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JAZZ PERSPECTIVES
Jazz
Forms - The Latin Influence
In 1947, BeBop innovator Dizzy Gillespe hired Cuban conga
player Chano Pozo for a Town Hall Concert in New York City, and by way of
Chano's mesmerizing performance raised the banner of latin jazz. Pozo's exposure
as a youth to the West African music played in Havana nourished his roots in the
Afro-Cuban sound, and brought attention to the Spanish-influenced music of Cuba,
the West Indies and South America. While jazz and Afro-Cuban music share the
same West African origins, the sounds are quite distinct. Latin music is
produced by a rhythmic layering effect, where many relatively simple drum beats
are joined in a thick patchwork of infectious interaction. A prominent
characteristic of latin music is that it makes it difficult to sit still,
revealing its primary purpose as dance music.
Examples of the latin dance styles appear in many guises
and places. From the Spanish flamenco, Columbia evolved the jorupo, Mexico the
jarabe, and Cuba the habanera and rhumba. The rhumba rhythms appeared from the
earliest days of New Orleans jazz in the Creole "signifyin"' songs, to
Cab Calloway's 1931 Doin' the Rhumba, and as regular fare at Harlem's El
Toreador, where Cuban owner Frank Martini hired Noro Morales to move his dance
crowd. W. C. Handy used the tango rhythm developed from the Cuban habanera in Memphis
Blues in 1912, and again in St. Louis Blues in 1914, the year the
tango became a Broadway dance craze. Desi Arnaz, an Xavier Cugat alumni,
popularized a Cuban carnival dance called the conga in 1937, the mambo dance
became a fad in the forties, and in 1946 Carmen Miranda highlighted the
Brazillian samba.
Collaborations between jazz and latin musicians produced
note-worthy results. Duke Ellington
joined with Puerto Rican trombonist Juan Tizol in 1932, and they created tunes
such as Bakiff, Congo Bravo, and the classic Caravan. Cab
Calloway's latin guide was trumpeter Mario Bauza who, like Chano Pozo, migrated
from Cuba to New York City. Bauza also grew up with Afro-Cuban folk music, and
acquired jazz through Phil Napoleon and Red Nichols recordings, so his
integration of the two sounds into Cuban flavored jazz was a natural
progression.
It was Bauza who persuaded Calloway in 1938 to hire Dizzy
Gillespe, a jazz player immersed in latin rhythms. Gillespe's interest led to
the Town Hall Concert with Chano Pozo, the success of which brought the
attention of both Latin and jazz band leaders. Jazz orchestras which hired Cuban
drummers afterwards included Stan Kenton's, Woody Herman's and Gene Krupa's, and
the latin bands of Machito, Tito Puente, Miguelito Valdes and others began using
jazz soloists in their arrangements. It was through this interaction that
musicians educated each other about their fields of expertise. From this point
forward latin jazz emerged as a regular part of the jazz canvas, and
developments in one area soon affected many others, to the musical benefit of
all. [top]
- article by Frank Singer
©2002
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JAZZ PERSPECTIVES
CONTENTS
Jazz
Origins
I - Beginnings
II - Jazz and Technology
III - Radio and the Industrial Beat
The
Swing Era
I - Precursors
II - The Decade of Swing
III - The
BeBop Strain
A
First Look Back
New Orleans
Revival
Jazz
Forms
The Blues
The 32 bar Song Form
The Latin Influence
Cool
Hard Bop
Evolution 1 - A New Dialogue
Evolution 2 - Into The Seventies
Evolution Of The Jam Session
Post Modernism
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