From the editor

Latin Beat Magazine, April, 2007 by Rudy Mangual

One of the main reasons we created Latin Beat Magazine over 16 years ago was to fill an educational void in relation to the history, evolution and future of Latin music. To answer questions like, "What was the first musical genre to emerge from the Caribbean, from Central America, from South America? Is the conga drum an African instrument or is it Cuban? What is salsa music? What is Latin jazz music? Who was the first Latin pop superstar? Who invented the mambo?" And the list goes on and on.

Speaking of the mambo, its origins are the product of the Cuban son montuno and danzón mixed with American big band swing music. The word mambo originates from the name of a priestess in Haitian voodoo (meaning a conversation with the gods), derived from the language of the African slaves who were brought to the Caribbean islands. The history of the Cuban musical form and dance style called mambo began around 1938 when two members of the most influential charanga band of all time (Arcaño y Sus Maravillas, led by Antonio Arcaño) wrote a section of a danzón and called it Mambo thus creating the first modern song of the genre. The composers were cellist Orestes López and his brother, bassist Israel López "Cachao." The song was a danzón (rhythm descended from European social dances like the French contredanse and Spanish contradanza, but with the addition of rhythms derived from African folk music). One part of the musical structure of the danzón was a coda, which lent itself to improvisations overtime, hence the emergence of going to "el diablo" (the devil), the upbeat and freeform part of the score, eventually evolving into "el mambo" (the mambo).

Differences in opinion exist from historians and musicologists that give credit to younger brother Cachao, while others name Cuban bandleader Arsenio Rodríguez as the true originator of the rhythm, for his contributions to the genre. Regardless of the varying opinions, the popularity of the mambo was significant in Cuba and throughout most of the Caribbean and Latin America in the late 1940s. But it was thanks to the vision and talent of another Cuban bandleader by the name of Dámaso Pérez Prado that the mambo earned international recognition. Pérez Prado created the dance we call mambo, and marketed it till it became a craze. Prado left Cuba in the late 1940s, taking his mambo to Mexico, the United States, and subsequently to the entire world.

In this issue of Latin Beat Magazine you can learn more about the amazing career of Pérez Prado "El Rey del Mambo" (The King of the Mambo) by Sergio Santana in Spanish, translated and edited to English by Luis Tamargo. You will also enjoy "The Arranger: The Third Point of the Musical Triangle" by Frank Figueroa, while Jesse Varela brings us "The Heart and Hands of Louie Bauzo" and "Decoding Ignacio Berroa." Enjoy this month's music history lessons!