.
J
le - jos de t Te
.
J
.
J
den - tro de m
.
J
&
&
V
&
?
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
5
5
.
J
.
J
.
J
No
.
J
example 1. Excerpt, nal segment of the chachach Que nos separa, recorded
by Jos Fajardo and his orchestra (Fajardo 1995).
1.Moore, Music and Revolution 10/18/05 310 PM Page 47
the sound of dance repertoire to include new harmonies and new forms of
orchestration. Aside from Prez Prado, others who contributed to its devel-
opment included pianists Bebo Valds and Ren Hernndez. They all exper-
imented with the big band format, searching for new ways to reconcile its
sonorities with the rhythms of Afro-Cuban folklore. Cuban audiences re-
acted tepidly to their compositions at rst, perceiving them as too experi-
mental. Yet the mambo had a strong impact on domestic dance bands in later
years, including the wildly popular banda gigante of Benny Mor.
The sound of mambo bands was distinct from North American jazz bands
despite their use of similar horn and rhythm sections. To begin with, Cuban
groups incorporated the conga drums in addition to the drum set, and in the
late 1950s, some used the bongo and timbales as well. Percussion featured
more prominently in the overall mambo mix than was common in jazz at
that time. Melodic lines played by the saxophones, trumpets, and trom-
bone(s) tended to be more repetitive and syncopated than in jazz. The for-
mal structure of most mambos consisted of innite variations on a single
repeated section in the same key rather than a progression through nite
sections in different keys. Perhaps most strikingly, the texture of the mambo
was created through a process of layering melodies against one another in-
stead of foregrounding a principal melody against supporting harmonies.
Acosta (2000:16768) describes the sound in this way:
In the face of the predominant tendency in jazz since the 1930s to ll
up ever more completely the sound of the orchestra, fusing instru-
ments from different sections . . . [Prez Prado and other composers
of the mambo] do exactly the opposite, establishing distinct planes of
sound in two basic registers: one high with the trumpets and another
low with the saxes in constant counterpoint. Additionally, the function
of the horn sections is more typically melodic-rhythmic rather than
melodic-harmonic.
This kind of structure, involving interlocking hocket melodies and re-
current ostinato gures lending themselves to improvisation, reects the
inuence of African aesthetics. Not surprisingly, other genres such as the
folkloric rumba and the guaracha are structured in essentially the same fash-
ion and seem to have been used as a conceptual model (consciously or un-
consciously) for the creation of the genre. One should note that mambo cho-
reography as popularized by Prez Prado was distinct from that of the Cuban
son. Dancers appropriation of the word mambo over the years has been as
confusing as musicians, since they use it to describe the basic international
salsa step (a fusion of choreography derived from the son with inuences
48 / Revelry and Revolution
1.Moore, Music and Revolution 10/18/05 310 PM Page 48
from swing), a specic New York variant of salsa choreography (also referred
to as mambo on two), and the original step without distinction.
The importance of Dmaso Prez Prado (191689) to the development
of the mambo genre can hardly be overemphasized; it is he who should be
given credit for dening it. Prez Prado grew up surrounded by Afro-Cuban
folklore in his native Matanzas. His mother was a schoolteacher, and his fa-
ther sold newspapers. As a child he studied classical piano with Rafael So-
mavilla at the Principal School of Matanzas, and as a young man he played
organ and piano in local cinemas and clubs.
20
In 1942, Prez Prado moved
to Havana; he began performing in local cabarets such as the Kursaal and
Pennsylvania and soon thereafter became a pianist and arranger for the
Orquesta Casino de la Playa. His arrangements and piano solos as part of
that group demonstrate an interest in melodic syncopation, dissonance, and
extended harmonies, including tone clusters.
21
His tendency to write re-
peating horn gures is also evident.
In 1948, the composer moved to Mexico, where he found more freedom
to experiment with Latin jazz. The following year his group made its rst
recordings with RCA Vctor, which included his hit single Que rico el
mambo (Prez Firmat 1994:84). Characteristics of the Prez Prado band
include (1) a tendency to contrast extremely high trumpet lines against low,
sustained pedal tones for the trombone; (2) having entire instrumental sec-
tions (the trumpets, the saxes) play unison lines against one another; ( 3)
prominent use of the ride cymbal and cowbells throughout compositions;
(4) the adoption of stylistic elements from jazz bands such as shakes, bends,
glissandi, and ( 5) incorporation of the North American drum set. Acosta
(1991:34) notes that Prez Prado eventually developed two mambo styles,
a slower mambo can and the more typically rapid mambo baitir. In later
years, he recorded primarily non-mambo Latin standards that still incor-
porated many mambo elements.
