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Villa’s tejano orchestra and the band Conjunto Bernal offered contrasting blends
of Mexican dance music and swing jazz. The era also saw the rise of the bolero
romantico with the formation of the Mexican Trio Los Panchos in New York.
American composers, including George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard
Bernstein, incorporated Cuban and other Latin rhythms into their symphonic and
stage works.
The rock era of the 1960s was one of revolution in society and music. Fidel Cas-
tro’s Cuban Revolution and the civil rights movement helped inspire Latino and
Chicano identity movements. Nueva canción and nueva trova voiced the views of intellectuals and socially conscious musicians. American folk-rock musicians Joan
Baez, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger were connecting with Latin American singer
songwriters including Violeta Parra and Victor Jara of Chile, Mercedes Sosa of
Argentina, and Silvio Rodríguez of Cuba. The emphasis on poetic social com-
mentary and a principled resistance to commercial esthetics set nueva canción
apart from the rock movement, despite mutually acknowledged inspirations. Latin
American artists also contributed directly to rock ‘n’ roll with influential superstars
Richie Valens, Freddy Fender, and Carlos Santana leading the list.
The emergence of salsa in the 1970s in New York ultimately transformed the
international music scene. The decade was an era of religious transformation as
Catholic liberation theology emerged in Central America and competed with a
new wave of evangelical and Pentecostal Protestantism. The Latino gospel music
emerging from this practice is popular throughout the United States, particularly in
contemporary Latino congregations in Chicago and the American south.
New York and the Northeast
The center of Latin music performance and production is New York City, which
has not only promoted the consumption and exchange of Latin American music,
but is also the birthplace of salsa, boogaloo, and Latin Soul. However, Caribbean
perspectives, principally Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, and Colombian domi-
nate New York and much of the northeast.
Many of the biggest names in Latin jazz called New York their home and it was
New York musicians that helped lead the nation in connecting the black pride of the
civil rights movement to Latin American heritage and to music that reflected that
pride. The Latino umbrella promoted new interest in Afro-Latin practices including
the drums of Santeria and the berimbau music associated with Brazilian capoeira.
A generation of New York-born-and-raised Puerto Ricans called themselves Nuy-
orican, and celebrated the confluence of Latin American and African roots in newly
defined styles such as salsa, Latin soul, and boogaloo.
New York’s Fania Records, founded in 1964 by singer and pianist Johnny Pa-
checo and attorney Jerry Masucciled, brought salsa to an international audience.
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Fania Records helped build the careers of Nuyorican salsa singer Hector LaVoe,
as well as conga virtuoso Ray Barretto. Other artists represented by Fania included
superstars Celia Cruz, Luis Perico Ortiz, Bobby Valentin, and Ruben Blades. In
the late 1970s, salsa drew increasing competition from merengue in the city’s
dance clubs, credited in part to merengue’s simpler dance steps and the growing
Dominican population.
Cuban hip-hop and Puerto Rican reggaetón are among the most recent Latin
contributions to New York’s music scene.
The Southeast
Early Latin American settlement in Tampa and New Orleans represented contrasting
poles of southeastern practice, with Spanish-language theater in Tampa, and the in-
tegration of Cuban, Haitian, and other Caribbean influences by Spanish and Creole
musicians in the development of jazz in New Orleans. Established Hispanic com-
munities in 19th-century Florida and Louisiana gave rise to rural musical traditions
shaped by family life and community celebrations. In Louisiana, for example, the
Isleños of New Iberia, a rural community supported by commercial fishing and ag-
riculture, still continue to sing décimas in the tradition of their great- grandparents,
many of whom hailed from the Canary Islands. In recent years they have incorpo-
rated corridos and rancheras popular with their Texas-Mexican neighbors.
Spanish-speaking people have lived in Miami since the city’s founding in 1896,
but the city gained its reputation for promoting Latin music following the wave of
postrevolution Cuban immigration in the 1960s. Subsequent waves brought large
numbers of immigrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Colombia, Peru, the Dominican
Republic, and Brazil, resulting in an increased emphasis on dance styles, particu-
larly salsa, timba , merengue, hip-hop and new DJ styles. Beginning in the 1970s, Miami recording studios became known for promoting Latin pop. Less glossy versions of vallenato, cumbia , and other genres from Colombia such as musica llanera
(from the plains performed with arpa , cuatro and maracas ) and bambuco can also be heard in contexts supporting popular folkloric music.
The Cuban exile community continues to dominate Miami’s scene, and it in-
cludes legendary mambo -era bassist Israel Cachao Lopez, Latin jazz clarinetist
and saxophone player Paquito D’Rivera, Israel Kantor, formerly of the timba group
Los Van Van, and trumpeter Arturo Sandoval. Miami leads the still emerging timba
scene in the United States with performers such as Timba Libre, the Cuban Timba
All-Stars, and N’talla. The city’s nightspots and party circuit offer Cuban Casino
salsa, and salsa rueda, both club-based dance styles. Miami-based Cuban rapper
Pitbull is a current favorite on the hip-hop scene. Caribbean dance music, includ-
ing bachata , merengue, soca , konpa , zouk , as well as the increased popularity of
calypso and steelband pan music, reflect both the beach culture of the region and
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the growing population from French, English, and Spanish Caribbean nations in
Miami.
