Son cubano
Son cubano is a genre of music and dance that originated in the highlands of eastern Cuba during the late 19th century. It is a syncretic genre that blends elements of Spanish and African origin. Among its fundamental Hispanic components are the vocal style, lyrical metre and the primacy of the tres, derived from the Spanish guitar. On the other hand, its characteristic clave rhythm, call and response structure and percussion section are all rooted in traditions of Bantu origin.
Around 1909 the son reached Havana, where the first recordings were made in 1917. This marked the start of its expansion throughout the island, becoming Cuba's most popular and influential genre. While early groups had between three and five members, during the 1920s the sexteto became the genre's primary format. By the 1930s, many bands had incorporated a trumpet, becoming septetos, and in the 1940s a larger type of ensemble featuring congas and piano became the norm: the conjunto. The son became one of the main ingredients in the jam sessions known as descargas that flourished during the 1950s.
The international presence of the son can be traced back to the 1930s when many bands toured Europe and North America, leading to ballroom adaptations of the genre such as the American rhumba. Similarly, radio broadcasts of son became popular in West Africa and the Congos, leading to the development of hybrid genres such as Congolese rumba. In the 1960s, New York's music scene prompted the rapid success of salsa, a combination of son and other Latin American styles primarily recorded by Puerto Ricans. While salsa achieved international popularity during the second half of the 20th century, in Cuba son evolved into other styles such as songo and timba, the latter of which is sometimes known as "Cuban salsa".
Etymology and cognates
In Spanish, the word son, from Latin sonus, denotes a pleasant sound, particularly a musical one. In eastern Cuba, the term began to be used to refer to the music of the highlands towards the late 19th century. To distinguish it from similar genres from other countries, the term son cubano is most commonly used. In Cuba, various qualifiers are used to distinguish the regional variants of the genre. These include son montuno, son oriental, son santiaguero and son habanero.Son singers are generally known as soneros, and the verb sonear describes not only their singing but also their vocal improvisation. The adjective soneado refers to songs and styles which incorporate the tempo and syncopation of the son, or even its montunos. Generally, there is an explicit difference between styles that incorporate elements of the son partially or totally, as evidenced by the distinction between bolero soneado and bolero-son. The term sonora refers to conjuntos with smoother trumpet sections such as Sonora Matancera and Sonora Ponceña.
History
Origins
Although the history of Cuban music dates back to the 16th century, the son is a relatively recent musical invention whose precursors emerged in the mid-to-late 19th century. Historically, most musicologists have supported the hypothesis that the direct ancestors of the son appeared in Cuba's Oriente Province, particularly in mountainous regions such as Sierra Maestra. These early styles, which include changüí, nengón, kiribá and regina, were developed by peasants, many of which were of Bantu origin, in contrast to the Afro-Cubans of the western side of the island, which primarily descended from West African slaves. These forms flourished in the context of rural parties such as guateques, where bungas were known to perform; these groups consisted of singers and guitarists playing variants such as the tiple, bandurria and bandola. Such early guitars are thought to have given rise to the tres some time around 1890 in Baracoa. The addition of a rhythm section composed of percussion instruments such as the bongó and the botija/marímbula gave rise to the first son groups proper. Nonetheless, it has become increasingly clear for musicologists that different versions of the son, i.e. styles that fall within the so-called son complex, appeared throughout the rural parts of the island by the end of the 1890s. Musicologist Marta Esquenazi Pérez divides the son complex into three regional variants: changüí in Guantánamo, sucu-sucu in Isla de la Juventud, and an array of styles which fall under the denomination of son montuno and were developed in places such as Bayamo, Manzanillo, Majagua and Pinar del Río. For this reason, some academics such as Radamés Giro and Jesús Gómez Cairo indicate that awareness of the son was widespread in the whole island, including Havana, before the actual expansion of the genre in the 1910s.Musicologist Peter Manuel proposed an alternative hypothesis according to which a great deal of the son's structure originated from the contradanza in Havana around the second half of the 19th century. The contradanza included many of the traits that are shown in the son, such as duets with melodies in parallel thirds, the presence of a suggested clave rhythm, implicit short vocal refrains borrowed from popular songs, distinctive syncopations, as well as the two-parts song form with an ostinato section.