Singer and songwriter Benny Mor (191963) was one of many musi-
cians to perform with Prez Prado and to incorporate elements of the mambo
into the repertoire of Cuban dance bands. His biography is perhaps even
more typical of popular musicians at the time. One of twenty children, Bar-
tolom Maximiliano Mor grew up in a poor black neighborhood named
Guinea on the outskirts of San Isabel de las Lajas, near Cienfuegos. The town
had been founded at the turn of the twentieth century by former slaves of
the sugar plantation Caracas who were of Kongo origin; others arrived later
of Yoruba ancestry (Daz Ayala 1981:229). Leaving public school at age
eleven in order to help support his family in agricultural work, Mor lis-
tened to a wide variety of music from an early age: Regla de Palo drum-
Revelry and Revolution / 49
1.Moore, Music and Revolution 10/18/05 310 PM Page 49
ming and dance in the Casino Congo de Lajas, bemb rhythms, rumba, tam-
bor makuta, Spanish-derived punto and dcima, Mexican rancheras, sones,
and boleros, and U.S. popular music. As a teenager he taught himself to play
the guitar and began performing in small groups near the Central Vertientes
sugar plantation. In 1940, he moved to Havana and spent years in poverty,
singing for tips on street corners and in cafs. In 1945, the Conjunto Mata-
moros offered him his rst professional contract, asking him along on a tour
of Mexico. He accepted and stayed in the country for years afterward, singing
with the ensemble Son Veracruz, in duet appearances with singer Lalo Mon-
tan (Orovio 1981:253) and in the big bands of Arturo Nez and Rafael
de la Paz. Shortly thereafter, Mor began rehearsing with the Prez Prado
orchestra, singing over sixty songs with them for the RCA Victor label. It
was in Mexico that Mor made the rst hit recordings of his own, notably
Bonito y sabroso and Pachito Ech (Gurza 2003).
In 1950, Mor returned to Cuba and sang for a time in the orchestras of
Bebo Valds and Mariano Mercern. By 1953, he had formed his own group
that in its various incarnations included musicians who later established
themselves as prominent solo artists (Chocolate Armenteros, Rolando La
Serie, Generoso El Tojo Jimnez). Unable to read music, Mor neverthe-
less became a competent composer, singing the phrases of his pieces to
arrangers Eduardo Cabrera, Pedro Peruchn Justiz, and Generoso Jimnez;
they in turn notated them and created the scores. Mors primary gift, how-
ever, lay in his ability as a vocal improviser. Recordings have captured some
of his soneos that demonstrate amazing melodic creativity. As in the case
of Prez Prados band, Mor worked essentially with Cuban jazz band in-
strumentation: numerous horns and a percussion section featuring drum
set, congas, and bongo (Acosta 2002:42).
Music performed by the Mor orchestra is similar in some respects to
that of the Prez Prado band. It is less experimental, however, and includes
more inuences from traditional son. Many faster pieces are in binary form,
with a strophic canto or verse followed by the cyclic montuno favored by
Prez Prado. Yet others, such as the famous Mi sacoco, are essentially iden-
tical to the mambo (Ex. 2). Mi sacoco is constructed of a repeating eight-
measure phrase over a major IIVVIV progression. The vocal line con-
sists of a call-response dialogue in the refrain between the chorus, with Mor
improvising the responses. Trumpets, saxes, and trombones each have dis-
tinct melodies that enter and layer upon the next when cued by the direc-
tor. Conga drums play a typical tumbao rhythm, and the timbales a cscara,
or shell pattern, derived ultimately from the rumba guaguanc. The result
is an open-ended ostinato of interlocked elements that serves perfectly as a
50 / Revelry and Revolution
1.Moore, Music and Revolution 10/18/05 310 PM Page 50
vehicle for spontaneous improvisation by vocal or instrumental soloists in
the African tradition.
Cuba in the 1950s remains difcult to comprehend in light of its many op-
posing representations and realities. Socially, the country was divided into
a surprisingly large group of afuent urban professionals on the one hand
and a mass of rural farmers and urban immigrants struggling to make ends
meet on the other. It boasted one of the highest levels of per capita income
in Latin America, yet the concentration of economic development in Ha-
vana as well as problems with discrimination deprived many of education,
social services, and adequate employment. Politically the nation was in chaos,
lorded over by dishonest presidents and military men. Fulgencio Batista is
one example of the sort of opportunist who established control over the
Revelry and Revolution / 51
tradition.
[FIGURE]
[Example 2
about here]
&
?
&
?
V
&
?
