Salsa Cubana
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The Cuban stream of salsa-family dance music, encompassing the songo-driven bands and the timba movement that reworked son, guaracha and rumba with jazz, funk and folkloric batá. Compared to New York salsa it favors busier bass and piano interplay, heavier percussion (congas, timbales and drum kit together), longer improvised montunos and a rawer, more athletic groove. Vocals are conversational and slang-rich, arrangements are harmonically adventurous, and the emphasis is on hard, virtuosic dance music rather than romantic polish. It is the sound of Havana's dancehalls, distinct in feel from its Nuyorican and Puerto Rican cousins.
History
While 'salsa' as a marketing label was a New York phenomenon, Cuba's own dance orchestras evolved a parallel path: Los Van Van (founded 1969) invented songo, Irakere fused jazz and folklore, and Adalberto Álvarez modernized the son conjunto, all keeping Cuban popular music at the cutting edge. In the late 1980s and 1990s this lineage produced timba, led by NG La Banda, La Charanga Habanera and Issac Delgado, which became the dominant Cuban dance sound during the tourism-fueled special period. Centered in Havana and largely developing outside the US industry, salsa cubana continues to thrive at home and among international dancers as a distinct, harder-edged branch of the salsa world.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Robin Moore, Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba (2006)
- Vincenzo Perna, Timba: The Sound of the Cuban Crisis (2005)
- Ned Sublette, Cuba and Its Music (2004)