Mambo (music)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Mambo
Stylistic origins
Subgenres
  • Mambo-batiri
  • mambo-kaen
  • dengue
Fusion genres
Music of Cuba
General topics
Related articles
Genres
Specific forms
Religious music
Traditional music
Media and performance
Music awards
Beny Moré Award
Nationalistic and patriotic songs
National anthem
La Bayamesa
Regional music

Mambo is a genre of Cuban dance music pioneered by the

cha-cha-cha, replaced mambo as the most popular dance genre in North America. Nonetheless, mambo continued to enjoy some degree of popularity into the 1960s and new derivative styles appeared, such as dengue; by the 1970s it had been largely incorporated into salsa
.

History

Origins in Cuba

Main article: Danzón-mambo

The earliest roots of mambo can be traced to the danzón de nuevo ritmo (danzón with a new rhythm), later known as danzón-mambo, made popular by the orchestra Arcaño y sus Maravillas conducted by flautist Antonio Arcaño.

son into the danzón. During the mid-to-late 1930s, some members of the Arcaño group were saying vamos a mambear ("let's mambo") when referring to the montuno or final improvisation of the danzón.[1] It was Arcaño's cellist, Orestes López, who created the first danzón called "Mambo" (1938).[2] In this piece, some syncopated motives taken from the son style were combined with improvised flute passages.[3]

Antonio Arcaño described the mambo as follows: "Mambo is a type of syncopated

conga drum) reaffirms the bass tumbao and strengthens the timbal."[4]

1940-1952: "Brass" Mambo in Mexico City

Matanzas, Cuba, established his residence in Havana at the beginning of the 1940s and began to work at night clubs and orchestras, such as Paulina Alvarez's and Casino de La Playa. In 1949 he traveled to Mexico looking for job opportunities and achieved great success with a new style, to which he assigned a name that had been already used by Antonio Arcaño, the mambo.[5]

Perez Prado's style differed from the previous mambo concept. The new style possessed a greater influence from North-American

jazz
, and an expanded instrumentation consisting of four to five trumpets, four to five saxophones, double bass, drums, maracas, cowbell, congas and bongoes. This new mambo included a catchy counterpoint between the trumpets and the saxophones that induced the body to move along with the rhythm, stimulated at the end of each musical phrase by a characteristic deep throat sound expression.

Because his music was aimed at an audience that lived primarily outside Cuba, Pérez Prado used a large number of international influences, especially North-American, in his arrangements. This is evident in his arrangements of songs such as "Mambo Rock", "Patricia" and "Tequila", where he uses a triple meter U.S. "swing" rhythm fused with elements from

charts at number one with a cha-cha-chá version of "Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)". Pérez Prado's repertoire included numerous international pieces such as "Cerezo Rosa", "María Bonita", "Tea For Two", "La Bikina", "Cuando Calienta El Sol", "Malagueña" and "En Un Pueblito Español", among many others.[7]

Prado's recordings were meant for the Latin American and U.S. latino markets, but some of his most celebrated mambos, such as "Mambo No. 5" and "Que Rico El Mambo", quickly crossed over to a wider U.S. audience.[8]

Cuban singer

Solamente Una Vez" and "Bonito Y Sabroso".[9] Benny and Perez Prado recorded 28 mambo songs including "La Múcura", "Rabo Y Oreja", and "Pachito E'ché".[10]
At this time Benny also recorded with the orchestra of Jesús "Chucho" Rodríguez.

Mambo in New York City: 1947-1960

Mambo arrived in 1947 and mambo music and dance became popular soon after.[11] Recording companies began to use mambo to label their records and advertisements for mambo dance lessons were in local newspapers. New York City had made mambo a transnational popular cultural phenomenon. In New York the mambo was played in a high-strung, sophisticated way that had the Palladium Ballroom, the famous Broadway dance-hall, jumping. The Ballroom soon proclaimed itself the "temple of mambo", for the city's best dancers—the Mambo Aces, Cha Cha Taps, "Killer Joe" Piro, Augie and Margo Rodriguez. Augie and Margo were still dancing 50 years later (2006) in Las Vegas.

Some of New York's biggest mambo dancers and bands of the 1950s included: Augie & Margo, Michael Terrace & Elita, Carmen Cruz & Gene Ortiz, Larry Selon & Vera Rodríguez, Mambo Aces(Anibal Vasquez and Samson Batalla), Cha Cha Taps (Carlos Arroyo and Mike Ramos),

Jose Curbelo, Akohh, and Noro Morales.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ Sublette, Ned. Cuba and its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2004: 508
  2. ^
    doi:10.1093/musqtl/gdm006
    .
  3. ^ Orovio, p. 130.
  4. ^ Giro, Radamés: Todo lo que usted quiso saber sobre el Mambo. Panorama de la música popular cubana. Editorial Letras Cubanas, La Habana, Cuba, 1998, P. 212.
  5. ^ Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal: Música cubana, del Areyto a la Nueva Trova, Ediciones Universal, Miami Florida, 1993. p. 194.
  6. ^ "Mambo No. 5 - Perez Prado and his Orchestra". Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  7. ^ Rodríguez Ruidíaz, Armando: Los sonidos de la música cubana. Evolución de los formatos instrumentales en Cuba. https://www.academia.edu/18302881/Los_sonidos_de_la_m%C3%BAsica_cubana._Evoluci%C3%B3n_de_los_formatos_instrumentales_en_Cuba. P. 49 – 50.
  8. ^ León, Javier F. "Mambo." Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture. Ed. Cordelia Chávez Candelaria, Arturo J. Aldama, Peter J. García, Alma Alvarez-Smith. 2 vols. Connecticut: Praeger, 2004: 510
  9. ^ a b "Cienfuegos city .org - Benny Moré". Archived from the original on April 26, 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  10. ^ Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal (Fall 2013). "Benny Moré" (PDF). Encyclopedic Discography of Cuban Music 1925-1960. Florida International University Libraries. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
  11. ^ "Aurora Ballroom".

Further reading

  • Pérez Firmat, Gustavo. "Mad for Mambo," in The Havana Habit. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mambo_(music)&oldid=1195179195"