Cuba - Lonely Planet [42]
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Concocted in the early 1800s, the habanera was one of Cuba’s earliest hybrid music styles. It was later popularized in Europe by Spanish composer Sebastián Yradier, who wrote the classic song ‘La Paloma’ after visiting the island in 1860.
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The self-styled Queen of Salsa was Grammy award–winning singer and performer Celia Cruz. Born in Havana in 1925, Cruz served the bulk of her musical apprenticeship in Cuba before leaving for self-imposed exile in the US in 1960. But, due to her longstanding opposition to the Castro regime, Cruz’ records and music have remained largely unknown on the island despite her enduring legacy elsewhere. Far more influential on their home turf are the legendary salsa outfit Los Van Van, a band formed by Juan Formell in 1969 and one that still performs regularly at venues across Cuba. With Formell at the helm as the group’s great improviser, poet, lyricist and social commentator, Los Van Van are one of the few contemporary Cuban groups to have created their own unique musical genre – that of songo-salsa. The band also won top honors in 2000 when they memorably took home a Grammy for their classic album, Llego Van Van.
Modern salsa mixed and merged further in the ’80s and ’90s, allying itself with new cutting-edge musical genres such as hip-hop, reggaetón and rap, before coming up with some hot new alternatives, most notably timba and songo-salsa.
Timba is, in many ways, Cuba’s own experimental and fiery take on traditional salsa. Mixing New York sounds with Latin jazz, nueva trova, American funk, disco, hip-hop and even some classical influences, the music is more flexible and aggressive than standard salsa, incorporating greater elements of the island’s potent Afro-Cuban culture. Many timba bands such as Bambaleo and La Charanga Habanera use funk riffs and rely on less conventional Cuban instruments such as synthesizers and kick drums. Others – such as NG La Banda, formed in 1988 (and often credited as being the inventors of timba) – have infused their music with a more jazzy dynamic.
Traditional jazz, considered the music of the enemy in the Revolution’s most dogmatic days, has always seeped into Cuban sounds. Jesús ‘Chucho’ Valdés’ band Irakere, formed in 1973, broke the Cuban music scene wide open with its heavy Afro-Cuban drumming laced with jazz and son, and the Cuban capital boasts a number of decent jazz clubs (Click here). Other musicians associated with the Cuban jazz set include pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Isaac Delgado and Adalberto Álvarez y Su Son.
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LOS TROVADORES
The original trovadores (traditional singers/songwriters) were like wandering medieval minstrels, itinerant songsmiths who plied their musical trade across the Oriente region in the early 20th century, moving from village to village and city to city with the carefree spirit of perennial gypsies. Equipped with simple acoustic guitars and armed with a seemingly limitless repertoire of soft, lilting rural ballads, early Cuban trovadores included Sindo Garay, Nico Saquito and Joseíto Fernández, the man responsible for composing the overplayed Cuban trova classic, ‘Guantanamera.’ As the style developed into the 1960s, new advocates such as Carlos Puebla from Bayamo gave the genre a grittier and more political edge penning classic songs such as ‘Hasta Siempre Comandante,’ his romantic if slightly sycophantic ode to Che Guevara.
Traditional trova is still popular in Cuba today though its mantle has been challenged since the ’60s and ’70s by its more philosophical modern offshoot, nueva trova (see boxed text, opposite).
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RAP, REGGAETÓN & BEYOND
The contemporary Cuban music scene is an interesting mix of enduring traditions, modern sounds, old hands and new blood. With low production costs, solid urban themes and lots of US-inspired crossover styles, hip-hop and rap are taking the younger generation