Email info@SalsaCubana.co.uk
Phone Office - 0208 249 8190
0790 385 9762
All text and images is copyright © 1998 - 2006 Homero Gonzalez.
hits since April 2006
As much as Cuban music influenced styles elsewhere, Cuban musicians were always ready to absorb new sounds, and in the 1940’s Black American Jazz music became the rage in Cuba. Orchestras playing the traditional Cuban rhythms of Son, Guaracha, Rumba, Danzon, also played jazz and incorporated piano, double bass, drums, saxophones, trumpets, trombone, tumbadora, bongo, timabales, maracas and guiro. At this time the Charanga groups (based on flute and violins) were also revived. In 1948 a young violinist, Enrique Jorrin, in the band Orquesta America created from this mix of sounds a new rhythm based on the traditional Danzon (‘big dance’) which was named after the sound the dancers made with their feet ‘Cha Cha Chá’. The song was called ‘Enganadora’, the first Cha Cha Chá ever played. Classic exponents of Cha Cha Chá are Orquesta Aragon, Beny More, and more recently of course, Oscar D’Leon, the great interpreter of all Cuban music.
