guitar plays lead while the other plays rhythm. The lead guitar originally played
arpeggiated accompaniment patterns by plucking in classic bolero style, but later
switched to playing the strings downward, with a thumb pick. The bongó and ma-
raca (or güira) players mark a standard four-four time. The vocal style is highly
emotional, sometimes almost sobbing, and it can incorporate spoken text or short
exclamations such as “Mami!” Bachata can also be danced. Like the music, its
dance bears some resemblance to that of the Cuban bolero and son (Cuba), but
it is quite distinct from both of them. Bachata dancing consists of an alternating
one-two-three-kick pattern, in which the kick is a toe step or a small hop. The
body movement is smooth and sinuous, but relatively reserved. In recent years, as
bachata has gained acceptance and popularity, both the music and the dance have
become more elaborate.
According to Deborah Pacini-Hernández, bachata’s essential characteristics are
not only musical but extra-musical as well. When bachata crystallized as a style,
it increased in tempo, became more danceable, and its lyrics became bawdy and
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Bachata
raunchy as opposed to the quintessentially romantic and poetic bolero. The word
bachata originally meant a rural or low-class party, or a get-together that includes
music, drink, and food. The term then came to be applied to the music itself, since
guitar music was the preferred music of choice for these kinds of gatherings. The
music was named not by bachata musicians, fans, or industry entrepreneurs, but
by the country’s urban middle and upper classes, who intended to stigmatize and
trivialize these kinds of low-class gatherings as backward and vulgar. Thus, the
music’s social context, the language and context of the lyrics, and the social status
of the musicians were determinant factors in the very definition of bachata . Other
names that bachata has received include música de amargue , música de guardia ,
and cachivache .
The first recorded example of bachata is “Borracho de Amor” by José Manuel
Calderón in 1961. Bachata was born in the 1960s during a period of rural to urban
migration; rural migrants lived in the poorest and most marginalized neighbor-
hoods of the capital city, often without water, electricity, or any kind of public ame-
nities. Between the years 1960 and 1970 the population of the capital city of the
Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo, nearly doubled, and early bachata , whose
roots were quintessentially romantic, began to reflect the hardships of the urban
life especially as experienced by rural migrants. Bachata also reflected and helped
articulate the shifting experiences of male-female relationships in this new envi-
ronment. While many lyrics were romantic, many during this period consisted of
macho bawdy lyrics, a male singer bitterly denouncing women as treacherous and
faithless, reflecting the strains and tensions that urbanization imposed on family
life and male-female relationships. Pacini-Hernández states, “Men found it increas-
ingly difficult to fulfill their traditional roles as primary breadwinners, and women
were forced to move into the workplace to supplement family income, and so ba-
chata was transformed from a musical genre defined by its concern with romantic
love into one concerned primarily with sexuality, specifically casual sex with no
pretense to longevity or legitimacy, often mediated by money, and whose principal
social context was the bar/brothel” (153).
The lyrics also conveyed a barrio (working-class neighborhood) humor as they
manipulated words for a humorous or double entendre effect. Whereas the ear-
lier bolero campesino might have been marginalized in urban contexts because
of its rural nature, now bachata was further discriminated against because it was
considered vulgar and immoral and was simultaneously disparaged as generally
cheap, poorly produced, and associated with the lower classes. Nevertheless, dur-
ing the 1970s and 1980s, bachata steadily grew in popularity among the majority
of the population even though it only circulated through an informal promotion
and distribution system such as inexpensive cassettes sold by sidewalk vendors,
and was only heard publicly in neighborhood grocery stores ( colmados) and bars
Bachata
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21
(many of which were also brothels). Recordings of this period reflect the eco-
nomic status of the music, and the bachata of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s
was primitively recorded, usually in one take and through one microphone. It was
not until 1988 that bachata records appeared on a published hit parade, received
airplay on FM radio station, were shown on TV, or were sold in commercial rec-
ord stores.
While it is hard to trace exactly how bachata went from the margins to the
mainstream, many experts agree that there were several structural changes that
contributed to this shift. The sound of bachata bands was modernized, as they
switched from acoustic to electric guitars, incorporated electric bass and synthesiz-
ers, and improved the recorded quality of the music by using multitrack recording
and sound mixers. Also, bachata began to exhibit a more danceable nature as it
adopted many features from merengue. Other factors that contributed to the current
popularity of bachata included the fact that a group of liberal-minded high-profile
musicians began to take an interest in bachata , and one of them, Juan Luis Guerra,
achieved incredible international success with his album Bachata Rosa (1991).
