Since the 19th Century Cuban music has been a worldwide influence, and in the “world music” genre, it is perhaps the most popular. Its innovations have been felt in the likes of Jazz and Salsa, but also in the dances Tango and Flamenco. Buena Vista Social Club is the name most dropped in conversation about Cuban music, but this is to ignore the long and varied history that Cuban music has, dating back much further than the Buena Vista recording, and the sound of pre 1959 that it brought back.
The instruments and the dances that form Cuban music were originally from European (Spanish) and African culture, though it is said that there is also a Chinese influence. This was apparently due to the mixture of African slaves working large sugar plantations with tobacco growing Spaniard immigrants. The polyrhythmic percussion that can be heard in modern Cuban music, as well as in many styles it has influenced, was from the African contribution; while the melody, and especially the guitar, was from the Spanish. It is also the European element that provided the way of composing the music, along with the notation used for scribing it.
Manuel Saumell (1818 – 1870) was perhaps the most famous composer of the late 19th Century Cuba, and mainly because of his distinctive kind of dance music, taken from English Country Dance and French Contradance, but merged with a Cuban sound. Contrandanza was its name, and it was enjoyed across the world in the late 19th century.
But it was with the rise of a genre of music known as Son cubano that things really changed. Not only did this fusion of Spanish cancin and African rhythms come to have widespread acclaim, but it was also the beginning of African influenced music being taken seriously. At the turn of the 20th century, even the most progressive academics believed in some form of white superiority and so had previously seen the music of African origin as barbaric when compared with the European music of the time. With the rise of Son, however, Black musicians were able to earn a living and enter a market that was previously cut off to them.
Styles of music in other countries, most notably Salsa, owe their sound to Son music, and its popularity in Cuba. The political revolution in 1959, however, damaged the flourishing music scene in Cuba and forced many musicians into poverty. This inspired the 1997 revival of this sound by the Buena Vista Social Club, consisting of veterans of Son music, who successfully re-established Cuba’s position as a musical force for the world. Though this attention is no doubt a good thing, the younger musicians in Cuba, and the advancements they have made in recent years have been overlooked by the nostalgia of the Buena Vista Social Club, and this has caused some resentment.
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