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Bb Trumpets
Trombone
Alto/Tenor Saxophones
Baritone Saxophone
Vocals
Acoustic Bass
Piano
.
.
.
w
w
. J
.
.
.
J
gey,Flo-ri - da yMo-rn
.
.
.
w
w
. J
Ay, mi - ra ne -
Lead
.
.
.
J
gra me voy pa'Mo -
example 2. Representative ostinato in Benny Mors Mi sacoco, a mambo-
inuenced composition from the 1950s (Gran Serie Benny Mor Vol. II).
1.Moore, Music and Revolution 10/18/05 310 PM Page 51
island in the midcentury. Supported for years in Washington because he
maintained a stable environment for investment, Batista proved to have a
disastrous effect on Cuban politics in the long term. Especially after 1952,
he demonstrated a agrant disregard for democracy, maintaining control
through acts of repression carried out against his own people using Amer-
ican-made weapons and with the help of American military advisors.
Musically, midcentury Cuba can only be described as extremely vibrant,
creative, and inuential. This small island nurtured countless artists who
took the world by storm. Inuences from African- and Spanish-derived folk-
lore, light classical repertoire, and North American jazz fused in the mid-
century into music at once familiar and engagingly exotic to Western lis-
teners. Taking advantage of new opportunities available to them, members
of the working classes secured employment in all areas of the expanding
tourist-oriented economy. With more visitors than ever before, more money
circulating on the island, and a population enamored of music, dance, and
the pursuit of happiness, Havana became a mecca for nightlife.
Of course, fewer opportunities for artistic employment existed in the in-
terior areas of the island relative to the cities. The mistreatment of rural
workers had its corollary in a lack of interest in the music and dance they
performed, at least in their traditional forms. Likewise, the overtly African-
sounding music of the black working class met in many cases with the same
discrimination as did the performers themselves. Many of the less appeal-
ing aspects of music making in 1950s Cubaits agrantly commercial na-
ture, its orientation toward spectacle, its links to gamblingwould be crit-
icized by the new government in the years following Batistas departure.
Their attempts to redress such problems as well as the nationalization of
the entertainment sector would fundamentally alter musical life.
The phenomenal vitality of Cuban music in the 1950s owes much to the
increasing prominence of African-derived aesthetic elements and their fu-
sion with Western musical forms in new, creative ways. Most performers
in the midcentury were black or mulatto and grew up surrounded by folk-
loric repertoire that had a strong inuence on their commercial composi-
tions. Because of their involvement, genres such as the danzn eventually
developed a nal, open-ended vamp consisting of syncopated, interlocking
rhythms and melodies. The emergence of the chachach and the mambo can
be explained as part of the same overall tendency involving movement away
from strophic, sectional, European-derived music and toward cyclic, im-
provisational, African-derived forms. Music and dance constituted one facet
of Cuban life in which racial barriers proved relatively easy to overcome.
Cubans of color might not be accepted in many schools, private clubs, or the
52 / Revelry and Revolution
1.Moore, Music and Revolution 10/18/05 310 PM Page 52
professions, but in the eld of entertainment they found an effective means
of asserting themselves. Economic need provided the impetus for them to
bridge the divide separating their neighborhoods from those of the middle
classes and to create music appealing to everyone.
It is worth noting that some of the worlds most captivating musical gen-
res have appeared under deplorable social conditions. The tango rst became
popular in Argentine brothels as danced by pimps and lunfas in the slums
surrounding Buenos Aires. North American jazz was rst heard by many
in New Orleanss Storeyville district, similarly infamous for prostitution,
gambling, and crime. The fact that some of Cubas best music shares aspects
of these contradictory origins may be perplexing but is far from unique. Be-
coming a famous musician in 1950s Havana did not necessarily require for-
mal education or even the ability to read and write, let alone access to health
care and a pension. On the contrary, the precarious existence of many mu-
sicians and their lack of expertise in other elds functioned to make them
pursue careers as entertainers even more insistently than they might have
otherwise. In retrospect, their lack of formal training in music seems to have
had certain benets as well, helping them to conceive of, compose, and in-
terpret songs in ways that had been overlooked by those schooled in West-
ern traditions.
The two facets of the paradox of the 1950son the one hand its social
and political problems and on the other its renowned artistic liferemained
separate spheres through the middle of the decade, though some areas of
intersection were evident. Mobsters such as Santo Trafcante Jr., in control
of large hotels, promoted the careers of their favorite performers, as in the
case of Rolando La Serie (Cirules 1999:20). The links between gangster-con-
trolled tourist enterprises and payoffs to Batistas corrupt administration
were also common knowledge. Yet for years the connections between
cabarets and organized crime could still be overlooked by those who pre-
ferred to think of the former simply as a form of diversion.
