Salsa Artists on National Geographic
The word "salsa" is a perfect metaphor for a genre of music that emerged as a result of mixture: Cuban-based rhythms played (mainly) by Puerto Ricans in New York City! What salsa is—a sauce—helped to describe the cultural and musical make-up of New York City during the 1960s and 1970s; what it is not is a rhythm.
As always, National Geographic does a great job of capturing the history and blending in the cultural and stylistic influences. There are detailed bios on musical groups old and new including music samples .
Before they called it salsa, many musicians in New York had already explored the possibilities of blending Cuban rhythms with jazz, such as legendary Cuban brothers-in-law Machito and Mario Bauzá. Back in the 1940s, it was perfectly normal to refer to this blend as "Afro-Cuban jazz," although the music was absolutely for dancing. Into the '50s, the Latin big-band era in New York City found favor with dancers and listeners alike, and the bands of Puerto Rican (or "Nuyorican") bandleaders such as Tito Rodríguez and Tito Puente were fervently committed to playing Cuban music—from the son to the mambo, the cha-cha-chá and beyond. Meanwhile, on the island of Puerto Rico, most popular groups also concentrated on the Cuban rhythms until groups such as the conjunto of Rafael Cortijo (along with singer Ismael Rivera) got the island's dancers moving to their own genres such as the bomba and the plena.
Click here to the full article on National Geographic....
New Artist Highlights
They have a lot of artists whom I've never heard of before. So here are some groups that I hope everyone including some of the DJs will check out:- Evaristo Machado
- Laba Sosseh
- Also, I really like the spanish and english language Motimba which combines jazz, funk, reggae with timba for a really vibrant and danceable sound.
Now this is a really cool article!
I love the highlights. Also I went to some of the pages you link too and there are some cool music samples in there.
Salsa Artists
Good article George. Interesting mix of music, jazzy & then chacha with the first two artists. Jamin, Isaac Delgado is the artist I was talking about Thursday night. Other artists to check out are: Chichi Peralta, Groupo Niche, Son by 4, El Canario (Jose Alberto), Gilbeto Santa Rosa, Tito Rojas, Luis Enrique, Willie Colon, Jimmy Bosch, Alpha Blondy, Tony Vega, Salsa All Stars, Cachaco, Melcochochita, Pepe y Orquesta Peru, Los Amigos Invisibles, Juan Luis Guerra, Ze' Manel "Bu Fidjo Femia", and my favorite Jovino Dos Santos "Africa Mamae"
Sharon
Isaac Delgado
Isaac Delgado is one of my favorites
Call outs
When I was taking a class at the NY Salsa Congress, one of the instructors talked about the importance of making the artist's name known and he made a point of telling us which band was playing at any given time. Its time the DJs and instructors started doing that here too!
Geo-