Afro-Cuban Jazz

by Thomas Altmann, 2005

The origin of the term "Afro-Cuban Jazz" dates back to the 1940es and referred to the fusion style that was created by musicians, arrangers, and band leaders like Mario Bauza, Frank Grillo "Machito", Chico O'Farrill, and John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie. Gillespie is well known to be one of the originators and main exponents of the Jazz style called Be-Bop, which reigned during the late Forties and early Fifties. Consequently, Afro-Cuban Jazz from that time is often called Cubop. Interestingly, this musical development took largely place in the United States, or North America - as opposed to Cuba, for instance.

Although Latin-American music has had a strong influence on Jazz since its emergence in New Orleans (or even before, in the compositions of L.M. Gottschalk), and although Latin dance music ("Rhumba") had its followers, who did not exlusively recruit themselves from the Latin population in the U.S., it is questionable whether the legitimate representants of Afro-Cuban Jazz had ever gained that popularity, had that style not been promoted by Dizzy's charisma and hipness. As early as in 1947, Dizzy Gillespie featured the Cuban conga player Chano Pozo in his band, who was shot down only one year later.

It must be remembered that we are talking about the pre-revolutionary period. During that time, Cuban bands were touring in the United States, U.S.-American tourists were flocking to Havana and other places in Cuba, visiting hotel bars, in which Cuban bands were playing: Jazz - besides their own popular dance music. Elements of North American Jazz were incorporated in Cuban music as early as 1930 by Don Azpiazu, perhaps even before that.

In Cuba, a predominantly instrumental style called "Descarga" became popular in the 1950es. "Descarga" means discharge, hinting at the "jam", or free improvisation in the way it was common to North American Jazz. Descarga sessions were prominently recorded under the names of Israel "Cachao" López, or Bebo Valdés, for instance. The specification "Afro-Cuban Jazz" was used on a 1952 record by Bebo Valdés to characterize titles that had at least a passage of Jazz swing rhythm built in. The Descarga concept was continued in the U.S. in the Sixties by various Latin musicians and bands, like the Cesta All-Stars, the Tico All-Stars, or the Fania All-Stars, as well as the various groups of the Cuban conga player Mongo Santamaria at live sessions and record dates. And still, many Jazz titles of the Hard Bop era were written and/or interpreted with a - mostly undefined - Latin rhythm.

What Cuban music and North American Jazz have in common is the fact that both of them have two different roots, European and African. The creative concept, in Cuban music as well as in Jazz, follows African cultural principles and aesthetics. Nevertheless, the "African element" has always been much stronger and clearly audible in Cuban (and generally: Latin) music, as opposed to being the often subliminal and disguised generative source of Jazz. The reasons for this situation can be traced back to the colonial times and to the different ways in which English Protestants and Spanish Catholics controlled the slaves and sustained slavery.

The 1960es in Cuba were formative years of musical experimentation and re-orientation. In general, the Cuban regime was interested in promoting the national folklore and popular music from its own country. However, young musicians like the pianist Jesús "Chucho" Valdés (son of Bebo Valdés) and percussionist Oscar Valdés (not related), guitarist Carlos Emilio Morales, trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera (son of classical saxophonist Tito Rivera), who later (1973) were to form the pivotal Cuban group Irakere, as well as Bobby Carcasses (tp/voc) or Pablo Milanés (g/voc), Eduardo Ramos (b), and the late pianist Emiliano Salvador helped to forge a new style of Afro-Cuban Jazz that came to full blossom approximately from the middle of the Seventies until the end of the Eighties. The Grupo Afrocuba was founded in 1977. In 1985, Gonzalo Rubalcaba formed his Grupo Proyecto, with Roberto Vizcaino (perc.) and Horacio "El Negro" Hernández (drums), among others.

