style  Reggaeton & Bachata

We list & review over 503 Salsa dvd video

style  Cuban - NY - LA

This page brings together many views on this question to help you to think & research.

I do not have the time to help you. I suggest you look at all the Internet links on this page. I suggest you view the Salsa documentaries listed here. Try & get the books that I have provided links for as these are the easiest & best to get in the USA.
Use several of the major search engines with your question or subject. Visit the newsgroups rec.music.afro-latin ask your question there. Visit your local & University library. Visit your local Hispanic society. I wish you every success with your project.

4 Salsa video documentaries some are no longer available

	Beats of the Heart - Salsa: Latin Pop Music in the Cities Note: Documentary on Salsa's meaning & influence to the New York Puerto Rican community in the 70's. It has an interesting live soundtrack with performances by Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Reuben Blades, Charlie Palmieri. It has several small dance performances.
	The Golden Age of Salsa Music with Larry Harlow Chronicles the development of salsa music in New York City during the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies through the experience of Larry Harlow, a Jewish-American musician from Brooklyn who became one of NY salsa's greatest stars and most influential musicians. Harlow takes us from his childhood roots into the clubs and personalities of salsa's golden era-the Catskills, The Cheetah, Arsenio Rodriguez, Celia Cruz, the Fania All-Stars, and Larry himself, who became affectionately known as "El Judio Maravilloso" ("The Marvelous Jew"). In ad-dition to great salsa music, the video features interviews with such legendary performers as Cheo Feliciano, Santos Colón, Ismael Miranda, Don Tite Curet Alonso, and Fania cofounder, Jerry Masucci.
	Son Sabroson - Antesala De La Salsa - In Spanish This video is a must have for all interested in Salsa history. This is a complete history of Latin music from Africa to Cuba to the USA today. It covers El Son, Guaracha, Cha cha cha, Rumba, Guanguaco, etc. It has interviews with some of the greatest names in Latin music. It has an excellent soundtrack with live clips of the best known musician's. The video is 90 minutes long. It covers all you will need for school projects on Salsa history. All Salsa dance teachers should also buy this video to explain the history to their students. Note this video is aimed at the USA market so some of the views are very biased but if you want an A+ on your report just agree with it. English language version Son Sabroson is here.
	Roots of Rhythm with Harry Belafonte These videos are the longest video series on Latin music. 3 videos from Africa to the Caribbean to the USA. This joyous and colorful three-part musical odyssey surveys Latino music from its origin five centuries ago in Africa and Spain to the contemporary sound of such popular artists as Gloria Estefan, Ruben Blades, and Dizzy Gillespie. The videos trace the journey of this music from its African and Spanish roots through its cultural blending in the Caribbean to its popularity in the U.S., and eventually throughout the world.

Online Cuban music clips. Explains the styles of Latin music. MUST VISIT

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( Copyright Photo by)

Ave. 3ra No. 1008 e/ 10 y 12 Miramar, Ciudad de la Habana, Cuba.
FAX: (537) 33-8043, 242519.
Telf.: 24-1925, 24-1926, 29-0687, 29-0688

( Copyright Photo by Egrem - Cuba )

Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Piñeiro

The following base historical information comes from the Conjunto Folkórico Nacional de Cuba historical records & the Center for Cuban Studies.
This information & additional resources I have provided has been used by reporters from the LA Times & other newspapers. This page is also book marked by 6 USA University Music Departments for Hispanic music history so if you have a web page on this subject please email me so I can link to you. I do not mind if you disagree with me so long as your site has factual information on it that can be checked by people.
This page can be checked by anyone going to their University Music Department History section. I will be happy to change anything on this page if anyone can refer me to a historical fact that can be checked that contradicts anything on this page.
Historical links & books on this subject are listed at the bottom of the page. This page is really limited to Cuban Salsa as I have not finished yet. Links to New York Salsa History & other countries hopefully will be coming.

Due to the national pride & money involved in Salsa music & it's history it is hard at times to get a true picture. It also does not help when musician's change their stories to further their own aims. I suggest you look at all the links here & try to get a general feel for what may of occurred. It is impossible to write a full & clear picture in such a small article as mine. The two points I am trying to make is that the term & meaning of Salsa has a history from 30's Cuba.
Also that there is a practical difference between the Salsa dance step & the Mambo dance step.

One of the first Cuban reactions to the term Salsa as a term for New York's Latin music came from Machito, "There's nothing new about Salsa, it is just the same old music that was played in Cuba for over fifty years. And they play it badly."
Celia Cruz the Queen of Salsa says, "Salsa is just Cuban music with a new name". Celia was performing Salsa in Cuba in the 1950's.

On Musical Style.

The musical style of Salsa & term was created at least 6 years before Mambo.

The first Cuban reference to the musical Style/Word of Salsa was first recorded by Igancio Piñeiro in the 1933 record song Echale Salsita. (1) This song was written in 1929. It was first heard outside Cuba when Ignacio Pineiro's Sexteto Nacional introduced his tune "Echale Salsita" at the 1932 Chicago World's Fair.

