Los pioneros de la salsa - música latina - TT: The Pioneers of SALSA - TA: latin music

Latin Beat Magazine, Dec, 2001 by Max Salazar

Ask any Cuban music aficionado what the year 1920 means to him and the response will be that it was the year El Sexteto Habanero Godinez popularized the son. At this time, the danzón had undergone a few innovations. The most significant one occurred in 1910 when José Urfe--an Afro-Cuban musician--wrote the tune El Bombin de Barretto, and added another part to the traditional two parts. A great number of Cubans preferred the outdoor concerts than the closed quarters of a dance hall because of the blaring noise from the brass instruments. Wealthy Cubans, who liked to entertain in their homes, cut down on the indoor parties due to the piercing sounds of the brass.

In 1926, the solution to the deafening danzón was solved when pianist-composer Antonio María Romeu replaced the cornet on his Charanga Francesa with the flute of Belasario López, whose lilting sound produced a soft danzón sound. López's stimulating flute riffs to Romeu's tune Tres Lindas Cubanas were instrumental in the hiring of charangas for house parties.

In 1919, the United States Congress granted citizenship to Puerto Ricans. Puerto Rico's most famous musician/composer, Rafael Hernández, settled in New York in an apartment located at 99th Street and 2nd Avenue. Hernández's trio became the first to sound a live note in Spanish Harlem's house parties. His compositions of Cachita, Buche Pluma Na Ma, Cuatro Personas, Capullito de Alelí and El Cumbanchero are just a few tunes that became uptempo hits.

During the mid '20s, Havana became the popular vacation spot for many North Americans because of its warm weather, gambling and nightlife. The first Cubans to play American pop music in Cuba did so in 1922 at Havana Park, an entertainment spot similar to our Las Vegas. The bands attracted American tourists with pop tunes and Charleston music. Americans bought businesses in Cuba and white American jazz musicians were given the music jobs. The Cuban legislature proposed a law that required that "for every non-Cuban working in Cuba, two Cubans be employed." The law was passed but not enforced. American and Cuban hotel and resort owners ignored black Cubans in favor of light skin mulattos who passed for white. There were fifty silent movie theatres in Cuba and they provided employment for the majority of black musicians who had been trained in classical music. When the first talking movie, "The Jazz Singer," arrived in Cuba during 1928, the Afro-Cuban musician sensed his employment would soon end. Many of them came to the United States and resided in New York's Harlem section.

On April 26, 1930, Cuban bandleader Don Aspiazú's Havana Casino Orchestra was in New York to fulfill a two-week engagement at the Palace Theatre, corner of 46th Street and Broadway. Aspiazú's version of The Peanut Vendor catapulted him and vocalist Antonio Machín into international fame. RCA signed Aspiazú's orchestra to record it on May 13, 1930. After its release in November, it was heard everywhere. The tune was also used as background music for the 1931 movie "Cuban Love Song," which starred Mexican actress Lupe Vélez and Opera star Lawrence Tibett. Along with Puerto Rican composer Rafael Hernández, Cuban composer Miguel Matamoros, Mexican composer Agustín Lara, and Argentinean tango singer Carlos Gardel, Don Aspiazú and Antonio Machín became favorites of New York Hispanics.