History of Salsa
Salsa is a musical genre that emerged in the late 1960s as a result of the fusion of Cuban son and other genres of Caribbean music, such as jazz and other American rhythms. Currently, there are various varieties of salsa, including Puerto Rican, Dominican, Colombian, Venezuelan and from other countries in Latin America. This music was mainly developed by Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians in the Greater Caribbean and the city of New York.
The origins of salsa can be traced back to the 16th century in Cuba, where the Hispanic music brought by Spanish conquerors and the music brought by African slaves merged to create a wide variety of musical rhythms. Among these Afro-Cuban rhythms, the Cuban son, chachachá, mambo, son montuno, guaracha, guaguancó and charanga stand out. However, it is the Cuban son that constitutes the musical foundation of what we now know as salsa.
“Salsa and politics do not mix.” Hector Lavoe
After World War II, there was a large migration of Latin Americans from different countries in search of a better way of life. These people settled in New York in a marginal area of Upper Manhattan known as “the neighborhood”. It was in this environment that, at the end of the 1960s, the identity of a new Latin generation began to take shape and find its cultural voice through the musical current that we now know as salsa.
Fania All Stars/ Font: Neodop, CC BY-SA 4.0, from Wikimedia Commons
In 1967, Italian-American businessman Jerry Masucci and Dominican flutist Johnny Pacheco, together with the Fania Records label, gave rise to the “Fania All Stars”. Pacheco’s idea was to bring together all the stars at Fania, a salsa project considered the largest and most successful in the history of salsa. Pacheco achieved what he had long desired, bringing together the voices of the greatest representatives of Latin music at the time, including Johnny Pacheco, Cheo Feliciano, Hector Lavoe
Fania marked a before and after in the history of salsa with its concerts on five continents, which brought this musical genre to the forefront with the greatest artists of the moment.
In the 1970s, Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci made the commercialization and marketing of salsa possible. This is how Latin music was exported not only to the European market, such as France, England, Spain and Italy, but also to Africa, Japan, Germany and the Scandinavian countries.
In August 1971, a meeting of all the label’s stars took place at the Cheetah club in New York, owned by Ralph Mercado, the company’s manager. From this important meeting came numerous records and a film, “Our Latin Thing”, which was very successful throughout Latin America. Five years later, Fania signed a distribution contract with the CBS company, trying to launch itself into the conquest of the English-speaking market.
During these years, some of the greatest hits in the history of salsa emerged, namely: “Anacaona” (1971) by Cheo Feliciano, “Llegó la banda” by Enrique Lynch and his ensemble, popularized by Hector Lavoe; “Quimbara” by Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco; “Llorarás” by Oscar de León; “El preso” by Fruko y sus Tesos; “Pedro Navaja” by Willie Colón and Rubén Blades. Previously, in 1969, Willie Colón and Hector Lavoe had recorded “Che Che Cole
Font: Facebook Orquesta de la Luz
During the 1980s and 1990s, new instruments, methods and musical forms (such as Brazilian songs) were adapted to salsa. In addition, new musical styles such as romantic salsa emerged and became popular in New York. This new manifestation of salsa was quickly assimilated by Puerto Rican artists such as Frankie Ruiz, Marc Anthony, Eddie Santiago and Cubans like Dan Den.
Salsa became an important part of music in countries such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama and distant countries like Japan. In the latter country, the Orquesta de la Luz emerged in 1990, which gained some popularity in Latin America by singing salsa songs in Spanish, Japanese and English.
“Dancing salsa is like raising the dead. It’s not just about listening. To enjoy salsa, you have to shed your inhibitions”. – Johnny Pacheco
From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, after the boom of romantic salsa, sensual or erotic salsa took over the scene. Its main exponents were Eddie Santiago, Frankie Ruiz, Lalo Rodríguez, David Pabón, Willie González and Luis Enrique. Eventually, sensual salsa lost its popularity to the strong impulse of other Caribbean rhythms such as bachata and merengue. By then, salsa had already lost many of its great strongholds, including the deceased Hector Lavoe and Ismael Rivera. The new century brought a resurgence of hard salsa and old school, as in the case of Orquesta La 33 or the return of the trombone with Jimmy Bosch.
In 1933, Cuban musician Ignacio Piñeiro used a related word for the first time in a Cuban son called “Échale Salsita” and in the mid-1940s, Cuban Cheo Marquetti emigrated to Mexico. Upon returning to Cuba, influenced by the spicy salsa in food, he used that name for his group: Conjunto los Salseros. In 1957 he traveled to Caracas, Venezuela, to give concerts and it was there that the word “salsa” began to be used on the radio.
With the start of the 21st century, salsa became one of the most important forms of popular music in the world.
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