LATIN & TROPICAL SOUNDS

This will be mainly about Cumbia, Latin Boogaloo, the kind of sounds that could be heard from the old Coast to Coast days and future events with a little history about the music. The records shown above are an example of what you can expect to hear and are not strictly Cumbia and Latin Boogaloo but are all influenced by the sounds from Latin America and the Carribean from the 60s and 70s.

Cumbia, as with many other Latin/Carribean styles of music has it's roots in Africa, There are conflicting theories about cumbia’s origins, but most universally agreed is that it originated in cumbe dance brought by slaves from Spanish Guinea, West Africa. Influences also flowed in from indigenous Indians working alongside the Africans in the plantations - the millet-stalk flutes, sugar cane flutes, and rythmic scrapers made from gourds (guiros), also used in ska, which worked with drums in songs performed in typical African call and response patterns. Spanish guitars entered the mix inevitably and the arrival of German accordions in the late 19th century.

Disco Fuentes label was founded in 1934 by musician, arranger and producer Antonio Lopez Fuentes. The richest musical spots were around Cartagena, Barranquilla on the caribbean coast where the communities were mainly from African decendents. He would go to all the bars and clubs around these areas to seek out gifted singers and musicians to carry out his recordings.

The first half of the 20th century saw the impact on cumbia of imported records and local radio music (mostly from the US but also from the neighbouring Caribbean islands). The bass and sax arrangements of American Swing Bands led by the likes of Duke Wellington impressed Fuentes and led to the introduction of the clarinet.

The 1950s was a Golden Age of music all over the Carribean and Latin America. In Havana you had the fanatical explosion of mambo, which took New York, Puerto Rico and other neighbouring countries by storm. You had the very popular Bossa Nova from Brazil which continued on into the 60s and that massive hit by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, "Mas Que Nada". Trinidad had their own rising star in Fitz Vaughan Bryan and his ochestra, also influenced by the big band sound but in a different style, a fusion of Jazz and calypso and boasts the biggest dancehall hit ever in the 60s with "Tan Tan" in his native Trinidad. Meanwhile, Fuentes in Colombia was so influenced by the sound coming from Havana it spilled over into his cumbia sound. By then, the boss had expanded his line up to the scale of those mambo outfits, and also introduced the traditional guacharaca to the percussion section, a long cylindrical metal scraper which replaced the guiro and injected it’s strident, tangibly Colombian beat.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, African Americans in the United States listened to various styles of music, including jump blues, R&B and doo-wop (which had an influence on early Jamaican ska). Latinos in New York City shared these tastes, but they also listened to genres like mambo and cha cha chá. There was a mixing of Puerto Ricans, Cubans and African Americans and others in clubs, whose bands tried to find common musical ground. Boogaloo was a result of this search, a marriage of many styles including Cuban son montuno, guaguancó, guajira, guaracha, mambo, and American R&B and soul

In the 1960s boogaloo did not become mainstream nationwide until later in the decade, two early Top 20 hits came in 1963: Mongo Santamaría’s cover version of the Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” and Ray Barretto’s “El Watusi”. Inspired by these two successes, a number of bands began imitating their infectious rhythms (which were Latinized R&B), intense conga rhythms and clever novelty lyrics. Boogaloo was the only Cuban-style rhythm which occasionally acquired English lyrics. Established Cuban-influenced orchestras also recorded the occasional boogaloo, including Pérez Prado, Tito Rodríguez and Tito Puente was an American musician, songwriter . Most of the other groups were young musicians – sometimes even teenage musicians from New York’s Puerto Rican community. – the Latin Souls, the Lat-Teens, Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers, Joe Bataan and the Latinaires and were later to be joined by artists such as Cuba, Bobby Valentine, Johnny Colón and Willie Colón.