Guerra’s bachatas have more polished melodies, rock harmonies, and more urbane
lyrics; they are also better recorded and more elaborately arranged than traditional
bachata . Guerra kept the basic instrumentation and double entendre-laced lyrics
of the genre, and his international fame helped present the genre internationally
with sweeping success.
Bachata has lost some of its significance as an urban folk genre while at the same
time it now appeals to a wider and more diverse audience. In the 1990s, bachata ’s
musical and textual characteristics had become less predictable as new features
were added to the previously existing forms. By the middle of the 1990s, ba-
chata turned back towards romanticism as bachateros relied less on sexual double
entendre and bitter lyrics in order to improve their chances of getting their records
played on the radio. In the new wave of bachata , there has emerged a New York
school, led by the South Bronx group Aventura. These groups have created a ba-
chata with a transnational flavor using Spanglish lyrics and combining influences
from rhythm and blues, rock, hip-hop and reggaetón. With performances in large
venues such as Madison Square Garden and featuring collaborations with urban
performers, Aventura’s image is not typical of bachateros. Bachata has moved into
multiple directions, while many bachateros still keep their connection to the poor by
performing almost exclusively in working-class venues; others, such as Aventura,
tour around the world and enjoy luxury cars and wear large gold chains. The rise
from
an exclusively rural tradition to an international phenomenon explains why
bachata has been named the Dominican blues. Bachata today enjoys even more
popularity than merengue , which has been celebrated as the national music of the
Dominican Republic.
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Baião
Further Reading
Martinez, Samuel. “Not a Cockfight: Rethinking Haitian-Dominican Relations.” Latin
American Perspectives 30, no. 3, Popular Participation against Neoliberalism (2003):
80–101.
Pacini-Hernández, Deborah. Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1995.
Angelina Tallaj
Baião
The baião is a syncopated dance music associated with northeastern Brazil. It is
related to several musical traditions and a cluster of rhythmic patterns commonly
found in the northeast. The baião was crafted into a commercial popular music
of national importance in the 1940s and 1950s by singer-accordionist Luiz Gon-
zaga (1912–1989); it became his signature genre as well as a cultural emblem of
northeastern regional identity in Brazil. The emergence of the baião as a regional
popular music challenged the supremacy of samba as Brazil’s national music and
highlighted regional contradictions embedded in the idea of Brazil’s national con-
sensus culture. The success of Gonzaga (king of the Baião) stimulated the na-
tional commercial success of northeastern musical styles and the creation of urban
working-class casas de forró —dance-clubs where the baião and a cluster of other
northeastern dance music genres are performed.
Regional musical traditions from the backlands and coastal areas of the northeast
were first presented nationally when popular singers and instrumentalists adapted
and presented northeastern musical genres such as the toada, embolada, and coco
for national audiences via the broadcast and recording industries centered in Rio
de Janeiro. Such regional activity was marginalized in relation to Rio-based samba
(itself a complex set of performance styles in the process of being defined) as ex-
emplifying fundamental qualities of Brazilian identity. Nevertheless, northeastern
music became nationally popular with the rise of Luiz Gonzaga.
For the baião, Gonzaga used essential elements common to several musical
traditions of the Northeast: a syncopated rhythmic pattern with a strong accent be-
fore beat two of a two-beat measure and modal scales with flatted sevenths, and
rather static harmonic structures with ambiguous tonic/dominant/subdominant re-
lationships. In the Northeast, a number of closely related dance rhythms ( baiano,
abaianada, coco ) are performed on instruments such as rabecas (folk violin), pi-
fanos (cane flutes), oito baixo (eight-bass accordion ), pandeiro (tambourine) and
zabumba (bass drum). Pre-dating Gonzaga’s popularization of the term as a spe-
cific genre of popular music, baião was used to refer to a specific rhythmic pat-
tern played on the viola (10-string guitar ) during desafio song duels performed by
Baião | 23
paired singer poets in the Northeast. Gonzaga claims that he was inspired by the
rhythmic patterns of the viola players as well as by cognate patterns played on the
zabumba drum.
On recordings and in live and radio broadcast performances between 1946 and
1949, Gonzaga refined the rhythmic accompaniment and instrumental arrange-
ments for the baião. He standardized a core instrumental trio of the acordeón , zabumba bass drum, and triangle to play the baião and other northeastern genres.
