Latin Jazz

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by C. Kenyon Silvey

The blending of Latin music and jazz has occurred in countless forms, under many guises, over much of the twentieth century. Cuba, New York City, and Puerto Rico all played key roles in the initial fusion, but the unfolding of this complex musical genre has had worldwide implications.

In early 1920s Cuba, descendants of African slaves brought a song form known as son to Havana from the sugar-plantation-filled province of Oriente. Settling in segregated barrios, their passionate music thrived, despite its rejection by the white Cuban elite, who preferred the danzon, music derived from eighteenth-century French court contradanse, performed by string-and-flute bands called charangas. Son had its bands as well, called conjuntos, which instead featured trumpets and timbales (stand-mounted drums and cowbells). Both types of music were powered by the conga and bongos, which had found their origins in religious drum rituals, but by the mid-1920s were also being used as backing for dancers at a growing number of American-owned tourist nightclubs.

In 1930, after Moises Simon's composition, "The Peanut Vendor," sparked rhumba mania in the United States, Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians arrived in New York in growing numbers, frustrated with limited work opportunities back home and attracted by the artistic renaissance taking place in Harlem. Immediately their presence was felt in jazz circles, with Cuban flautist Alberto Socarras appearing in Blackbirds of 1929 and other Broadway shows, and Duke Ellington incorporating Latin compositions into his set. However, rhumba was still considered a novelty, and the majority of Latin music remained segregated in the Harlem barrio. White audiences received a watered-down trickle from bands such as the orchestra led by popular Mexican bandleader, Xavier Cugat, who, with his niece, actress Margo, was said to have "introduced the rhumba to New York City." Even African-American musicians initially blanched at participating in what appeared to be a more primitive (the conga and bongos were hand-beaten) and less respectable form of music.

In 1940, multi-instrumentalist Mario Bauza and singer Frank Grillo (a.k.a. "Machito") formed the Afro-Cuban Orchestra, a mixed group of Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Americans, in New York City. The band tackled head-on the rhythmic, cultural and financial challenges facing the combining of Latin music and jazz as the decade progressed. Simultaneously, the mambo, another African rhythm refined with jazz inflections by Havana big bands such as the conjunto of Arsenio Rodriguez and charanga of La Maravilla de Siglo Orchestra, began to gain popularity on American shores in the excitement-starved wake of World War II.

Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie took fast action. Gillespie had been molding his own revolutionary form of jazz, called "bebop," through the 1940s. In 1946, he invited recent Cuban migr percussionist Chano Pozo into his newly formed big band. The flamboyant Pozo electrified and entranced audiences throughout America and Europe, and together the pair made landmark recordings such as "Manteca" before Pozo's tragic drug-related murder in late 1948. Their work, along with the continued pioneering by the Afro-Cubans, came to be known as Cubop.

By the 1950s the mambo had become an international sensation through the efforts of populist bands such as Perez Prado's and the Lecuona Cuban Boys. Desi Arnaz performed groundbreaking singer Miguelito Valdes' "Babalu" on the I Love Lucy television series. The Afro-Cubans themselves received widespread critical recognition after jazz legend Charlie Parker recorded with them and, under Machito's guidance, the Palladium, a new club devoted to the Latin sound, opened on Manhattan's 53rd Street, down the block from Birdland. Soon the club was packed nightly with multi-racial crowds and celebrities dancing up a storm and be-boppers such as Gillespie sitting in. In addition to the Afro-Cubans, two other orchestras made famous at the Palladium were battling bands led by suave Puerto Rican tenor vocalist Tito Rodriguezand Nuyorican (New York-born Puerto Rican) timbalist Tito Puenterespectively. Musicians from these groups formed a core of performers who would carry on into the 1990s.

As the 1950s progressed, the term Cubop was supplanted by Latin jazz, as Latin rhythms from other countries (the Puerto Rican bomba, the Colombian cumbia, the Dominican meringue) had made their way into repertoires. However, Cuba was the source of the last stateside big band rhythm craze, the cha-cha. A simpler, shuffling form of mambo, the cha-cha swept the nation the late 1950s. Charanga bandleader, Jos Fajardo, is credited with bringing the rhythm to the United States, later performing in 1959 for John F. Kennedy during his presidential campaign. Shortly afterward, Cuba's Communist revolution dramatically curtailed its participation in musical development, although expatriates continued to influence matters.

Meanwhile, hard times were leading many top jazz musicians to form smaller, more economical combos. It became common for many of these combos to include Latin percussion. Successors to Chano Pozo's legacy such as Mongo Santamaria, "Patato" Valdes, Willie Bobo, and Ray Barreto, found themselves being lured from the Palladium scene to a succession of jazz combos, many led by white musicians, such as George Shearing, Cal Tjader, and Herbie Mann. Cries of exploitation aside, the wider exposure benefited the percussionists, many of whom went on to start their own groups.