It wasn’t until 1966 when Latin Boogaloo was fully established and took over the Latin charts. The biggest boogaloo hit of the ‘60s was “Bang Bang” by the Joe Cuba Sextet, which sold over one million copies in 1966. “El Pito” was another hit by this popular combo. Hits by other groups included Johnny Colón’s “Boogaloo Blues”, Pete Rodríguez’s “I Like It like That”, and Héctor Rivera’s “At the Party. In the same year as Joe Cuba’s pop success, saw the closing of New York City’s Palladium Ballroom, when the venue, the home of big band mambo for years, lost its liquor license. The closing marked the end of mainstream mambo, and boogaloo ruled the Latin charts for several years before salsa began to take over. At the same time, several other rhythmical inventions came to notice: the dengue, the jala-jala and the shing-a-ling were all offshoots of the mambo and chachachá.

While Latin Boogaloo was all the rage in Latin America, in Colombia American Rock and the Beatles lured teenagers away from the old cumbia sound. Reducing the big expensive bands to small combos, Fuentes had changed the cumbia sound accordingly with influences from rock, guitar and space-age sounds but it was short lived.

Latin boogaloo also spread throughout the wider Latin music world, especially in Puerto Rico, where top band El Gran Combo released many boogaloos. Latin music scenes in Peru, Colombia, Panama and elsewhere also embraced the boogaloo. The boogaloo craze faded from popularity by the end of 1969 but was popular enough that almost every major and minor Latin dance artist of the time recorded at least a few boogaloos on their albums. That included boogaloos by long-time veteran, mambo-era musicians such as Eddie Palmieri and his “Ay Que Rico” or Tito Puente’s “Hit the Bongo”. What caused the fairly rapid end of the boogaloo’s reign is in doubt but according to several sources, jealous older Latin music artists colluded with record labels (in particular, Fania Records), radio DJs, and dance hall promoters to blacklist boogaloo bands from venues and radio.

By 1970 Salsa music had taken over, initially arose in New York City during the 1960s. Salsa is the product of various Cuban musical genres including the Afro-Cuban son montuno, guaracha, cha cha chá, mambo, and Puerto Rican plena and bomba. Latin jazz (which was also developed in New York City) has had a significant influence on salsa arrangers, piano guajeos, and instrumental soloists. Salsa is primarily Cuban son, itself a fusion of Spanish canción and guitar and Afro-Cuban percussion. Salsa also occasionally incorporates elements of Latin jazz, bomba and plena. All of these non-Cuban elements are grafted onto the basic Cuban son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa. The first salsa bands were predominantly Cubans and Puerto Ricans. The music eventually spread throughout Colombia and the rest of the Americas. Ultimately, it became a global phenomenon. Some of the founding salsa artists were Johnny Pacheco (the creator of the Fania All-Stars), Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, Richie Ray, Bobby Cruz, Ray Barretto, Willie Colón, Larry Harlow, Roberto Roena, Bobby Valentín, Eddie Palmieri, and Héctor Lavoe.

Salsa had an overwhelming influence on cumbia, brought in on vinyl from New York’s Fania label. Fuentes’ precocious musician, Fruko heard Fania’s leading bands in 1969, while he was in New York playing timbales with Los Corraleros de Majagual. He was smitten by the staggering originarity of the young arrangers and musicians and particularly by Fania’s co-founder, Johnny Pacheco, and pianist and other key producer, Larry Harlow. Back in Medellin, Fruko was elevated to co-arranger and producer and eagerly raided ideas from Fania for Cumbia productions. Most significant was the emphasis on trambones, which rapidly became a trademark. His magic touch launched a conveyor belt of brash modern cumbia hits

Latin Boogaloo played an important part at C2C during the On the Rocks days. Cumbia has played a small part at the Coast to Coast recently but baring in mind it's now predominantly a ska, rocksteady & early reggae night, I now intend to do an additional night so that can I feature some more Afro-beat, Cumbia, Calypso, Latin, Salsa, Tropical sounds from the Carribean & Latin America fused with the Coast to Coast sounds from back in the day.

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