These instruments and the musical details of the baião were distinct from the
foreign-influenced sound of mainstream Brazilian popular music of the time and
served to link the music to the cultural values of northeastern migrant worker pop-
ulations flooding into Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Gonzaga also emphasized a
distinctly northeastern pronunciation and singing style, and sang lyrics evoking
nostalgia for the natural and cultural beauty of the northeast. In hit songs like “Asa
Branca” (1947), “Juazeiro” (1949), and his signature song “Baião” (1949) (co-
written with lyricist Humberto Texeira), Gonzaga ushered in the baião craze that
rivaled the samba in popularity. During the 1950s, Gonzaga teamed with several
other lyricists (notably Ze Dantas) to produce a string of hit songs. On nationally
syndicated radio programs such as No Mundo do Baião (In the World of the Baião),
Gonzaga presented the baião, and other northeastern genres ( coco, xote, forró ,
toada, xaxado, xamengo ) were presented as sprouting from the soul of the back-
land man to enchant the heart of Brazil. From 1946 to 1956, Gonzaga was Brazil’s
most frequently recorded musical star and his baião established regional music as
a commercially viable segment of the Brazilian music industry.
By about 1960, Gonzaga and northeastern music had fallen out of national favor
but remained a vibrant tradition among northeastern migrant populations in the
South and among working-class audiences throughout the Northeast. Gonzaga and
the baião would be rediscovered in the late 1960s and early 1970s by musicians
Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and other stars of Brazilian mainstream popular
music (see MPB or música popular brasileira ).
Further Reading
Crook, Larry. Brazilian Music: Northeastern Traditions and the Heartbeat of a Modern
Nation. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005.
McCann, Bryan. Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil .
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004.
McGowan, Chris and Ricardo Pessanha. The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova,
and the Popular Music of Brazil. Revised and expanded edition. Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 2009.
Murphy, John P. Music in Brazil: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2006.
Larry Crook
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Bajo
Sexto
Bajo Sexto
The bajo sexto is a large, 12-string, rhythm-bass instrument that is a member of the
guitar family and is primarily played in tejano and conjunto music. The origins of the bajo sexto are not clear, but some believe it originated in Spain in the 13th century. Known there as the bandolón, it was brought to Mexico by Spanish settlers.
Other scholars claim that it evolved from the 12-string guitar and emerged in the
Bajio region of Jalisco, Mexico in the 19th century. Regardless of its origins, the
bajo sexto did not become prominent until the late 19th century.
The bajo sexto looks much like the 12-string guitar, but it differs in many impor-
tant ways. It has a deeper sound box, a shorter neck, and thicker strings, which are
grouped in six pairs or courses. The lowest three pairs (E-e, A-a, d-d’) are tuned in
octaves and the highest three pairs (g-g, b-b, e’-e’) are tuned in unison.
During the late 19th century, the bajo sexto was played at weddings and bailes
de regalos (dances of gifts). When conjunto came onto the scene in the 1930s, the
bajo sexto was used mainly as a bass instrument to complement the bass line played
by the accordion. In the late 193
0s, bajo sexto player Santiago Almeida estab-
lished it as an important lead instrument in the conjunto ensemble. Bass guitar and
drums were added to the conjunto ensemble in the late 1940s, allowing the bajo
sexto player to move from strictly rhythmic accompaniment to more melodically
driven musical lines and solos. A newer version of the bajo sexto called the bajo
quinto appeared in recent years. It has five pairs of strings instead of the standard
six, which allows the musician to project a clearer sound.
Further Reading
Tejeda, Juan and Avelardo Valdez. Puro Conjunto: An Album in Words & Pictures. San
Antonio, TX: Center for Mexican and American Studies, 2001.
Erin Stapleton-Corcoran
Miguel, Luis
Multi-award-winning pop singer and heartthrob Luis Miguel (b. 1970) was born
in Puerto Rico, but considers Mexico his home. At 15, he earned his fi rst
Grammy, for the duet “Me Gustas Tal Como Eres.” Since then, he has re-
corded more than 30 albums. Miguel sings exclusively in Spanish, which has
not hindered his professional career or international popularity. With his 2009
release, No Culpes a La Noche, he earned his 16th top 10 Top Latin Album.
In the 1990s, Miguel moved from main stream pop to embrace traditional
Latin American song forms when he recorded a series of four bolero albums
Balada
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25
Romance (1991), which went gold in the United States; Segundo Romance (1994),
which earned a Grammy; Romances (1997); and Mis Romances (2001). Miguel sang
newly composed boleros along with traditional ballads from Mexico, Argen-
tina, and Brazil, infl uencing a regional revival of bolero. In 2004, Miguel worked
with Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan to record the mariachi-focused México el la
Piel album through which he celebrated the traditional Mexican mariachi and
ranchera repertoire.
Further Reading
“Luis Miguel,” Contemporary Musicians. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1989. Vol.
34 (2002): 147–49.
Rebecca Stuhr
Balada
Balada, or the Latin American ro-
mantic ballad, began in the 1960s as
a pan-Latin American musical genre
with its origins in the bolero . Balada
Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music Page 7