The habanera was the first exported Latin “hit,” with “La Paloma” being arranged into ragtime by the noted jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton, and soon followed by “Tú” and “Quiéreme Mucho.” In the twenties there were versions of Cuban songs by American interpreters, but also songs with a Latin flavor created by American composers for Broadway and later Hollywood. A Latin community developed in New York, mostly composed of Puerto Ricans in Spanish Harlem, which began to generate its own music. Many of these Latin musicians also played in Harlem jazz bands, beginning a cross-current that became very important as the century progressed.

Several black Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians played in the Harlem bands, especially with Chick Webb and Duke Ellington in the The Cotton Club. In 1943 the Pupi Campo orchestra gathered two great talents: Tito Puente and Charlie Palmieri. Mambo, a syncopated version of son, was created in 1937 by Orestes and Israel "Cachao" López, who soon after introduced the "Descarga" or jazz-like improvisation style into mambo and rumba. Cachao and Benny Moré took Latin music into paths that diverged from that of traditional son and charanga orchestras like Orquesta Aragón and the Sonora Matancera, and into free improvisation in the manner of forties and fifties-style American jazz.

It was at this time that the American public, which had been interested in Latin music since the turn of the century, succumbed to the mambo craze. Musicians like Chano Pozo and Dámaso Pérez Prado played with American jazz bands or formed their own bands which were influenced by the instrumentation and structure of jazz. In New York, the Palladium became Mambo Central, as documented in Oscar Hijuelos's novel The Mambo Kings and in the movie based on it.

To get more information about ragtime, go to the following site:
http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/morton_jelly_roll/bio.jhtml

Audio: Compare Jelly Roll Morton's Tiger Rag with Ignacio Cervantes's danza ¿ Por qué, eh?, written about 30 years earlier. What similarities and differences do you encounter in the two pieces?

Audio: Listen to the following selection by Orquesta Casino de la Playa, one of the most important Latin jazz bands of the forties. Comment on the instrumentation. Yo son gangá (Arsenio Rodríguez) Orquesta Casino de la Playa. What does the title refer to? What trend does this piece illustrate?

To find more information about mambo, go to the following site:
http://www.laventure.net/tourist/prez_bio.htm

Audio: Paris mambo. Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri. This selection shows the blending of latin rhythm and percussion with jazz "descarga" structures. The use of drum solos is a jazz feature that was absent from pre-forties latin music. When do drum solos become part of Latin music? Where does this new structure originate?