Movers and Shakers

Manuel Saumell (1817-70): Best known for his contradanzas, Saumell was the father of musical nationalism in Cuba. In 1839, inspired by European composers who used folk themes in their compositions, Saumell attempted to write a Cuban opera based on national themes. Though many of his compositions do not use the cinquillo (developed in eastern Cuba) he is considered the originator of a number of Cuban dances: the habanera, the Danzón, the guajira, the clave and the criolla (Carpentier, 193-94).

Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905): Born in Havana and educated in Paris, Cervantes continued Saumell's nationalistic tendencies and further developed the contradanza into the Cuban danza, of which he is the most notable composer. His compositions inspired composers like Roldán and Caturla, and were later used as standards by the most notable figures of Cuban jazz, such as Paquito D'Rivera.

Miguel Faílde (1854-1926): Born in Matanzas into a family of musicians, Faílde created his own Orquesta Típica which played danzas, waltzes, pasodobles and other dance hall pieces. Held in great esteem, Faílde's orchestra was in a privileged position to introduce further changes into the danza form. In 1879 he composed "Las Alturas de Simpson," officially considered the first Danzón. Other well-known composition by Faílde are "Cuba Libre," "El mondonguito," and "A La Habana me voy."

Sexteto Habanero: The son, considered Cuba's most complex and crucial musical genre, developed around 1910 in poor neighborghoods and rural settings of eastern Cuba. Gradually, it expanded to the rest of the island. The son took Havana and Matanzas by storm in the 1920's, and the Sexteto Habanero, founded in 1920 by Guillermo Castillo García, was one of the most important sonero groups and one of the first to be recorded, both in Cuba and in New York, where the group frequently performed.

Xavier Cugat (1900-1990): Xavier Cugat was one of the earliest bandleaders who contributed to the difusion of Latin music in the United States. Born in Gerona, Spain, he immigrated to Cuba when he was five. Trained as a classical violinist, he played with symphonic orchestras in Havana. In the late 1910's, he moved to New York, where he played with a band called "The Gigolos" during the tango craze. Later he put together another tango band that had some success in early films, such as "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" with Rudolph Valentino. By the early 1930s, he began appearing with his group in feature films. Later, his band became the resident group in New York's prestigious Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Though he played a stylized version of Latin music for commercial purposes, he opened the door for important bands that followed, such as Don Justo Azpiazu, Machito and His Afrocubans and Pérez Prado.

Orquesta Casino de la Playa: One of the orchestras that fostered the cross-fertilization between Latin music and jazz, Casino de la Playa went further than Cugat in incorporating both big band sounds and AfroCuban instruments and rhythms. Heavy on brass and saxes, it incorporated a piano, jazz drums and Cuban percussion, most importantly the conga drum or tumbadora, side-by-side with the already established bongo of the sonero groups. Unlike American big bands like Basie, Ellington and Calloway, Casino de la Playa also incorporated a singer who had a central role, and thus became the direct forerunner of Beny Moré's Banda Gigante. The most important singer of the orchestra was Miguelito Valdes, soon to be known to the New York club crowds as "Mister Babalú." Other famous figures associated with Casino were Dámaso Pérez Prado, Arsenio Rodríguez and Anselmo Sacasas.

Dámaso Pérez Prado (1921-1989): Known as "The Mambo King," Pérez Prado was one of the most influential pop orchestra leaders of the early 1950s. His concept of the mambo began to develop around 1943, incorporating elements of American jazz. Jazz writer and critic Ralph J. Gleason reported that "Prez" talked to him about the mambo as being a combination of Afro-Cuban music with American swing. In the Bantu language of West Africa, mambo means "conversation with the gods" and in nearby Haiti, a Mambo is a voodoo priestess. Mambo produced the greatest world-wide dance craze since the tango and the rumba, appearing in famous movies like Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" (Levy, 2).

Beny Moré (1910-1963): Nicknamed "El Bárbaro del Ritmo" (the Conqueror of Rhythm), More is still idolized four decades after his death. He worked with various rural groups, duos and trios before arriving in Havana in the early 40s. In the mid-forties he joined the group of Miguel Matamoros with whom he travelled to Mexico. After Matamoros returned to Cuba, Beny remained in Mexico where he famously met and toured with the Pérez Prado orchestra, which left an indelible mark on his own style. After his 1950 return to Cuba, Beny worked with the orchestras of Mariano Mercerón, Pacho Alonso, and Bebo Valdés, whose style also showed the influence of American jazz. In 1953, Moré organized a 21-piece aggregation which he named his Banda Gigante (Giant Band). Band members included a number of soon to be legends such as trumpeter Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros and trombonist/arranger Generoso Jiménez. Benny Moré died at the age of 44 from cirrhosis of the liver.

Celia Cruz (1920-2003):"The Queen of Salsa" is one of the best-known ambassadors of Cuban music. Among many distinctions, she received a Smithsonian Lifetime Achievement award, a National Medal of the Arts and honorary doctorates from Yale University and the University of Miami. One of fourteen children from a poor Havana family, she began to sing in school productions and community gatherings as a child.
Enrolling in Cuba's Conservatory of Music in 1947, Cruz found her earliest inspiration in the singing of Afro-Cuban vocalist Paulina Alvarez. She joined the popular band La Sonora Matancera in 1950 and stayed with them until 1965, consolidating her fame as "La Guarachera de Cuba" throughout Latin America and the latino population of the United States. She married the band's trumpet player Pedro Knight on July 14, 1962. After 1960, Cruz and Knight settled permanently in New York. Signed by Vaya, Cruz recorded with Oscar D'Leon, Cheo Feliciano and Hector Rodriguez in the mid- to late-'60s, thus becoming one of the major figures of the salsa movement. Cruz's first success since leaving Sonora Matancera came in 1974 when she recorded a duo album, Celia and Johnny, with Johnny Pacheco, trombone player and the co-owner of Fania. She subsequently began appearing with the Fania All Stars. Celia Cruz died July 16, 2003.

Orquesta Aragón: Founded in 1939, at the time when Big Bands were booming in the United States, this charanga orchestra contributed to the explosion of the mambo craze in Cuba and abroad. Collaborating with such legends of the mambo and the cha-cha-cha as Pérez Prado and Beny Moré, Aragón is one of the longest-lived and most storied charanga orchestras to come out of Cuba. Their recent tour of college campuses in the fall of 2003 shows that the legend continues to keep alive the more traditional charanga sound.

Chano Pozo (1915-1948): The legendary Cuban percussionist, singer, dancer and composer Luciano Pozo is credited with being the most influential figure in the development of Latin jazz and the incorporation of religious drumming into Cuban orchestras, which until then had only used bongos and timbales He played with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Chico O'Farrill, Carlos "Patato" Valdés, Miguelito Valdés, and many others. He got his start after moving to New York in 1947, where he came in response to a new interest in Afro-Cuban percussion on the part of jazz players. He was also fleeing the restrictions placed on black musicians by Cuban orchestras that played in social clubs (he had been raised in Havana solares and was a follower of Santería and Ñañiguismo, AfroCuban religions). When Mario Bauzá introduced him to Dizzy Gillespie, this event changed the course of American Jazz. Among his features with Dizzy were "Cubana Be," "Cubana Bop," "Tin Tin Deo" and "Manteca." Pozo co-wrote "Tin Tin Deo" and "Manteca." He was killed in a Harlem bar a month before his 34th birthday.