I walk in a commercial area and tucked away facing a courtyard with some other businesses is a salsa dancing studio. It is early in the morning, so no one is here yet. But the floor-to-ceiling glass windows show a glossy, smooth dance floor aching to feel the practiced twists and turns of salsa dancers. Before the pandemic, the town where I live — Addison — had free salsa concerts every Saturday night in July at an outdoor amphitheater in Vitruvian Park which is only three blocks from my townhouse. Many summer nights would find me there marveling at the extraordinary moves of some of the crowd. Their professionalism didn’t sway me from stepping out on the dance floor on my own when the music spoke to me. I have taken salsa lessons, but I’m still not very good. Did you know that professional salsa dancers have special shoes? The women’s shoes are strappy, high-heeled sandals that can cost up to $100. Latin ballroom shoes for men are $70-$140. The thing about salsa is that you cannot watch people dance, listen to the music or dance yourself without smiling. There is something about the sound and rhythm of the music that makes you feel happy inside. Want to learn more? Read on.
History
Pre-salsa: Cuban dance music in New York City 1930-1940
According to Wikipedia, salsa emerged from New York City in the mid-1970s, then spread throughout Latin America and the Western Hemisphere. However, the music had already been going strong in the city for several decades prior to the use of the label “salsa.” New York had been a center of Cuban-style dance music since the 1940s, when landmark innovations by Machito's Afro-Cubans helped usher in the mambo era. Tito Puente worked for a time in the Afro-Cubans before starting up his own successful band. By the early 1950s, there were three very popular mambo big bands in New York: Machito and his Afro-Cubans, Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez. There were many other working bands as well. The Palladium Ballroom was the epicenter of mambo in New York. At the height of its popularity, the Palladium attracted Hollywood and Broadway stars, especially on Wednesday nights, when a free dance lesson was offered. The mambo and its "temple" — the Palladium — were racially and ethnically integrated phenomena.
The next Cuban "dance craze" to hit the United States was the chachachá. The chachachá originated in the Cuban charanga bands but was adopted by the horn-based groups in New York. By the early 1960s, there were several charanga bands in New York, led by future salsa icons Johnny Pacheco, Charlie Palmieri and Ray Barretto. Mongo Santamaría also had a charanga during this period. The pachanga was popularized by Orquesta Sublime and other Cuban charangas. The pachanga was the last Cuban popular dance to take hold in New York's Latin community. The U.S. embargo against Cuba in 1962 halted the two-way flow of music and musicians between Cuba and the United States.
The first post-Revolution Cuban dance music genre was the short-lived, but highly influential Mozambique in 1963. Neither the dance, nor the music caught on outside of Cuba. In spite of this, members of Eddie Palmieri's Conjunto la Perfecta did hear this new music over shortwave radio, inspiring them to create a similar rhythm which they also called mozambique. Although the two rhythms share no parts in common, the band received death threats because some right wing Cuban exiles thought Palmieri's band was playing contemporary Cuban music.
There was one final distinct Latin music era in New York before salsa emerged, and it was an original, home-grown hybrid: the Latin boogaloo or boogalú. By the mid-1960s, a hybrid Nuyorican cultural identity emerged, primarily Puerto Rican but influenced by many Latin cultures as well as the close contact with African Americans. The boogaloo was a true Nuyorican music, a bilingual mix of R&B and Cuban rhythms. It had two Top 20 hits in 1963: Mongo Santamaría's performance of the Herbie Hancock piece “Watermelon Man” and Ray Barretto's "El Watusi", which in a sense, established the basic boogaloo formula. The term “boogaloo” was probably coined in about 1966 by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz. The biggest boogaloo hit of the 60s was "Bang Bang" by the Joe Cuba Sextet, which achieved unprecedented success for Latin music in the United States in 1966 when it sold over one million copies. "El Pito" was another hit by this popular combo. Hits by other groups included Johnny Colón's "Boogaloo Blues," Pete Rodríguez's "I Like It like That" and Hector Rivera's "At the Party." Joe Bataan and the Lebron Brothers are two other important boogaloo bands.
