Cruz .

Salsa

Since the 1970s, the son montuno has been combined with other forms of Latin music , such as the mambo and the rumba , from which the contemporary salsa originated, which is immensely popular in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world.

Nueva Trova

In parallel to the Nueva Canción movement in Chile and Argentina , a socially and politically alert form of song production emerged in Cuba in the 1960s and 1970s under the name Nueva Trova . Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés became the internationally best-known representatives of this direction. The origins were the trovadores , the troubadours of the early 20th century such as Sindo Garay , Ñico Saquito , Carlos Puebla and Joseíto Fernández (known for setting the poem Guántanamera by José Martí ). The Nueva Trova always supported the Cuban revolution, but their themes and texts were often very lyrical and socially critical.

Outside of Cuba, the Nueva Trova had its greatest successes in Latin America and Spain , where the words of its songs could also be understood. The poetry, also with themes such as love and loneliness, is on a high poetic level. Liuba María Hevia represents a young, non-political variety of Nueva Trova , while Carlos Varela takes a critical stance on the Cuban state.

1980-2000

Son and Nueva Trova are the most popular forms of modern Cuban music today, and almost all Cuban musicians play music derived from either of these two genres . Traditional Son is played by the following groups:

Mixing the Son with other genres can be found at:

In addition, there are still many who play the traditional Son Montuno , such as Eliades Ochoa , who has made many recordings and tours in this direction since the mid-1990s.

Since the 1990s, Cuban music has returned to the spotlight of the world music scene, and interest in traditional forms such as Son Montuno grew particularly strongly. This development went hand in hand with the increase in mass tourism to Cuba.

Orquesta Aragón , Charanga Habanera , Cándido Fabré y su Banda have been on the Charanga scene for many years, helping shape the popular timba scene of the late 1990s.

The most important Cuban music prize is the Benny Moré Prize. - Due to the partly terrorist methods of the anti-communist Cubans in exile in Miami, the celebrations for the Grammy Latino had to be moved from Miami to Los Angeles .

Timba

Since its release in the early 1990s was Timba to the most popular dance music in Cuba, followed by the reggaeton , the Cuban version of the Raggamuffin from Jamaica . Despite its close relationship with salsa music, Timba has its own characteristics and history and is closely related to the life and culture of Cuba, especially Havana . Bands like Los Van Van (Grammy winner 1999 with the album Llego ), Pupy y Los Que Son Son , Charanga Habanera, Manolito y su Trabuco, Manolin el Médico de la Salsa are known both inside and outside of Cuba.

Buena Vista Social Club

The 1997 album and the film Buena Vista Social Club , recordings by veterans of Cuban music made by the American musician and producer Ry Cooder , while the film was made by the German filmmaker Wim Wenders , made a break in the worldwide reception of Cuban music . Both the album and the film became international hits with millions of copies sold and made the eighty-year-old Cuban musicians Ibrahim Ferrer , Joseíto Fernández and Compay Segundo , whose careers had stagnated since the 1950s, into world stars.

The worldwide interest in this nostalgic music from pre-revolutionary Cuba met with reservations among young Cuban musicians, as they got the impression that the musical development of the last forty years was being ignored.

Reggaeton

The reggaeton ( reguetón ) music style that has been increasingly widespread in Latin America (and also in the USA and Europe ) has not stopped at the borders of Cuba. However, the texts of Cuban reggaeton differ from those of the provenances of Panama, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.

literature

  • Torsten Eßer, Patrick Frölicher (Ed.): “Everything in my existence is music” ... Cuban music from Rumba to Tecno . 2004, 642 pp., ISBN 3-86527-164-2 .
  • Maya Roy: Musiques cubaines . 1998 (French).
  • Jan Fairley: Troubadors Old and New . In: Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham, James McConnachie, Orla Duane (Eds.): World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific . 2000, ISBN 1-85828-636-0 , pp. 408-413.
  • Jan Fairley: ¡Que Rico Bailo Yo! How Well I Dance . In: Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham, James McConnachie, Orla Duane (Eds.): World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific . 2000, ISBN 1-85828-636-0 , pp. 386-407.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Liuba María Hevia