Cuba: 17th century
Chango: was the God of Virility.
Santeria: a mixture of rites (that hidden in the rites songs and dances have survived). For the African Catholics there were pagan rituals.
Africans had their music and rites therefore deeply hidden in complicated Catholic rituals. Music was a dialogue. Dancing to songs was banned and was maintained in secret. Later came integration into the new world and came several instruments under Spanish reign together. Africans, Creoles, Mestizos and Europeans stood at the cradle of contemporary Cuban music.

Cuba: 18th century
CubandancemusicCubans acquired old Spanish song forms as their own: at them they danced the Zapateo a dance with jumps and heels trampling. This music was called the Guajira. This farmer singing was directly determined by its Spanish pre-history. The Danzon was born; typical Cuban music in harmony with figures and steps which the dancers performed. Until the 20s, the main dance in Cuba. In North American and European dance salons Danzon was accepted because of its soft rhythm. In 1762 the British brought the contra dance (his antecedent was the country and the Normandy folk dance). At each dance (danza), musicians went stretching themes, by repeating each other variants in them. Dancers gave tips to the orchestra, to do this more than once. From then Africans were more and more accepted because of their special nuances. The Charangas Francescas thus was created: asked for in bourgeois houses and elegant salons (piano, flute, violin, double bass, two drums, percussion) as also the Conjunto Tipico (clarinet, cornet a pistons, trombone, two violins, two paila 's Guito).


19th century: Bailes de Cuna
Dance salons grew, youth mingled with mulattos. For dance schools they had to long beforehand to enroll, there was great demand for music groups and European instruments made then really their appearance (clarinet, flute, violin and trombone). In the dance salons people played and danced the Danzon. In suburbs workers and unemployed played rumba. Congas were accompanied by lots of percussion. Later, when the rural population was attracted to the cities because of the crisis in the sugar industry, should the guajira be promoted, but the drum should not be publicly played. In the east of Cuba, were revolts against Spain. Farmers made ​​music at oil cans with a hole (buna). The first bands were called Bungas. They played bungatres, maracas, clave, bongo, botjela and marmimbule (African hand piano). These bands were a balance between African and Spanish elements. Thus arose the basic core of the Son, with the rhythmic patterns put in of what today Salsa is. In the Son, the soloist tells his story, in the Montuno the chorus confirme (narrator - choir). Son became very popular, was mixed and supplanted other types of music. Thus one had the guajira -son, the bolero -son and the guaracha son.
The elegant lounges repelled the son because of his marginal origin (people were even arrested for dancing the son). Nevertheless, there arose a lot of bands and under capitalism in Cuba the North American companies spread the music all over the world and came radio programs. The peasant song :the guajira and son came over broadcasters.

The most famous son was the Guajira song Guantanamera: verses were sung, 18 years at this song on the radio the news was fitted gleaned. After the 2nd World War, more new artists were attracted to the many hotels. Later, North American jazz bands, arrived and were Cubanized and bands were expanding their orchestration. In the 40's this created the mambo, and later a mix of Danzon and montuno created inspired by foot sound of the dancers, the chachacha. In 1953 broke out chachacha fever. When revolutionaries marched into Havana, most musicians have gone to Mexico.



New York: 1935-1950
Lots of Puerto Ricans, and later Cubans and Antilleans moved to the suburbs of New York. Their subculture was called the NewYorikanen. Their music was inspired by Cuban music and jazz influences. Around the 50's there were many Latin jazz bands: Afro Cuban bands. (Also in this music, there were a lot of changes and developments). Big bands were rampant until 1962. By the arrival of the Beatles, big bands had to return to small ensembles (charanga: flute- violin). This was an attempt to keep music alive in small bars in the barrio. The true greats then played Latin only jazz. With Fania the SALSA emerged and Salsa boom broke out in 1971. The Fania All Stars at the Cheetah Lounge in the Bronx: a group of musicians wanted to make commercial music. They played modern rhythmic patterns of the Cuban son. There was a movie made ​​about it and at the beginning they went into shop after shop to wear off the records. Later they had a private record company.

Music: decisive for the dance style...
The history of the music determines the development of the different Salsa dance styles that originated here. Because of the different origins that populate the Netherlands it is therefore obvious that there are given various dance lessons by teachers in different styles. The Cuban style, or the New York mambo style, or Puerto Rican style... It is fascinating and fun to explore in all its developments, the music and of course to learn to distinguish what them, what not obviously means that every dancer can ultimately control all vrious dance styles (that takes quite a few years). To be able to the dancer must return to the roots of music and dance if he wants his experience to be right. Dancers who drop at the first note the most complicated mambo figures to a Cuban timba song for example, or trying to cram the learned patterns in the fast-paced sounds of a rumba are forcing artificial figures in a melody that does not suits it....