As the decade progressed, patrons and even performers themselves be-
gan to note the effects of the unstable political environment on the arts. Car-
nival street celebrations were suspended in Havana for six years for reasons
of security (Orejuela Martnez 2004:34). The numbers of tourists declined
markedly in 1957 as sabotage and armed conict escalated. Sentiment con-
tinued to shift more decisively against Batista, and government ofcials as
a result censored public discourse more severely, including that of per-
formers. Carlos Puebla, Ramn Veloz, and others claim to have been threat-
ened by the secret police for singing songs of protest. Some artists left the
country for a time in order to avoid the oppressive environment (Bohemia
Revelry and Revolution / 53
1.Moore, Music and Revolution 10/18/05 310 PM Page 53
51, no. 6 [February 8, 1959]: n.p.; archives, Cristbal Daz Ayala). Others
joined clandestine resistance groups (the 26th of July movement, the Di-
rectorio Revolucionario) in an attempt to topple the government. Saxo-
phonist Leonardo Acosta attests to having been part of these efforts, as was
singer Manolo Fernndez (Acosta, pers. comm.; Cristbal Daz Ayala, pers.
comm.).
22
Dance bands such as the Orquesta Sublime and Orquesta Aragn
as well as conductors and composersJuan Blanco, Carlos Faxas, Adolfo
Guzmn, Nilo Rodrguez, Rafael Somavillaplayed secret fundraising
benets for the revolutionary cause or composed music with revolutionary
themes (Melquiades Fundora Dino, Leonardo Acosta, pers. comm.; Ardvol
1966:200). Work for dance bands became less frequent in the late 1950s, es-
pecially outdoor community events. Members of the resistance contacted
sociedades de recreo, cabarets, and other institutions, urging them not to
celebrate as tensions escalated (Orejuela Martnez 2004:3538), though this
appears to have been effective only in smaller venues.
Among the most chilling of insurrectional acts were those carried out in
cabarets themselves. While infrequent, they received signicant media at-
tention and negatively affected all facets of entertainment. On October 28,
1956, for instance, members of the Directorio Revolucionario entered the
cabaret Montmarte and killed colonel Blanco Rico, chief intelligence ofcer
under Batista, as he attempted to leave the building (Cirules 1999:19).
Colonel Marcelo Tabernilla, son of Batistas notoriously ruthless chief of
staff, was also wounded along with his wife. The event forced club manager
Mario Garca to close down for a time and to take his entertainers on tour
in South America. On New Years Eve in 1956, Javier Pazos and other mem-
bers of the 26th of July movement set off bombs in the Tropicana, blowing
off the arm of a seventeen-year-old girl, injuring the daughter of a former
police chief and half a dozen dancers and causing other damage (Thomas
1971:910). The Havana Hilton delayed its opening several months in 1958
because of a similar event (Acosta 2002:67).
Perhaps the paradox of the 1950s is less difcult to explain than it might
rst appear. The musical impact of the period was due to the increasing
afuence of the country overall, the emphasis placed on nightlife and
tourist entertainment within the national economy, and the existence of a
large middle class with money to support a diversity of leisure activities and
of a larger underclass with musical talent. Batistas coup of 1952 and the re-
sulting political crisis were unrelated events that did not negatively affect
the countrys entertainers. On the contrary, it appears that political insta-
bility, rather than suppressing performance, functioned to encourage it in
certain respects. Music and dance remained more popular than before, serv-
54 / Revelry and Revolution
1.Moore, Music and Revolution 10/18/05 310 PM Page 54
ing as a refuge from social concerns. Whether in Havana or in areas far from
the capital, military offensives against the revolutionaries rarely kept Jos
Fajardo, the Orquesta Aragn, and Celia Cruz from animating guests (Ro-
jas 1998:68). Friendly relations between Cuba and the United States con-
tinued to encourage the growth of tourism and investment through at least
1957, leading to new opportunities for performers. Batistas links with or-
ganized crime and the spread of gambling directly supported the arts as well.
Every new hotel or casino represented an additional source of revenue for
the state and maa at the same time that it created stage space. The hedo-
nistic world of the Tropicana, Salon Rojo, and Hotel Nacional ourished, at
least in part, because they served such interests as well as those of popular
musicians. Gaming that supported Havanas nightlife provided much of the
revenue for their self-serving activities.
Revelry and Revolution / 55
1.Moore, Music and Revolution 10/18/05 310 PM Page 55