Son Cubano
Located in 2 routes
The foundational Afro-Cuban song-and-dance form that fuses Spanish guitar-based song (with tres, guitar and vocal harmony) and African rhythm (bongó, maracas, claves, marímbula or bass), organized around the anticipated bass and the son clave. A typical son moves from a sung, verse-like largo section into a montuno, where a lead singer improvises soneos over a repeated coro; sextet and septet lineups add trumpet for bright melodic punctuation. Tempos are relaxed to mid, the feel is lilting and swinging, and the mood is warm, nostalgic and danceable. It is the DNA from which mambo, salsa and much of Latin popular music descends.
History
The son emerged in the rural Oriente of eastern Cuba in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and reached Havana in the 1910s, where sextetos and septetos like Sexteto Habanero and Ignacio Piñeiro's Septeto Nacional professionalized it in the 1920s and Trío Matamoros spread it internationally. Radio, records and the trumpet-led format made son the national popular music; Arsenio Rodríguez expanded it into the son montuno and conjunto in the 1940s, feeding mambo and eventually salsa. After decades in salsa's shadow, the tradition returned to global prominence with the Buena Vista Social Club project of 1996–1997, which spotlighted veterans Compay Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer and sold millions worldwide.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Son de la Loma(1928) — Trío MatamorosSpotifyYouTube
- Lágrimas Negras(1929) — Trío MatamorosSpotifyYouTube
- Échale Salsita(1933) — Ignacio PiñeiroSpotifyYouTube
- Chan Chan(1997) — Compay SegundoSpotifyYouTube
- El Cuarto de Tula(1997) — Buena Vista Social ClubSpotifyYouTube
- Candela(1997) — Ibrahim FerrerSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Ned Sublette, Cuba and Its Music (2004)
- Peter Manuel, Caribbean Currents (1995)
- Isabelle Leymarie, Cuban Fire (2002)