Cha Cha vs Son Montuno – Part 1

Latin Tracks for February 2015

Song (iTunes)

Artist

Category

Origin

La Engañadora – Grandes Orquestas Cubanas de los Años 50 Orquesta América Cha-Cha-Cha  Cuba
Trompetas en Chachacha – Todo Chachacha Enrique Jorrín y Su Orquesta  Cha-Cha-Cha Cuba
Tintorera Ya Llegó – Legendary Sessions Chano Pozo / Arsenio Rodríguez Son Montuno  Cuba
Yo No Engaño a las Nenas – Legendary Sessions Chano Pozo / Arsenio Rodríguez  Son Montuno  Cuba
Llego Mijan – Mambo Love! Latin Wedding Playlist By Tie The Knot Tunes Tito Puente ? USA
De Nueva York – Melaza Melaza ? USA
Había Cavour – Regresando al Guaguancò La Maxima 79 ? Italy
Son Montuno Pa’l Bailador – San Agustin Edwin Sanz ?  Venezuela
Gira y Gira – Gerardo Rosales: 30 Aniversario Gerado Rosales ? Venezuela

 

Cha Cha vs Son Montuno

Over the years I’ve collected a number of songs that I’ve classified, for dancing purposes, as cha-cha-cha.  However, musically there is a lot of variety within this collection with songs coming from a range of musical genres such as afro-pop, latin jazz, and rock.  Of course the collection also includes tracks I would consider to be classic cha-cha.   From a dancing perspective, this distinction isn’t that important.  What is important is that each of these songs contains a rhythm that allows the dancer to dance a cha-cha step.  None the less, in some of these songs the lyrics or title include the name of a musical genre and often that genre is not cha-cha but ‘son montuno’.  So that got me wondering, what is the difference between cha-cha and son montuno?  And an even better question, what is son montuno?  Over the next couple of blog posts I’ll attempt to answer those questions by first exploring the origins of these two musical styles and then by digging into the musical characteristics that define them.

Cha-Cha-Cha
The genre known as cha-cha or cha-cha-cha was first created in the 1950’s by Cuban violinist and composer Enrique Jorrín.  Jorrín’s cha-cha was a variation on danzon and much like danzon, it was originally written for charanga ensembles (musical formations that include flutes, violins and timbales) and did not make use of the clave rhythm.  Interestingly, the name for the genre was something Jorrín came up with well after he wrote his first cha-cha compositions.  He noticed that when people danced to the music their feet made a shuffling ‘cha-cha-cha’ sound as they moved across the dance floor.

From a musical standpoint the first cha-chas were written in a “monodic choral vocal style with accents from the chotis madrileño and rhythmic elements from the mambo-style danzón; but with a novel structural conception: introduction-verse-bridge-coda in double time.” (Odilio Urfé).  To me that sounds like a bunch of musicology mumbo-jumbo.  What is more interesting and maybe more informative in regards to the topic of son montuno vs cha-cha, is that Jorrín and those who composed their own versions of cha-cha music did not maintain this structure in later compositions.  It would seem that composers may have been motivated by the desire to provide music to which dancers could dance a cha-cha step as opposed to being true any defining musical rules.

Son Montuno
In general, people are familiar with the term ‘Cha-cha’ in reference to music and dance.   Son montuno, on the other hand, is a totally different story.  Son montuno is a sub-genre of Cuban son, which is arguably one of the most important and influential musical styles to ever originate in Cuba.  Like son, son montuno is based on the clave rhythm.  It’s not totally clear how son montuno evolved from son.  The word ‘montuno’ may have originally been a reference to the mountainous areas of eastern Cuba, which would indicate that the musical styles of that region had an influence on the music itself.  However, over time ‘montuno’ came to  describe the final uptempo and often semi-improvised section of a song.

Son montuno’s humble beginnings occurred in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century and the genre may very well have remained relatively obscure if it wasn’t for the glorious musical talents of Arsenio Rodríguez.  By some accounts Rodríguez laid the foundation that modern Cuban salsa is built upon and much of that foundation appears in the son montuno music he wrote in the mid part of the 20th century.   Arsenio popularized the use of layered “guajeos” – interlocking  melodic riffs played by various instruments.  In addition, he expanded the traditional conjunto formation by adding multiple brass instruments, conga drums, and the piano to the original son sexteto/septeto lineups.  He also added a cowbell to the montuno sections of songs.  All of these elements have become characteristics of modern day salsa music.