In 1966, the same year as Joe Cuba's pop success, the Palladium closed because it lost its liquor license. The mambo faded away, and a new generation came into their own with the boogaloo, the jala-jala and the shing-a-ling. Some of the older, established band leaders took a stab at recording boogaloos — Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri and even Machito and Arsenio Rodríguez. But the establishment didn't have their hearts in it. As Puente later recounted: "It stunk ... I recorded it to keep up with the times. The young boogaloo upstarts were outselling their older counterparts. Johnny Colón claims that "Boogaloo Blues" sold over four million copies domestically. By the end of the 1960s though, the Latin music establishment shut down boogaloo airplay and the movement fizzled out. Some of the young boogaloo artists, like Willie Colón, were able to transition into the next phase — salsa.
The late 1960s also saw white youth joining a counterculture heavily associated with political activism, while black youth formed radical organizations like the Black Panthers. Inspired by these movements, Latinos in New York formed the Young Lords, rejected assimilation and "made the barrio a cauldron of militant assertiveness and artistic creativity." The musical aspect of this social change was based on the Cuban son, which had long been the favored musical form for urbanites in both Puerto Rico and New York. The Manhattan-based recording company Fania Records introduced many of the first-generation salsa singers and musicians to the world. Founded by Dominican flautist and band-leader Johnny Pacheco and impresario Jerry Masucci, Fania was launched with Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe's “El Malo” in 1967. This was followed by a series of updated son montuno and plena tunes that evolved into modern salsa by 1973. Pacheco put together a team that included percussionist Louie Ramirez, bassist Bobby Valentín and arranger Larry Harlow. The Fania team released a string of successful singles, mostly son and plena, performing live after forming the Fania All-Stars.
1970s
n 1971 the Fania All-Stars sold out Yankee Stadium. By the early 1970s, the music's center moved to Manhattan and the Cheetah, where promoter Ralph Mercado introduced many future Puerto Rican salsa stars to an ever-growing and diverse crowd of Latino audiences. The 1970s also brought new semi-known salsa bands from New York City, Bands like Angel Canales, Andy Harlow — Larry Harlow's brother, Chino Rodríguez y su Consagracion — Chino Rodríguez was one of the first Chinese Puerto Rican artist that cued the eye of Fania Record's owner Jerry Masucci and later became the booking agent for many of the Fania artists, Wayne Gorbea, Ernie Agusto y la Conspiracion, Orchestra Ray Jay, Orchestra Fuego and Orchestra Cimarron, among other bands that were performing in the salsa market in the East Coast of the USA. In 1975 New York, DJ and conga drummer Roger Dawson created the "Sunday Salsa Show" over WRVR FM which became one of the highest-rated radio shows in the New York market with a reported audience of over a quarter of a million listeners every Sunday per Arbitron Radio ratings. Ironically, although New York's Hispanic population at that time was over two million, there had been no commercial Hispanic FM. Given his jazz and salsa conga playing experience and knowledge — working as a sideman with such bands as salsa's Frankie Dante's Orquesta Flamboyan and jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp — Dawson also created the long-running "Salsa Meets Jazz" weekly concert series at the Village Gate jazz club where jazz musicians would sit in with an established salsa band, for example Dexter Gordon jamming with the Machito band. Dawson helped to broaden New York's salsa audience and introduced new artists — such as the bilingual Angel Canales — who were not given play on the Hispanic AM stations of that time. His show won several awards from the readers of Latin New York magazine, Izzy Sanabria's “Salsa Magazine” at that time and ran until late 1980 when Viacom changed the format of WRVR to country music.
From New York, salsa quickly expanded to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and other Latin American countries. The number of salsa bands — both in New York and elsewhere — increased dramatically, as did salsa-oriented radio stations and record labels.
The 1970s saw a number of musical innovations among salsa musicians. Willie Colón introduced the cuarto, a rural Puerto Rican plucked string instrument, as well as some songs with jazz, rock and Panamanian and Brazilian music influences.
Celia Cruz, who had a successful career in Cuba, was able to transition well to salsa in the United States. She became known as the Queen of Salsa. Larry Harlow, a bandleader and arranger for Fania Records, modernized salsa by adding an electric piano. Harlow also stretched out from the typical salsa formula with his ambitious opera “Hommy” in 1973, inspired by the Who's “Tommy,” and integral to Celia Cruz's comeback from early retirement. In 1979 Harlow released his critically acclaimed “La Raza Latina, a Salsa Suite.”