Apocryphal origins of the son
Due to the very limited historiographical and ethnomusicological research devoted to the son, until the mid-20th century its origins were incorrectly traced back to the 16th century by many writers. This fallacy stemmed from the apocryphal origin story of a folk song known as "Son de Má Teodora". Such story was first mentioned by Cuban historian Joaquín José García in 1845, who "cited" a chronicle supposedly written by Hernando de la Parra in the 16th century. Parra's story was picked up, recycled and expanded by various authors throughout the second half of the 19th century, perpetuating the idea that such song was the first example of the son genre. Despite being given credence by some authors in the first half of the 20th century, including Fernando Ortiz, the Crónicas were repeatedly shown to be apocryphal in subsequent studies by Manuel Pérez Beato, José Juan Arrom, Max Henríquez Ureña and Alberto Muguercia.Early 20th century
The emergence of son significantly increased the interaction of cultures derived from Africa and Spain. A large number of former black slaves, recently liberated after the abolition of slavery in 1886 went to live in the slums "solares" of low class neighborhoods in Havana, and numerous laborers also arrived from all over the country and some rural areas, looking to improve their living conditions. Many of them brought their Afro-Cuban rumba traditions, and others brought their rumbitas and montunos.It was in Havana where the encounter of the rumba rural and the rumba urbana that had been developing separately during the second half of the 19th century took place. The guaracheros and rumberos who used to play with the tiple and the guiro finally met other rumberos who sang and danced accompanied by the wooden box and the Cuban clave, and the result was the fusion of both styles in a new genre called son. Around 1910 the son most likely adopted the clave rhythm from the Havana-based rumba, which had been developed in the late 19th century in Havana and Matanzas.
After trovador Sindo Garay settled in Havana in 1906, many other trovadores followed him hoping to obtain a recording contract with one of the American Companies such as RCA Victor and Columbia Records. Those trovadores from different parts of the country met others who already lived in Havana such as María Teresa Vera and Rafael Zequeira. They brought their repertoires of canciones and boleros that also included rumbas, guarachas and rural rumbitas.
Famous trovador Chico Ibáñez said that he composed his first "montuno" called "Pobre Evaristo" in 1906: "It was a tonada with three or four words that you put on, and after it, we placed a repeated phrase, the real montuno to be sung by everybody…". Ned Sublette states about another famous trovador and sonero: "As a child, Miguel Matamoros played danzones and sones on his harmonica to entertain the workers at a local cigar factory. He said: 'the sones that were composed at that time were nothing more than two or three words that were repeated all night long.
A partial list of trovadores that recorded rumbas, guarachas and sones in Havana at the beginning of the 20th century included: Sindo Garay, Manuel Corona, María Teresa Vera, Alberto Villalón, José Castillo, Juan Cruz, Juan de la Cruz, Nano León, Román Martínez, as well as the duos of Floro and Zorrilla, Pablito and Luna, Zalazar and Oriche, and also Adolfo Colombo, who was not a trovador but a soloist at Teatro Alhambra.
In the Havana neighborhoods, the son groups played in any possible format they could gather and most of them were semi-professional. One of those groups, The Apaches, was invited in 1916 to a party held by President Mario Menocal at the exclusive Vedado Tennis Club, and that same year some members of the group were reorganized in a quartet named Cuarteto Oriental. Those members were: Ricardo Martínez from Santiago de Cuba, Gerardo Martínez, Guillermo Castillo, and Felipe Neri Cabrera. According to Jesús Blanco, quoted by Díaz Ayala, after a few months from its foundation the bongocero Joaquín Velazco joined the group.
In 1917, the Cuarteto Oriental recorded the first son documented on the catalog of Columbia Records which was entered as "Pare motorista-son santiaguero". Unexpectedly, a fifth member of the quartet is mentioned, Carlos Godínez, who was a soldier in the standing army. Subsequently, the RCA Victor contracted Godínez in 1918 to organize a group and record several songs. For that recording, the new group was called "Sexteto Habanero Godínez", which included: Carlos Godínez, María Teresa Vera, Manuel Corona, Sinsonte, Alfredo Boloña, and another unknown performer who was not included in the list.