From these origins it’s hard to imagine there being any confusion between son montuno and a cha-cha.  If only that were true…  Over time, like all music, son montuno and cha-cha have evolved and that evolution has resulted in musical styles that can sound very similar indeed.   That said, son montuno and cha-cha continue to have characteristics that distinguish them from each but I will leave that topic for another blog post.  For now, take a listen to some of the songs I’ve included in this month’s playlist and you can decide for yourself what the differences are.

Questions, comments, requests? Send me an email

– clavecito

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Senegal to Santiago de Cuba

October Playlist Highlights

Song (iTunes)

Artist

Category

Origin

Babalu Aye  Brisas del Palmar Traditional Cuba
Siboney Brisas del Palmar Traditional Cuba
La Cita Brisas del Palmar Traditional Cuba
Xam Sa Bop Africando Salsa Senegal
Bouré Yayé Diama  Africando Salsa Fusion Sengal
Xalass Xalass

Africando

Cha Cha Cha

Sengal

Qué Grande Es el Amor

Ramón Cordero, Edilio Paredes

Bachata

Dominican Rep.

No Puedo Seguir Así 

Kla-v2

Bachata

USA

Abusadora 

Wilfrido Vargas

Merengue

Dominican Rep.

Continua Assim 

Don Kikas

Kizomba

Angola

 

Africando – Viva Africando

Get out your dancing shoes, Africando has just released a brand new album and it’s awesome!  Up until September of this year the band from Senegal known as Africando had released 7 full length albums with the most recent being Ketukuba, released in 2006.   The 7 year drought without new Africando material came to an end a couple of weeks ago with the release of the band’s 8th album Viva Africando.  It’s got all new material including some amazing salsas,  cha-cha-chas and afro-salsa fusions along with guest performances by the likes of Santana and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra.  And talk about being a truly international recording.  All told,  songs on the album are sung in 10 different languages.  There are plenty of tracks on this disk to put you in the dancing mood and to give you a sample of what I am talking about I have included some of my favourites in this weeks play list.

Brisas del Palmar -Santiago en Suños

An amazing Cuban band called Brisas del Palmar has visited Edmonton on a number of occasions this past summer.  They opened for Havana d’Primera at Encore, performed at Heritage Days and the Edmonton Latin Festival, and had several other concerts around town.  If you had the opportunity to see them live you will appreciate just how amazing this band is.   Originally from Santiago de Cuba, Brisas Del Palmar was formed back in 1999 and is well known in Cuba as one of the leading interpreters of traditional music such as boleros, sons and guarchas.  The band’s talents have definitely not gone unnoticed.  Only 2 years after their inception they won second place at the Festival of Singers of the Americas held in Guantanamo and 2005 these extraordinary musicians were chosen top quintet in Cuba. They are featured daily on Cuban national radio and recently performed for the Pope.  And this success at home has allowed them to travel the world.  This summer was the 8th time Brisas has been to Canada with their first visit being back in 2004.

The band has released 4 albums to date and in their most recent Canadian tour they brought with them their latest material.  This new music was released on an album entitled Enamorado de ti recorded in April at the EGAM studios in Santiago de Cuba.  It’s a great disk featuring original material from the band including the title track Enamorade de ti and Quiéreme along with covers of some salsa classics such as La Rebelion and Oiga, Mire, Vea.  Unfortunately, the album is only available at their live performances.  So if you didn’t pick up a copy while Brisas was in town you still have a chance to get your hands on this album if you happen to be visiting Vancouver in the next few weeks.  The band will be performing there until the end of October when they will be returning to Cuba.  There is one Brisas album that is available for purchase online called Santiago en Sueños. This album was recorded in Vancouver in 2012 and contains a great collection of traditional Cuban music.  You can find a few tracks from that album in this month’s playlist.

That’s it for this month. Questions, comments, requests?Send me an email Hasta la próxima

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