The slick, highly produced Fania sound was too predictably formulaic for some tastes. There was a niche for more adventurous Puerto Rican bands, such as Eddie Palmieri and Manny Oquendo’s Libre. The two bands were the main proponents of NY-style Mozambique, drew inspiration from the classic Cuban composers and Afro-Cuban folkloric rhythms, while pushing the limits of salsa and incorporating jazz elements. They also featured some of the best trombone soloists in the business, several of whom were "Anglo" jazz musicians who had mastered the típico style. Most famous of these was Barry Rogers. The Gonzalez brothers, Jerry and Andy, played congas and bass, respectively, in Libre. Prior to the founding of Libre, they had played in one of Palmieri's most experimental salsa bands. Andy Gonzalez recounts: "We were into improvising ... doing that thing Miles Davis was doing — playing themes and just improvising on the themes of songs, and we never stopped playing through the whole set." While in Palmieri's band from 1974-1976, the Gonzalez brothers started showing up in the DownBeat Reader's Poll. Palmieri and Libre caught the attention of jazz critics and reached listening to audiences who were not necessarily a part of the salsa culture.
By the end of the decade, Fania Records' longtime leadership of salsa was weakened by the arrival of the labels TH-Rodven and RMM.
1980s
In 1980 the Mariel boatlift brought thousands of Cuban refugees to the United States. Many of these refugees were musicians, who were astonished to hear what sounded to them like Cuban music from the 1950s. It was as if the 60s never happened. Cuban conguero Daniel Ponce summarized this sentiment: "When the Cubans arrived in New York, they all said 'Yuk! This is old music.' The music and the feelings and arrangements [haven't] changed." In fundamental ways, salsa is the preservation of the late 1950s Cuban sound.
The influx of Cuban musicians had more of an impact on jazz than salsa. After the boatlift though, there was obviously more awareness of the modern Cuban styles. Tito Puente recorded the Irakere composition "Bacalao con pan" in 1980, and Rubén Blades covered Los Van Van's "Muevete" in 1985. The bands Batacumbele and Zaperoko of Puerto Rico fully embraced songo. Led by Angel "Cachete" Maldonado and featuring a young Giovanni Hidalgo, Batacumbele interpreted songo in a horn-based format, with a strong jazz influence.
By the early 1980s a generation of New York City musicians had come of age playing both salsa dance music and jazz. The time had come for a new level of integration of jazz and Cuban rhythms. This era of creativity and vitality is best represented by the González brothers of Conjunto Libre, as the band was originally called. Jerry González founded the jazz group the Fort Apache Band, which included his brother Andy and established a new standard for Latin jazz. During this same period, Tito Puente changed to performing and recording primarily Latin jazz for the remainder of his career. By 1989 Eddie Palmieri had also switched to playing mostly Latin jazz.
The 1980s saw salsa expand to Nicaragua, Argentina, Peru, Europe and Japan, and diversify into new stylistic interpretations. Oscar D-León from Venezuela is a huge salsa star. In Colombia, a new generation of musicians began to combine salsa with elements of cumbia and vallenato; this fusion tradition can be traced back to the 1960s work of Peregoyo y su Combo Vacana. However, it was Joe Arroyo and La Verdad, his band, that popularized Colombian salsa beginning in the 1980s. The Colombian singer Joe Arroyo first rose to fame in the 1970s, but became a renowned exponent of Colombian salsa in the 1980s. Arroyo worked for many years with the Colombian arranger Fruko y sus Tesos — Fruko and his band Los Tesos. Grupo Niche is based in Cali, Colombia, and enjoys great popularity throughout Latin America. One of their biggest hits, "Cali Pachanguero" in 1984 was seemingly arranged oblivious to clave. As salsa grew and flourished in other countries — removed by both time and space from the New York epicenter — it adopted local sensibilities and drifted away from its Afro-Cuban moorings.
1990s to the present
Producer and pianist Sergio George helped to revive salsa's commercial success in the 1990s by mixing salsa with contemporary pop styles with Puerto Rican artists like Tito Nieves, La India and Marc Anthony. George also produced the Japanese salsa band Orquesta de la Luz. Brenda K. Starr, Son By Four, Víctor Manuelle and the Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan enjoyed crossover success within the Anglo-American pop market with their Latin-influenced hits, usually sung in English. More often than not, clave was not a major consideration in the composing or arranging of these hits. Sergio George is up front and unapologetic about his attitude towards clave: "Though clave is considered, it is not always the most important thing in my music. The foremost issue in my mind is marketability. If the song hits, that's what matters. When I stopped trying to impress musicians and started getting in touch with what the people on the street were listening to, I started writing hits. Some songs — especially English ones originating in the United States — are at times impossible to place in clave." As Washburne points out, however, a lack of clave awareness does not always get a pass:
Marc Anthony is a product of George's innovationist approach. As a novice to Latin music, he was propelled into band leader position with little knowledge of how the music was structured. One revealing moment came during a performance in 1994, just after he had launched his salsa career. During a piano solo he approached the timbales, picked up a stick and attempted to play clave on the clave block along with the band. It became apparent that he had no idea where to place the rhythm. Shortly thereafter during a radio interview in San Juan Puerto Rico, he exclaimed that his commercial success proved that you did not need to know about clave to make it in Latin music. This comment caused an uproar both in Puerto Rico and New York. After receiving the bad press, Anthony refrained from discussing the subject in public, and he did not attempt to play clave on stage until he had received some private lessons.