What made the new concept of Afro-Cuban Jazz so different from the Cubop of the 1940es and 1950es was the point of departure. The new Afro-Cuban Jazz was still a fusion of Cuban music and Jazz. But the Cuban musicians from that era were working off the firm ground of their own musical tradition. Although most of them had a solid foundation in Jazz playing and harmonics, they used it on top of Afro-Cuban folkloric, ritual or religious rhythms and percussion parts. So, while most people use the term "Afro-Cuban" synonymous with "Cuban" when applied to music, this music was - literally - Afro-Cuban in the actual sense of the word. On the other hand, a heavy drum set style developed over the years in these groups, coming from Songo and leading into today's Timba, or the artistry of "El Negro", Julio Barreto, or Dafnis Prieto. José Luis Quintana "Changuito" revolutionized the tumbadora and the whole Cuban percussion. An uncanny power and an amazing virtuosity enabled the musicians to master the most complicated tutti parts and high-energy solos at break-neck tempos. The time was anything but "laid-back". And they played in clave!

After the Cuban revolution and the U.S. embargo against Cuba, the cultural exchange between the island and the States had been almost eliminated. The information flow from Cuba was not revived until the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. In the U.S. in the 1960es, Jazz, Soul, and Funk, along with Puerto Rican folklore and the Cuban dance music from the 1950es, were the main musical source that musicians would draw from. North American "Salsa" was rooted in that same soil. Beside the Descarga concept, which could be harmonically as simple as down to a one, two, or three chords, but extremely rhythmical, percussion-heavy, and based on hypnotizing guajeos (montunos) or bass ostinatos, Latin and Afro-Cuban Jazz in the U.S. continued to be primarily rooted in the North-American Jazz tradition, which offered more richness in interesting chord changes. Unlike the Cuban Son, Latin Jazz did not require a Hispanic lead vocalist, because it is largely an instrumental style, apart from occasional chorus shouts. So, North-American Latin Jazz can typically be played by (North-American) Jazz musicians, with the addition of one Latin-percussionist to make up for the "Latin" component. Ordinary Jazz standards may be played with a Latin rhythm, maintaining the chord structure through the solo chorusses. Brazilian music, especially Bossa Nova, still finds easier acceptance by harmonically oriented Jazz players than Cuban music. Oftentimes, a certain stylistic ignorance is turned into the creative force that merges the wealth of Cuban, Brazilian and other Latin-American styles and rhythms into a new, Western style of Latin music. The percussionists that used to play with the Latin Jazz projects of Cal Tjader, George Shearing and the likes, were Mongo Santamaria, Armando Peraza, Candido Camero, Francisco Aguabella, Patato Valdés, Carmelo García, Willie Bobo and a few others, among them Ray Barretto.

The year 1980 blessed the U.S.-American Latin music scene with the immigration of some of the most excellent Cuban musicians, like the percussionists Daniel Ponce and Orlando Rios "Puntilla", drummer Ignacio Berroa, and reed player Paquito D'Rivera. Arturo Sandoval (tp/flh) took his "Flight to Freedom" in 1990. Also in the 1980es, the Puerto Rican band Batacumbele (with "Cachete" Maldonado, Giovanni Hidalgo, Mario Rivera and others), "Nuyorican" Jerry González (tp/flh/perc), Dave Valentin (fl), Jorge Dalto †(p), and Hilton Ruíz (p), played Afro-Cuban Jazz in their own way. The bands of Tito Puente, Machito, and Poncho Sanchez, followed a more conservative concept of Afro-Cuban Jazz. The backing band of Salsa singer Ruben Blades, Seis del Solar, came to fame during the Nineties, as did the group Bongo-Logic. In the new millenium, Chucho Valdés, Michel Camilo, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Danilo Pérez, John Benitez, Luis Perdomo, the Caribbean Jazz Project, the very original Omar Sosa, David Sanchez, as well as other artists I fail to mention, are making their own valid contemporary statements in the vein of modern Afro-Cuban and Latin Jazz.