AfroCuban Music
afro-cuban music in the united states
university African ensambles- ASU african drum ensemble -not as much afro influence in US because The importation of slaves to the United States became illegal Early in the 19 century far earlier than Cuba in Brazil, Slaves from assorted ethnic language/backgrounds were deliberately mixed together to make communication and rebellion more difficult, US Protestantism was much less tolerant of The observance of traditional African religion which often involve drumming and dancing, That's for the most part US musical "Africanisms" are embedded within European musical forms dances and performance styles -Blues, rhythm and blues, boogie Woogie, black gospel music African influence styles but are played on pianos in European instruments fitting into the European ideas and work with in the harmonic and rhythmic system, min cuba and brazil by contrast very african style dances rumba or samba- African hip shoulder and elbow movements Play it on African shaped drums -Los Munequitos de matanzas playing "el Tocoloro (the singing bird)" - we can only see this kind of thing in universities where people come and play -Direct musical influence from Spain upon the US during the 19th and 20th centuries was minimal As Spain did not provide a significantly large number of immigrants, Similarly the importation of slaves dwindled and during the 19 century African music or influences upon American music largely developed internally Working its way into traditional European dance and song styles -The second grade African Influence in the primary Spanish influence on the US came via Caribbean blended popular music's -In the mid-19 century "La Paloma" in the Cuban song/dance form known as habanera meaning "Havana style" became a global megahit -The habanero has a characteristic syncopated Melody and accompaniments- Note that syncopation Loosely means "musical accents in unexpected places, places such as between the beats which doesn't coincide with the normal accents of a musical measure" -Similar sounds to sing in jazz ragtime rhythm and blues
American Jazz
-Another important source of modern Cuban popular dance music as Americans in the late 1930s through the early 1950s Cubans Puerto Ricans an American jazz musicians playing together and develop forms which blended jazz an Afro-Cuban music -Jazz has been strongly and directly influenced by line music ever since that time -"Manteca" a 1947 Peace played by Dizzy Gillespie and his Orchestra in collaboration with Cuban percussionist/singer Chano Pozo is an example of the exciting marriage of jazz harmonies and instrumentation with Cuban rhythms and percussion -The first part is a mambo in which screaming American swing band wind instruments are accompanied by Latin percussion and the second part highlights the more specifically jazz identified instruments in a more typically jazz like rhythmic framework -"Mantecca" 1947 Dizzie Gillespie orchestra with chano Pozo
Conclusion
-Best Latin music both in Identifiable form as well as through it's more subtle influence has provided yet another important component of the pallet which has made American popular music such a potent cultural force around the world
jazz
-Cuban forms especially have influenced American popular music rock from the 1960s on shows considerable Cuban rhythmic influences and Latin treatments are an important resource in jazz -A whole stream of Latin influenced jazz known as Latin jazz has developed since the 1940s -This music typically featured orchestras combining jazz wind instruments with Latin rhythm sections including conga, drums, bongos and timbales
Puerto Ricans
-Puerto Ricans as American citizens since the Spanish American war were relatively free to travel to the US mainland and began to comprise an important component of the New York population especially from the 1920s -Puerto Rican New Yorkers are often referred to as "Nuyoricans" -Puerto Rican musicians became Proficient at the Cuban music already popular in the United States adapting it in their own ways -Puerto Rican starts, Noro Morales, Tito Rodriguez, and Tito Puente, Became famous for their interpretations of Cuban music and the cosmopolitan ways of New York -From the late 1960s on salsa which builds upon the traditional Cuban son and hybrid jazz influenced mumbo became the most popular Nuyorican form - Because of the prestige of Cuban music combined with the large number of Nuyoricans connected with a very vital New York recording industry salsa subsequently became one of the most important pan-Latin forms in other American urban areas and throughout Hispanic Latin America -Salsa is fast exciting and for a while, Especially from the 1970s until the 1990s featured interesting fighting social commentary and it's lyrics (ex: "buscando America" Ruben Blades- searching for america) -Salsa has remained an important pan Latin music although such Caribbean music as the Cumbia originally from the Caribbean coast of Columbia and the merengue originally from the Dominican republic are both enormously popular