El Congo opened a small roadside stand on the Central Highway and quickly earned a reputation for his tasty butifarras or pork sausages. As years went by, and his children became successful, they opened a beautiful open air restaurant but still kept  across the street the original  stand as a tribute  to their father.

The song clearly mentions arriving in Catalina and finding el Congo at his stand with his familiar refrain. My father told me many years ago that el Congo used to say  "échale salsita" as he lifted his ladle and poured the sauce over the sausages.

 En Catalina me encontré, lo no pensado, la voz de aquel que pregonaba así:
 En Catalina me encontré, lo no pensado, la voz de aquel que pregonaba así:
 Échale salsita,  Échale salsita,  Échale salsita,  Échale salsita

 En este cantar propongo, lo que dice mi segundo, En este cantar propongo, lo que dice mi segundo
 No hay butifarra en el mundo como la que hace el Congo

 Échale salsita,  Échale salsita,  Échale salsita,  Échale salsita

Cuban's were using term's like "Salseros", to describe conjunto groups among others since the 1940's. Tito Puente: "I've been playing the same music. Now they call it "salsa", since the Palladium Years in the 1950s".

Igancio Piñeiro band played guajira, rumba, tango-congo, sones, montunos.

Many of today's top Salsa tunes are Son music

The Mambo was first created by Israel Lopez "Cachao" & his brother Orestes Lopez in 1937. Machito who was in Cuba at this time believed the bass riffs of Cachao were the beginning of the Mambo. (2)
The first tune called Mambo was played on radio in 1938. Mambo was created from the Cuban danzón.
Orestes registered the copyright in 1938.

The Lopez brothers were in a band La Maravilla del Siglo de Fernando Collazo which was a danzón band at this time. Mambo was not a popular style with dancers until the inserts of American pop standards ( As Time goes by or Over the Rainbow are two) into the tunes. They also experimented with the jitterbug rhythm around 1943. If fact the band was virtually blackballed. It was not until after 1939 when they added repetitious phrases which meant that dancers could move without losing a beat that the band became Cuba's most popular & most typical orchestra. They played 365 days a year, sometimes 2 or 3 engagements a day for several years.

On Dance Style

Cuban Salsa looks nothing like the Salsa done in the USA today. The USA Salsa I believe is from Puerto Rico style Salsa which is created from Mambo (3)
¡Salsa a la Cubana!: A Demonstration Video of Cuban style salsa dancing from the source ...
http://www.salsaville.comThis video shows Cuban Salsa as it is danced today.

The Cuban Salsa style was created from Son.
Son has been around since the 1550's but it's present form dates from the turn of the century. (4)
On learning to dance in Cuba one would normally go Son - Salsa - Mambo. All three have a different style & steps.

The Mambo style was created from the son/ danza styles = danzón..
The Puerto Rican's also appear to include elements of the yambú, a rumba style into the historical influence of their Mambo/ Salsa style. (5)

The danza style had to incorporate elements of the son in the 1920's to survive becoming danzón.. (6)

The Mambo was an important innovation as it took the danzón from the upper-class & put it into the dance halls of the common worker.

The "Mambo" dance is attributed to Perez Prado who introduced it at La Tropicana night-club in Havana in 1943. It first appeared in the United States in New York's Park Plaza Ballroom - a favorite hangout of enthusiastic dancers from Harlem. The Mambo gained its excitement in 1947 at the Palladium and other renowned places such as The China Doll, Havana Madrid and Birdland.

A modified version of the "Mambo" (the original dance had to be toned down due to the violent acrobatics) was presented to the public at dance studios, resort hotels, and at night-clubs in New York and Miami. Success was on the agenda. Mambo happy dancers soon became known affectionately as "Mambo nicks".
The Mambo is enjoying a renewed popularity due to a number of films featuring the dance as well as a man named Eddie Torres. Eddie is a New York dance pro and Mambo fanatic who has launched a crusade to make sure the dance reigns in the ballroom once again. Torres has become the leading exponent of the style, steadily building a reputation as a dancer, instructor, and choreographer. He has become known as the "Mambo King of Latin Dance". Torres is determined to reintroduce dancers to what he believes is the authentic night-club style of mambo dancing, which in the 1990's is increasingly known as Salsa.

(Note; This common myth from the Latin Beat magazine)
Tito Puente says "Salsa is something you eat" That what the musicians are playing is MAMBO.