The Southwest
Spanish speakers resided in the Southwest and California long before English-
speaking Americans. Tensions and exchanges across the U.S.-Mexican border, past
and present, produced and continue to produce a rich body of music. Popular songs
known as corridos are sung by Mexican balladeers usually to the accompaniment
of solo guitar or a small acoustic ensemble; the poetic lyrics regularly address the
conflict between non-Spanish-speaking settlers and Mexican residents. Many cor-
ridos have passed from generation to generation, documenting both the ordinary
and the heroic activities of Mexican Americans and their neighbors.
New corridos in the folkloric style continue to be composed today. A more
controversial form of the corrido, the narco-corrido, can be heard on contempo-
rary Spanish-language radio stations, typically performed by the modern electric
conjuntos (bands with accordion, 12-string bass guitar or bajo sexto , drum set, saxophone, and synthesizer) or banda (a brass, woodwind and percussion group,
originally influenced by German polka bands). The narco-corri
do style emerged
from Sinaloa in northern Mexico, but the most famous representatives of this style,
such as Los Tigres del Norte, perform throughout the Southwest.
Multiple Grammy Award winner and virtuoso accordionist, Flaco Jimenez popu-
larized the conjunto sound with non-Hispanic audiences. He blended rhythm and
blues with rock sensibilities in his performances of classic rancheras, boleros, and
polkas. Competing with this original conjunto style was the new tejano orquesta
sound developed in the 1930s and 1940s by Texas-born bandleader Beto Villa, a
founder of the jaitón (high tone) jazz dance band format favored by middle-class
patrons. Famous singers of this new genre include Selena and the West Texas rock
band Los Lonely Boys.
The mariachi tradition is firmly, and proudly, ensconced throughout the South-
west, extending across the country. Tucson, Arizona, home to the annual interna-
tional Mariachi festival, and San Antonio, Texas, are two of the cities known for their
youth mariachi programs in schools as well as for supporting a larger number of pro-
fessional mariachis. Popular mariachi singer Pepe Aguilar hails from San Antonio.
In New Mexico, Spanish speakers often identify themselves as hispanos , stress-
ing their ties to old Spain. Many musical genres, including alabados (songs of
praise) and despedimientos (funeral hymns), are primarily associated with religious
occasions and festivals. Popular musical forms associated with entertainment in-
clude romances (ballads), coplas (couplets), bailes (dances), and canciones (songs in any verse form). Inditas and comanches are song types illustrating the interaction
between Hispano and American Indian populations.
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Los Angeles, Southern California, and the West Coast
The cosmopolitan milieu of Los Angeles showcases Mexican and Chicano music.
Its vibrant street culture and alternative theater circuit counters romanticized or
stereotypical images promoted by Hollywood. Los Angeles emerged in the 1960s
as a center for development of the assertive Chicano identity movement. It was the
home of Richie Valens, whose cross-over success with “La Bamba” brought Chi-
cano rock to mainstream audiences. In the 1970s, East Los Angeles gained atten-
tion for a new and distinctive Angeleno sound perfectly suited to the new Chicano
consciousness. In 1973, the band Los Lobos began performing the signature blend
of Mexican traditional music with blues, rockabilly, and jazz that has earned them
international acclaim. Other Chicano rockers linked to this decade include the band
Tierra, El Chicano, and Marc Guerrero.
A Chicano perspective pervades Latino hip-hop in Los Angeles. Born Arturo
Molina Jr., in East LA, Kid Frost began rapping in the 1980s. Frost’s song “La
Raza,” and the album Hispanic Causing Panic, became hits in 1990. Mellow Man
Ace, one of the first to employ Spanglish in his rap (born Upiano Sergio Reyes, in
Havana) worked with the hip-hop legends of Cyprus Hill. The oppositional politics
and art-world sensibilities fuel Ozomatli’s mix of Spanish and English rap framed
by a mix fusing salsa, funk, cumbia, and hip-hop.
The strength of regional habits and character constantly compete with the
representation of Latin artists by the major record labels and the ubiquitous
presence of international Spanish-language television stations such as Televisa,
Univision, and Telemundo. Across the United States, Latin America, and the
world, fans listen Latin American artists, which illustrate the continued influ-
ence of Spanish music on the Americas. The music of these Spaniards reflects
the returning influence of sounds and practices shaped by a long history of
American interaction.
Further Reading
Austerlitz, Paul. Merengue: Dominican Music and Dominican Identity. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1997.
Behague, Gerard. “Bossa and Bossas: Recent Changes in Brazilian Urban Popular
Music.” Ethnomusicology 17 (1973): 209–33.
