Salsa is a dance music genre resulting from the synthesis of Cuban son and other Caribbean music genres, with jazz and other American rhythms. Salsa was consolidated as a commercial success by Puerto Rican musicians in New York City in the 1960s.33 Although its roots date back to previous decades in countries of the Caribbean basin.4 The sauce finally spread throughout Colombia5 and the rest of America, giving rise to Puerto Rican, Panamanian, Venezuelan, Cuban, Dominican, Colombian and other Latin American regional scenes. The sauce encompasses several styles such as hard sauce, romantic sauce and timba.

Origins and instrumentation

Between 1930 and 1950, Afro-Cuban music was widely consumed by sectors of Latin origin, specifically Puerto Rican, from New York. Puerto Ricans in New York based their music largely on elements of Afro-Cuban origin. According to some musicians and historians, [who?] Salsa is a commercial name given to all Caribbean music of Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican influence in the 1970s. Salsa expanded in the late 1960s and from the 1970s to the 1990s. New instruments, new methods and musical forms (such as songs from Brazil) were adapted to salsa. New styles appeared as the romantic salsa love songs. Meanwhile, salsa became an important part of the music scene of Puerto Rico, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama and places as far away as Japan. With the arrival of the 21st century, salsa has become one of the most important forms of popular music in the world.

History and expansion

The integration of the tumbadoras and the bongó in the ensembles they played are montuno was a fundamental element in the instrumentation of dance orchestras. At the end of the year 1920, the sextetos and septetos of son, that used bongó, reached in Cuba a remarkable popularity. In 1928, Gerardo Machado, with the intention of reducing the influence of African elements in Cuban music, banned the use of bongo, congas and carnival groups. This caused charangas orchestras with the use of timpani) to increase their popularity.10 The bongo was reintroduced into Cuban popular music in the late 1930s. Around 1940, Rafael Ortiz's Key Ensemble introduced the tumblers or congas into an orchestra, instruments that were previously only used in Afro-Cuban folk music. Arsenio Rodríguez popularized the use of congas by integrating them as a whole, introducing son montuno on a commercial level.11 In the 1940s, Mario Bauzá, conductor and arranger of the orchestra of Machito «Los Afro-Cubans», added trombones to son montuno and la guaracha. These innovations influenced musicians such as José Curbelo, Benny More, Bebo Valdés. In the album Tanga (from 1943), Bauzá fused elements of Afro-Cuban music with jazz. The influence of Afro-Cuban jazz and the mambo developed by Pérez Prado in 1948, led to the introduction of the saxophone in the orchestras of son montuno and guaracha. In 1955, Enrique Jorrín added trumpets to the charanga orchestras, which until then only used violin and flute. Already in the 1950s, Cuban dance music, that is son montuno, mambo, rumba and chachachá, became an element of great popularity in the United States and Europe.9 In New York, the "Cuban sound" of the bands was based on the contributions of Puerto Rican musicians who played Cuban music at the time. As an example, mention Machito, Tito Rodríguez, Tito Puente or even figures such as the Catalan director Xavier Cugat. On the other hand, and already outside the circle of New York, groups such as the Orquesta Aragón, the Sonora Matancera and Dámaso Pérez Prado and their mambo achieved an important international projection.9 The mambo was influenced by Afro-Cuban jazz and son. The great bands of this genre kept alive the popularity of the long tradition of jazz within Latin music, while the original jazz masters circumscribed themselves to the exclusive spaces of the era of bebop.12 Latin music performed in New York since 1960 was led by musicians such as Ray Barretto and Eddie Palmieri, who were strongly influenced by imported Cuban rhythms such as pachanga and chachachá. After the missile crisis in 1962, Cuban-American contact declined deeply.12 In 1969 Juan Formell introduced the electric bass in the Cuban sound assemblies.13 The Puerto Rican four was introduced by Yomo Toro in the orchestra of Willie Colón in 1971 and the electric piano in the 1970s by Larry Harlow. In the 1970s, Puerto Rican influence in the field of Latin music in New York increased and the "Nuyoricans" became a fundamental reference. The word salsa to designate the music made by "Latinos" in the United States, began to be used on the streets of New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By this time, Latin pop was not an important force in the music that was heard in the United States, having lost ground in front of doo wop, R&B and rock and roll. In that context, the emergence of salsa opened a new chapter of Latin music, especially in the United States.