rumba
-The Cuban rumba might be called Neo African -Virtually all its components other than the Spanish language can be traced back to Africa. All the instruments have west African counterparts as to the complex polyrhythms the interlocking relationships among the percussion the improvisation and the call and response between the leader/improviser and the chorus -This kind of neo-African music occurs in places with high concentrations Of African descendants and where are the dominant culture has not tried to obliterate traces of African culture such a place is Cuba-Where are the largest number of Afro Latin forms has come from -Probably the most African music one can hear in the new world belongs to the African derived polytheistic meaning many "gods and goddesses" possession Religions such as Brazilian Candomblé, Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santería (chant to elegua) -All these are closely related. Achieving possession or unity with a particular god or goddess through the appropriate use of songs drumming and dancing is the main goal of all of these religions -The rumba is a secular new African voice and percussion dance originally associated with Afro Cuban in Havana. It cannot be heard in the United States as a recreational music emphasizing the drumming aspects popular especially among Caribbean Hispanics who tend to live in greater numbers in urban areas. Ex (el tocoloro the singing bird)
Focus of the rhythm PT 1
-story begins in Africa, flute, clatter of sticks (African music very important and apart of everything) after a hunt praise the gods through song -Can trace the rhythms that we see today to the tribes of west Africa dauba, congo and another peoples -500 years ago in a neruba kingdom by the niger river, there was a drummer baba tumdi? From the time he heard his father and uncles drums he knew he wanted to be a drummer, His grandmother took him to some person and they gave him a potion to make his singing and drumming perfect, Learned how to carve drums from his father and how much pressure to apply his uncles, Grandfather taught him the songs to call for the gods of the Uba universe
cumbia
Cumbia is especially popular in the western United States with its large immigrant Mexican and central American populations
continuation of rumba?
In United States the word rumba came to me and just about any time of Cuban drive to music from the most African (which American audiences seldom had a chance to here) to the most European with a little traces of Afro style -American contact with Cuba became about after the Spanish American war in 1898 when Cuba was occupied by American troops- became economic colony of US -Cuba and especially Havana became favorite destination for American tourists seeking topical beaches music gabling and other fleshly pleasures -American audiences developed a taste for various versions of this music through trips to Cuba and increasing number of recordings Cuban music productions an American night clubs flashy Hollywood "exotic Latin" productions and Tours by Cuban orchestras -Many Americanized version of Cuban Songs became more popular with translated or more often new American lyrics -Cuban Balero/son Which like so many other Cuban forms was generically called Rumba or Rhumba in the United States- "siboney" by Ernesto Lecuona sung by bing Crosby accompanied by the Xavier Cugat orchestra -"el Manisero" (the peanut Vendor) 1930 performed by Don Azpiazu and His Havana Casino Orchestra -Although the American media intended to call nearly everything from Cuba a rumba this and much of the subsequent popular music from Cuba heard in the US was actually called son. The son is very important for the subsequent development of US Latin music As it has a basic structure which later became that urban salsa music - Son- Notice the typical two-part structure which begins with a soloist singing verses followed by the improvising solo and repeating chorus alteration known in Cuba as Montuno. Notice the tresillo (Those Caribbean triplets we talked about earlier) and Clave patterns in this music in the bass played on the claves themselves and in the melodies -Septeto Nacional playing "mayeya, No Juegues con Los Santos"- This sort of A solo first and B solo improvisation with course structure is very widespread and Cuban music
Mambo
Mambo dancers of the time Inc. typical American swing dance movements these intern evolved into the characteristic virtuosic show a dance styles of salsa in the 1960s to the present -Although the musical structures and rhythms of mambo and salsa Were primarily Cuban Heavily influenced by American harmonies arrangements and instrumentation the largest population participating in this music was Puerto Rican