"Listen to Hansel Martinez, Gloria Estefan, Hector Tricoche, Willy Chirino, etc. They are playing Charanga, Montunos, Son, Bombas as Salsa. A third of the Salsa sound is coming from Venezuela & Colombia with bands like Guyacan, Niche, Oscar D'Leon, Raises, etc. Another third of the sound is coming from Miami like Hansel Martrinez, Willy Chirino, Gloria, Albita, etc., The NY sound with guys like Tito Nieves, Tony Vega, the Ruiz brothers, Cheo, do play a harder edge Mambo sound but then NYers like Mark Anthony & La India go more toward the Miami Sound. A big selling album by any of these bands though tends to have elements from all three sounds. Even Tito's records from the 80's are different from the sound he is playing today. So which is Mambo? His sound last decade or his sound last week? The issue is that even the best Mambo bands are going to the hottest Salsa arrangers like Sergio George; While both Salsa and Mambo are clave based rhythms, Tito for example is playing (if I can label it) New York/Puerto Rican style Mambo. That accounts for 50 % of the "salsa" Top 40 sales charts. The other half of the sales charts are from Salsa Tropical which is Cuban based with influences from Columbia, Venezuela and the D.R. The Tropical sound draws from Charanga, Son Montuno, Guanguaco, and yes Mambo. It is not one rhythm it is several.  In the case of Tito Puente no one is putting him down. It's a case of Mambo musicians wanting to keep playing their own style and hang on to the coattails of the musicians who are playing at the fore front of the newer styles. It's a cash money thing. By saying Salsa doesn't exist that it is really Mambo, then if I am the king of Mambo,  then I am the best at the music everyone wants to hear". (7)

(Note; This common myth on the Venezuelan Radio station as the birth place of Salsa. What we are talking about here is the naming of this music as Salsa not the birth of the music.)

The word Salsa lay dormant in the USA until 1962 when Seeco Records released Joe Cuba's Stepping Out album, in which vocalist Jimmy Sabater's tune "Salsa y Bembe" appeared for the first time after 30 years. Salsa's thrust to national recognition occurred after Cal Tjader's 1964 recording of Soul Sauce (Salsa del Alma), which received airplay on jazz, R&B, and Latin-music programs across the United States.

"Historians have been debating the origin of the word "salsa" in Latin music for a long time. One possible version occurred in 1966, during the band's first Latin American tour in Caracas, Venezuela. Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz were interviewed by a radio personality named Phidias Danilo Escalona on his program "La Hora del Sabor y el Bembé." The DJ asked them to define their particular style of music. Richie and Bobby responded that their music was like "ketchup." The DJ, who spoke no English, replied "and what is ketchup?" and they both answered "salsa." The DJ then smiled and announced to his public, "The music of Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz is called salsa." After the interview, he told them that from then on his radio program was going to be called "La Hora del Sabor, la Salsa y el Bembé.".
( For a longer version of this story by Rudy Mangual visit here )

But that's the story on who was the first to begin calling all of the rhythmical and musical forms, SALSA.

As I am not from New York nor an American I do not know much about the rebirth of the term, "Salsa", in the 1970's. But one name I keep reading/ hearing about is  Larry Harlow co-producer of the hit movie 'Our Latin Thing ( Nuestra Cosa) & as a member of the Fania all Stars & Orchestra Harlow. The Golden Age of Salsa Music with Larry Harlow

One must also give credit to "Salsa", the movie with Robby Rosa. It was a great cross-over hit. It introduced "Salsa", to a non-hispanic world.

One of the key points to understand is that different people mean a different style or time period when they are talking about Salsa. The people from NY talking about the late 60's to mid 70's are talking about New York/ Puerto Rican Mambo as being Salsa. This is what Tito Puente always called his music.

Re: The debate as to who make the first Salsa = Sauce. Try Gershwin in his Cuban Overture in 1932. Gershwin used the first four bars of Piñeiro's Echale Salsita ( put a bit of sauce in it ). One paragraph go's like this:
"In Catalina I found something unexpected
a voice that cried out like this:
put a little sauce on daddy,
put a little sauce on daddy!"

Just for the record the "Pollo en Salsa" recipe dates from the 1700.

M. Tullius Cicero, Orationes: Pro Scauro (ed. Albert Clark), section 6:
".....qua re quae potest, quamvis salsa ista Sarda fuerit, ulla libidinis aut amoris esse suspicio?"
Can anyone translate this from Latin?

(1) The song is a very slow Salsa but the beat & rhythm is there. I have a copy of this song. I have tried to dance Mambo steps as well as Cuban Salsa steps to this song & the Salsa steps work best. The song is in Son Pregón style. My music album  is dated 1933. Amazon.com has a Cd with this song on it as well as a online clip of it.
 Yo Soy Del Son A La Salsa Cd

(2) There is no mention of Arseñio's group, his son montuno, or diablo until after 1946. Also in 1954 Benetin Bustillo, one of Arseñio's trumpeters admitted to copying Arcaño's figurations. The Lopez brothers were in Arcaño's band at this time.

(3) Cuban Salsa is starting to become more Mambo based with the influence of tourist's in the last 10 years from Europe. I must point out that Cuban's have always done Mambo since the 1940's. But have always been able to separate the two dance styles. Timba Brava style is now the favorite "Salsa" style in Cuba at the moment. It has it's own dance steps as well.

(4) This is the reason many people believe that Salsa was around then. Many people dance Salsa to Son tunes when Son has it's own dance steps.

(5) The Puerto Rican's also are important as they appear to have combined the Salsa & Mambo steps into one dance. If one learns to dance Salsa today. Traditional Salsa steps are still usually taught but they are quickly by passed by the Mambo steps.

(6) Note: The Cuban danza also looks nothing like the European danza.

(7) Enio & Robert Cordoba