Bensusan, Guy and Charles R. Carlisle. “Raices y Ritmos/Roots and Rhythms: Our
Heritage of Latin American Music.” Latin American Research Review 13/3 (1978): 155–60.
Broyles, Yolanda. Lydia Mendoza’s Life in Music. New York: Oxford University Press,
2001.
Burr, Ramiro. The Billboard Guide to Tejano and Mexican Music. New York: Billboard
Books, 1999.
Campo-Flores, Arian. “The Battle for Latino Souls.” Newsweek, March 21, 2006. Online,
September 2007, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7168826/site/newsweek .
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Clark, Walter Aaron. From Tejano to Tango: Latin American Popular Music. New York:
Routledge, 2002.
Fernandez, Raul A. From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2006.
Glasser, Ruth. My Music Is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Com-
munities, 1917–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Gutierrez, Felix F. and Jorge Reina Schement. Spanish-Language Radio in the South-
western United States. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Center for Mexican American
Studies, 1979.
Hernandez, Edwin. Emerging Voices, Urgent Choices: Essays on Latino/a Religious
Leadership. Boston: Brill, 2006.
Herrera-Sobek, Maria. Northward Bound: The Mexican Immigrant Experience in Ballad
and Song. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Koegel, John. “Canciones del país: Mexican Musical Life in California after the Gold
Rush.” California History, 78, no. 3 (1999): 160–87.
Koegel, John. “Mexican Musicians in the United States, 1910–1950.” California His-
tory, 84, no. 1(2006): 6–24.
Koegel, John. “Village Musical Life Along the Rio Grande.” Latin American Research
Review, 18, no. 2 (1997): 173–251.
Leoffler, Jack. La Música de los Viejitos: Hispano Folk Music of the Río Grande del
Norte. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999.
Lipsitz, George. “Cruising Around the Historical Bloc: Postmodernism and Popular
Music in East Los Angeles.” Cultural Critique, 5 (1987): 157–77.
Loza, Steven. Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American Music in Los Angeles. Urbana: Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 1993.
Loza, Steven. Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1999.
Manuel, Peter. “Latin Music in the United States: Salsa and the Mass Media.” Journal
of Communication 41, no. 1 (1991): 104–16.
Mendoza de Arce, Daniel. Music in Ibero-America to 1850: A Historical Survey. Lan-
ham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001.
Paredes, Américo. A Texas-Mexican Cancionero. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1976.
Paredes, Américo. “ With His Pistol in His Hand”: A Border Ballad and Its Hero. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1958.
Reyes, David and Tom Waldman . Land of a Thousand Dances: Chicano Rock ‘n’ Roll
from Southern California. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998.
Roberts, John Storm. The Latin Tinge, second edition. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999a.
Roberts, John Storm. Latin Jazz — The First of the
Fusions, 1880s to Today. New York:
Schirmer Books, 1999b.
Romero, Brenda. “Cultural Interaction in the Matachines Dance.” In Musics in Multicul-
tural America, edited by Kip Lornell and Anne Rassmussen. New York: Macmillan, 1997.
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Savino, Giovanni. Bachata Musica del Pueblo (video). New York: Arte Magnetica Pro-
ductions, 2002.
Smith, Heather A. and Owen J. Furuseth. Latinos in the New South: Transformations of
Place. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006.
Spottswood, Richard. Ethnic Music on Records: A Discography of Ethnic Recordings
Produced in the United States. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
Strachwitz, Chris. Arhoolie Records, Tejano Roots, liner notes and webpage, accessed
June 3, 2012, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/benson/border/arhoolie2/raices.html.
Sturman, Janet. “Iberian Music in the United States.” In Garland Encyclopedia of World
Music, Vol. 3, The United States & Canada, edited by Ellen Koskoff, 847–53. New York:
Garland Press, 2000.
Wald, Elijah. Narco-corrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas.
New York: Harper Collins, 2002.
Websites
Arhoolie Records —Tejano Collection, Online, accessed June 3, 2012, http://www.arhoo
lie.com/mexican-regional-tejano
Frontera Collection of Mexican American Music, Online, accessed June 3, 2012, http://
frontera.library.ucla.edu
Hutchinson, Sydney. Merenge Típico, Online, accessed June 3, 2012, http://merengue-
ripiao.com/
Janet L. Sturman
Uruguay
Uruguay is located in South America, between Argentina and Brazil. The capital,
Montevideo, is located on Uruguay’s southern coast and is a major port city. Of the
population, 88 percent is white, as compared to minority groups, such as the mestizo
(8%), black (4%), and Amerindian (less than 1%) populations. As a result, in Uru-
guay, many popular musical styles are Creole forms that evolved from European
dances, such as the polka, vals , danza (or habanera ), and mazurka . These forms are still found in rural festivals and in family gatherings. Also in rural areas, the Colombian cumbia is very common. Tropical music ( música tropical ) as well as Ca-
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