Merengue
Marengo strongly Rival salsa in New York where Dominican immigrants have come to Rival Puerto Ricans numerically
spains music
Spain's with music was different than those of west Africa 500 years ago -sang epic poems I told her the Christians drove out the Muslims After 800 years of bloody warfare -The troubadour's (lol yelling) -500 years ago in the southern part of Spain was a stringed instrument plucked in a morse certain way known as the guitar (renal pares-As a child living in the south of Spain he learned popular songs and dances, Went to Seville to study and the renowned music school, Mastered instrument and became a real musician For Ferdinand and Isabella)- He was super away from court at night had to go play music with gypsies the music would become known as flamingo -The flamenco dancing of the south born a dance craze called saviannas, dance it everywhere now -guajiro hill country style, -machismo -on the docks black and whites worked together- rumba -spanish and african culture blends, dish moros de christianos, creol food, white rice and black beans -chacha -Roomba played on boxes with spoons, Juanito, 2 spoons a boc and some beats on a door -chongwee blend gutar and drum -carnaval is in Santiago 10 days and nights drum is king
claves
The claves are a set of hardwood sticks used in Cuban music and the various patterns they play are also called clave -Much Latin rhythm is based on or derived from one or other of the clave patterns, maybe heard in westside story -So one of these rhythms is either Explicitly played on the Claves or at least almost always strongly implied in different parts of the compositions the improvisation on these compositions or the accompaniment patterns played on different instruments -Made up of three strokes -"nada de Ti" performed by eddie palmieri -The three pattern the first half of the clave pattern is called in Spanish "tresillo" more or less meaning triplets -These Caribbean triplets are not however the same as American triplets know that they are syncopated and unequal in that interesting Caribbean Way -Notice how this "guajeo" Or accompaniment part which could be played on a piano violin guitar other instrument reflects the rhythm of the clave part -how they do and can reflect each other,- "bemba colora" celia cruz - Note by the way how much these rhythms permeate non-Latin American jazz and popular music -Ragtime rhythms are closely related note from Melody to Scott Joplin 1902 Ragtime peace "the entertainer" - You can even see a more direct connection with the "bo Diddley beat" -It's not a coincidence that US and Latin American music share these rhythms- New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz which is also an important Gulf of Mexico sea port with geographical and cultural connections to the Caribbean. New Orleans also shared Catholicism Spanish/French culture and language and large slave population with the Caribbean -The first specifically Latin dance to make an impression on the US social dancing is that Argentine tango. Which built upon syncopated Cuban habanera rhythms spread from Brunos Aires to Europe and hit New York in 1913 remaining a standard ballroom dance to the present day -Tango cannot however really be called an Afro Latin dance to do it's European derived harmonies instrumentation structure and choreography
ethnic makeup of afro-cuban music
caribeños -roots of music primarily Africa and Spain -american indian tribes that inhabited the carrabean at the time had little impacts on european music, because the natives are wiped out so soon because of disease and being killed by the Europeans they didn't really have much impact on music And because their music was so different from the Spanish it wasn't really recorded and died out because it wasn't close to spanish music -left with the Maracas (rattles) and Guiro (gord scrapper) -The Spanish needed labor to fulfill their ambitions of extracting riches from "the Indies" and To fill the vacuum created by the Amerindian holocaust they had brought about they began importing African slaves and Cuban music shows identifiable influences from specific west and central African cultures, The slave trade increased when sugarcane plantations showed up in the 18th century -King sugar plantations are very labor Intense requiring lots of water heat and labor -Over for centuries of millions of Africans slaves were imported especially to these hot rainy areas in the New World such as the Caribbean in the hot rainy coastal areas of Central America and northern southern America -Cumbia of Columbia Sombra of Brazil, merengue of the DR and haiti, Bomba of Puerto Rico, Calypso of Trinidad, and the cuban musics have strong aftican influencer
ted solis
professor of ethnomusicology