Salsa remained a major part of Colombian music through the 1990s, producing popular bands like Sonora Carruseles, while the singer Carlos Vives created his own style that blends salsa with vallenato and rock. Vives' popularization of vallenato-salsa led to the accordion-led vallenato style being used by mainstream pop stars such as Gloria Estefan. The city of Cali is known as Colombia's "capital of salsa," having produced such groups as Orquesta Guayacan, Grupo Niche, songwriter Kike Santander and Julian Collazos, the producer of the Marco Barrientos Band. Cabijazz from Venezuela plays a unique blend of timba-like salsa with a strong jazz influence.
The most recent innovations in salsa genre include hybrids like Latin house, salsa-merengue and salsaton, alongside salsa gorda.
Origin of salsa dance
Johnny Pacheco founded the Fania record label in the 1960s and gave the name "salsa" to a blend of different influences, rhythms and styles of Latin music in New York City, especially in el Barrio, Spanish Harlem and the Bronx. Salsa means sauce which represented son, guaguanco, son montuno, jazz elements, Latin jazz and Cuban influences. Prior to that time, each style was recognized in its pure original form and name. It evolved from forms such as son, son montuno, cha cha cha and mambo which were popular in the Caribbean, Latin America and the Latino communities in New York since the 1940s. Salsa has diversified through the years and incorporated elements of other Afro-Caribbean dances such as pachanga created by Johnny Pacheco as well. Different regions of Latin America and the United States have distinct salsa styles of their own, such as Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Cali, Colombia.
There is some controversy surrounding the origins of the word "salsa," which has been ascribed to the dance since the mid-1800s. Some claim that it was based on a cry shouted by musicians while they were playing their music. Others believe that the term was created by record labels to better market their music, who chose the word "salsa" because of its spicy and hot connotations. Still, others believe the term came about because salsa dancing and music is a mixture of different styles, just like salsa or "sauce" in Latin American countries is a mixture of different ingredients.
Description of salsa dance
In many styles of salsa dancing, as a dancer shifts their weight by stepping, the upper body remains level and nearly unaffected by the weight changes. Weight shifts cause the hips to move. Arm and shoulder movements are also incorporated. The Cuban casino style of salsa dancing involves significant movement above the waist, with up-and-down shoulder movements and shifting of the ribcage.
The arms are used by the "lead" dancer to communicate or signal the "follower," either in "open" or "closed" position. The open position requires the two dancers to hold one or both hands, especially for moves that involve turns, putting arms behind the back or moving around each other, to name a few examples. In the closed position, the leader puts the right hand on the follower's back, while the follower puts the left hand on the leader's shoulder.
In the original Latin American form, the forward/backward motion of salsa is done in diagonal or sideways with the three-step weight change intact.
In some styles of salsa, such as the New York style, the dancers remain mostly in front of one another — switching places, while in Latin American styles, such as Cuban style, the dancers circle around each other, sometimes in three points. This circular style is inspired by Cuban son, specifically to the beat of son montuno in the 1920s. However, as it is a popular music, it is open to improvisation and thus it is continuously evolving. Modern salsa styles are associated and named to the original geographic areas that developed them. There are often devotees of each of these styles outside their home territory. Characteristics that may identify a style include: timing, basic steps, foot patterns, body movement, turns and figures, attitude, dance influences and the way that partners hold each other. The point in a musical bar music where a slightly larger step is taken — the break step — and the direction the step moves can often be used to identify a style.
Incorporating other dance styling techniques into salsa dancing has become very common for both men and women: shimmies, leg work, arm work, body movement, spins, body isolations, shoulder shimmies, rolls and even hand styling, acrobatics and lifts.
Latin American styles originate from Puerto Rico, Cuba and surrounding Caribbean islands.
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