s a l s a 2 0 0 0 feel the rythm! n o k i a

JGeneral Information about the course -Course Schedule  JContact info  JWhat to wear for the lessons?  JWhat are you expected to learn?  JList of Salsa Lovers  JInformation about Salsa     rosell@altavista.net visitors since 01:00 29 Dec 1999

The most important thing to learn during the course is: to enjoy the rhyhtm!

How to wear for the lessons: There is no special clothes recomended for the lessons just wear something you feel confortable with. A pair of shortpants and a t-shirt will be ok.

An introduction to Salsa

Salsa, inspires many feelings in us. One, it is a link to our background, culture and ultimately to our identities as Latinos. While there are several rhythms in the extremely diverse Latin culture, we believe that Salsa is among the most successful in combining many of the influences of our ancestors. It draws from Amerindian, African, and European heritage to create a musical genre that is in our humble opinion the greatest musical form around. Salsa's rhythm in a figurative sense calls out to us and the roots from which all of us descend. It is among the few musical genres that have combined African rhythms, European and Indian instruments and produced the rhythm that inspires us not only to dance, but to also express our Hispanidad. Hispanidad that represents passion, love, and a spirit of pleasure and bliss. Yet Salsa is not exclusive to Hispanics, it has become an international music that crosses borders- where people need no visas.

Salsa has so much depth that it is able to comment on social ills as many composers have done (e.g.: Ruben Blades) or wildly engulf people into its web of love, loss, and despair. Salsa has transcended the Hispanic world into Asia, Europe, and Africa. These foreign cultures have learned to love and embrace Salsa (e.g.: Orquesta de la Luz). As a representation of Latin culture, Salsa has achieved recognition for our culture that otherwise possibly would not have.

In other words, Salsa has much to offer. Salsa is a creative art form in which its dancers can express themselves to its enthralling rhythm. In a darkly lit dance floor with salsa rhythms pulsating from the speakers, couples engage in their unique form of expression or lack thereof. One couple dances at a frenzied pace with a series of short, choppy aggressive turns like a wild ritualistic mating dance for all to see. In another direction, an obviously uncoordinated, fumble-footed couple seems to be experiencing the aftershock of a powerful overdose of drugs which induce uncontrollable convulsions. Yet another couple reflects an erotic union of bodies and souls, coming to an almost orgasmic climax as they spin much like the feelings they are experiencing. This is the safest form of sexual contact. Hell forget abstinence, GIVE ME SOME SALSA, BABY!!!

Origings of Salsa

Cuba established its identity by combining the influences of its entire population -- white, black, and mulatto. Music played an important role in the formation of such an identity. The genre that was to succeed in creatively fusing equal amounts of white- and black- derived musical features was the son, which subsequently came to dominate the culture not only in Cuba, but most of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean as well.

The son originated in eastern Cuba during the first decades of the century. From the start it represented a mixture of Spanish-derived and Afro-Cuban elements. The basic two-part formal of the son has remained the same from the 1920s to the present, and the vast majority of salsa songs (which Cubans would called son or guaracha) also follow this pattern.

Another development that occurred in the 1940s was the invention of the mambo. Essentially, the mambo was a fusion of the Afro-Cuban rhythms with the big-band format from Swing and Jazz. Although bands in Cuba like Orquesta Riverside were already playing Mambo-style in the 1940s, the invention of the Mambo is usually credited to Cuban bandleader Pérez Prado, who spent most of his years in Mexico and elsewhere outside the island. Bandleaders like Beny Moré combined Mambo formats with son and guaracha (a similar up-tempo dance genre). The Mambo reached its real peak in New York City in the 1950s, where bands led by Machito and the Puerto Ricans Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez incorporated Jazz-influenced instrumental solos and more sophisticated arrangements. With Prado based chiefly in Mexico and the New York mambo bands developing their own styles, Cuban music had begun taking a life of its own outside the island and the stage was set for the salsa boom of the 1960s.

From the early 1800s until today, Puerto Ricans have avidly borrowed and mastered various Cuban music styles, including the Cuban danzón, son, guaracha, rumba, and bolero. Indeed, the richness of Puerto Rican musical culture derives in large part from the way it has adopted much of Cuban music, while contributing its own dynamic folk and contemporary popular music. Puerto Rico should not be regarded as simply a miniature Cuba, especially since genres like the seis, bomba, and plena are distinctly Puerto Rican creations, owing little to Cuban influence in their traditional forms.

Since the 1920s Puerto Rican music has been as much a product of New York City as the island itself, due to the fundamental role the migration experience has come to play in Puerto Rican culture. As a result, Puerto Rican culture can not be conceived of as something that exists of only or even primarily in Puerto Rico; rather, it has become inseparable from "Nuyorican/Newyorican" culture, which itself overlaps with black and other Latino subcultures in New York and, for that matter, with mainland North American culture as a whole.

By the 1940s, Nuyoricans like timbalero Tito Puente and vocalist Tito Rodriguez had become the top bandleaders and innovators, and the Latin dance music scene in New York came to outstrip that on the island. (Even today, there are more salsa bands and clubs in New York than in Puerto Rico).

The Rise of Salsa is tied to Fania Records, which had been founded in 1964 by Johnny Pacheco, a bandleader with Dominican parentage and Cuban musica tastes. Fania started out as a fledging independent label, with Pacheco distributing records to area stores from the trunk of his car. From 1967, Fania, then headed by Italian-American lawyer Jerry Masucci, embarked on an aggressive and phenomenally successful program of recording and promotion.

Particularly influential was composer-arranger Willie Colón, a Bronx prodigy. Colón's early albums, with vocalists Héctor Lavoe, Ismael Miranda and Ruben Bládes, epitomized the Fania style at its best and captured the fresh sound, restless energy, and aggressive dynamism of the barrio youth.

Every commercial music genre needs a catchy label, and there was a natural desire for a handier one than "recycled Cuban dance music". Hence Fania promoted the word salsa, which was already familiar as a bandstand interjection.

The 1970s were the heyday of salsa and of Fania which dominated the market. By the end of the decade, however, salsa found on the defensive against an onslaught of merengue and hip-hop and an internal creative decline.

(this text is from History of Salsa at http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~ecyoj/)