April Playlist Highlights

If you have ever wondered why one Salsa song can sound so drastically different from another the answer could be in the origins of the genre.  The fact is that the musical genre known as Salsa is made up of several sub-genres each with their own unique rhythm and musical arrangement.  These sub-genres are the focus of this month’s blog post.

You will often read or hear about how Salsa music, like the food, is a mix of many different ingredients.  This fact was was brought home for me by a podcast episode I was recently listening to entitled ‘Por qué la salsa no existe’.  The episode came from ‘La Salsa no Existe’ written by Juan Fernando Rodríguez Escoba,  a podcast I have mentioned before in another blog post.   I was so impressed by how the episode opened my ears to the many sub-genres that make up Salsa that I contacted Juan asking him if I could translate and reproduce the text for this blog.  He gracisouly gave his permission.  The translated text is below and for those who are interested, here is a link to the original podcast text and the podcast itself.

Por qué la salsa no existe by Juan Fernando Rodríguez Escobar

Translated by DJ Yea-Yea with the help of Sara M.

On this site we argue that “Salsa” is not a real genre because it is too simplistic a way of labeling a world of music made of many rhythms that share a common language.  The fact is that this is not a language of just one word.

Take Tito Puente’s song “Pa’los rumberos”, which could be called a Salsa but is actually a descarga timbalera.

Willie Colon y su Orquesta’s “Guaracha”, a song which marketing has labeled “Salsa”, is as its name indicates a modern version of a guaracha, a popular Cuban genre of music that has ancient traditions, and which has added its own thread to the [Salsa] musical quilt.

Willie Rosario’s “La Esencia del Guaguancó”, as its title indicates is not a Salsa but a guaguancó, another Cuban genre known as rumba.  Guaguanco has also participated in the making of this unique but heterogeneous language that brings us together on this website.

Pete Rodriguez sang “I like it Like that” never thinking of it as a salsa.  What this famous New York Latin American artist gave the world was a boogaloo, a genre which we discuss at length in another podcast, and which consists of Afro Caribbean rhythms mentioned above, as well as Afro North American rhythms like Jazz, Rock and Soul.

The genre [Salsa] is also composed of “son montuno”, which many experts believe provided the musical foundation for what has become the unified commercial sound of Salsa.

Furthermore, what is often called “Salsa” should be called “Pachanga” like Fruko y sus Tesos’ song “Los Charcos”.  This Cuban rhythm evolved among Hispanics in New York and swept through Latin America at the end of the 50s.  It was interpreted by many great musicians from Joe Quijano to Rubén Blades, Charlie Palmieri through to Ray Barretto.

Then along came Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz  in the 70’s who threw a bomb into the Caribbean that spread throughout Latin America.  Not a bomb like those that threatened the world during the Cold War but a Bomba ,the afro-Puerto Rican musical genre from the time of slavery, which itself contains a dozen sub-genres and in which the protagonists are the drums as well as the dance.

While the rhythms of Cuba and Puerto Rico have borne the majority of the load in creating this genre, many others have contributed their heritage, including those of Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the Dominican Republic.  Even Brazilian rhythms can be heard in songs such as “La Vide es Bonita” by Hector Lavoe.

And if Colombia added a large part of its musical richness to this new language, so too would Venezuela.  Nelson González [of the Venezuelan group Nelson y Sus Estrellas] is one of the main people responsible for exploring the frontier of this new genre adding a touch of the Andean-Caribbean that refreshed the [Salsa] music that came from North of the continent.

Tito Puente, one of the heroes of afro-Caribbean music in the 60’s and 70’s, detested the concept of “Salsa”.  For the best timbalero of all time, Salsa was something that you ate but could not see nor could you dance.  “It’s a word that does not signify anything” he said at every opportunity and we can understand why.  He could hear the mix of dozens of musical genres defined by such a narrow term. “Salsa is something I eat with spaghetti” he said.

Therefore we say again that “Salsa” does not exist