Cuban music genealogy

I will bounce back the post of Claudia with the danzón. That particular piece is from a Mexican composer. But although the danzón is a genre well settled in Mexican tradition, it is actually native from Cuba! Before starting, I should say that historiography of Cuban music is still being written or re-written, in the sense that there are lots of myths towards some figures as creators of rhythms and genres, towards the central role or not of Cuban music as an influence in the Caribbean, towards the catalog of 'generic complexes' (group of sibling genres), towards the intrinsic features of a genre that lives or had lived "parasitically" on top of other existing rhythms, and towards the predominant role of some particular rhythms in our Cuban culture. Let along the artificial nature of Salsa, since it is a matter of debate only outside Cuba. There is still room for a systematic and comprehensive view of all, but I personally think that the Cuban music historian that has come closer to this ecumenic theory of Cuban music is Leonardo Acosta, composer, sax player, and writer. Unfortunately, there is no much trace of him on the Internet (and there is no point in linking to Spanish written articles). His research on Cuban music, its composition and the origin of its diversity of genres and rhythms, as well as its contact and influence in or from other cultures, is clear and well-documented, and it contains zero chauvinism. This is all to say that I subscribe it entirely.

One of the most important things that Acosta points out is that Cuban (actually, Pan-Afro-Caribbean and Pan-Afro-Brazilian) music emerges in such a variety because of the special ethnic and cultural ancestry of Europeans and Africans. Not so much Native Americans. And in fact, which is continuously overlooked by some musicologists, there are several layers of Cuban musical traditions: I, purely African and European traditions, independently and taking into account the cultures as they were in the old world; II, mixture between African cultures, since traffic of slaves put together several ethnic groups which had never been in contact inside Africa; III, a creole tradition mostly derived from European-descendant people settled in America; and finally IV, the altogether mix, shaken and stirred. Danzón is one of those genres that probably is best described within the III layer as a result of some elements of new non-European traditions penetrating in the Country dance of British, French and Spanish heritage.

To leave you with a flavor of our musical diversity (which I am very proud of), here you have an interactive and annotated timeline of Cuban rhythms that had influenced US music, including Jazz.

And a genealogical map of only a few of our genres...

And a version of Lágrimas negras (black tears) composed by Miguel Matamoros, originally as bolero-son, and here interpreted by Bebo Valdés and El Cigala.

Enjoy!