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Bolero
Bolero is a genre of song which originated in eastern Cuba in the late 19th century as part of the trova tradition. Unrelated to the older Spanish dance of the same name, bolero is characterized by sophisticated lyrics dealing with love. It has been called the "quintessential Latin American romantic song of the twentieth century". Unlike the simpler, thematically diverse ''canción'', bolero did not stem directly from the European lyrical tradition, which included Italian opera and canzone, popular in urban centers like Havana at the time. Instead, it was born as a form of romantic folk poetry cultivated by a new breed of troubadour from Santiago de Cuba, the ''trovadores''. Pepe Sánchez is considered the father of this movement and the author of the first bolero, "Tristezas", written in 1883. Originally, boleros were sung by individual ''trovadores'' while playing guitar. Over time, it became common for trovadores to play in groups as ''dúos'', ''tríos'', ''cuartetos'', etc ...
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Bolero (Spanish Dance)
Bolero is a Spanish dance in 3/4 time popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It originated from the seguidilla sometime between 1750 and 1772, and it became very popular in Madrid, La Mancha, Andalusia and Murcia in the 1780s. Bolero was performed as a solo or partner dance with a moderately slow tempo, accompanied by guitar and castanets, and with lyrics in the form of the seguidilla. Sebastián Cerezo was credited by as one of the earliest and best dancers of the genre. According to Zamácola y Ocerín, Cerezo danced slowly and his particular way of dancing marked the definitive transition from seguidilla to bolero (from ''voleo'', cf. ''vuelo'', "flight"). This original slow way of dancing was promoted by Murcian dancer Requejo around 1800 in response to the faster style of bolero dancing that had become popular over the years. The dance became obsolete in the mid-19th century, but survived in an academic tradition known as the escuela bolera, which influenced ...
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Trova
''Trova'' is a style of Cuban popular music originating in the 19th century. Trova was created by itinerant musicians known as ''trovadores'' who travelled around Cuba's Oriente province, especially Santiago de Cuba, and earned their living by singing and playing the guitar. According to nueva trova musician Noel Nicola, Cuban trovadors sang original songs or songs written by contemporaries, accompanied themselves on guitar, and aimed to feature music that had a poetic sensibility. This definition fits best the singers of boleros, and less well the Afrocubans singing funky sones (El Guayabero) or even guaguancós and abakuá ( Chicho Ibáñez). It rules out, perhaps unfairly, singers who accompanied themselves on the piano. ''Trova'' musicians have played an important part in the evolution of Cuban popular music. Collectively, they have been prolific as composers, and have provided a start for many later musicians whose career lay in larger groupings. Socially, they reached ...
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Bachata (music)
Bachata is a genre of music that originated in the Dominican Republic in the 20th century. It is a fusion of southwestern European influences, mainly Spanish guitar music, with indigenous Taino and Sub Saharan African musical elements, representative of the cultural diversity of the Dominican population. The first recorded compositions of bachata was done by José Manuel Calderón in 1962 ("Borracho de amor") from the Dominican Republic. Bachata originates from bolero and son (and later, from the mid-1980s, merengue). The original term used to name the genre was ''amargue'' ("bitterness", "bitter music" or "blues music"), until the mood-neutral term ''bachata'' became popular. The form of dance, bachata, also developed with the music.Pacini Hernandez, Deborah"Brief history of Bachata" ''Bachata, A social history of a Dominican popular music'', 1995, Temple University Press. Retrieved on December 4, 2008 Bachata arose in the poor and working class areas of the country. Dur ...
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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 ( bongo, maracas, etc.) 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'' ( sextet) 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 ...
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Pepe Sánchez (trova)
José "Pepe" Sánchez (Santiago de Cuba, 19 March 1856 – 3 January 1918), was a Cuban musician, singer and composer. He is known as the father of the ''trova'' style and the creator of the Cuban bolero. Sánchez was originally a tailor, and later the co-owner of a copper mine, and the representative in Santiago de Cuba of a cloth manufacturer in Kingston, Jamaica. He moved in upper and middle class circles in Santiago despite being a mulatto; his work as a businessman and musician brought him recognition and acceptance. Pepe had some experience in ''bufo'' theatre, but had no formal training in music. With remarkable natural talent, he composed numbers in his head and never wrote them down. As a result, most of these numbers are now lost for ever, though some two dozen or so survive because friends and disciples wrote them down. His first bolero, ''Tristezas'', is still remembered today. He also created advertisement jingles before radio was born. He was the model and teac ...
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Olga Guillot
Olga Guillot (October 9, 1922 – July 12, 2010) was a Cuban singer who was known as the "Queen of Bolero". She was a native of Santiago de Cuba. Biography Daughter of Catalan-Jewish immigrants who moved to Cuba, her father was a tailor and her mother was a seamstress. Olga Guillot was born in Santiago de Cuba, and her family moved to Havana when she was five years old. As a teenager, she and her sister, Ana Luisa, performed as the "Duo Hermanitas Guillot." It wasn't until 1945 that her talent as a bolero singer was discovered, when Facundo Rivero, an influential man in the Cuban music scene of the era, heard her sing for the first time and helped her make her professional singing debut at a famous Havana night club. Soon after, Guillot met Miguelito Valdés, who took her to New York City, where Guillot was able to record her first album with the Decca label. She gained recognition in the United States with her version in Spanish of "Stormy Weather" in 1946. Guillot traveled to ...
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Rhumba
Rhumba, also known as ballroom rumba, is a genre of ballroom music and dance that appeared in the East Coast of the United States during the 1930s. It combined American big band music with Afro-Cuban rhythms, primarily the son cubano, but also conga and rumba. Although taking its name from the latter, ballroom rumba differs completely from Cuban rumba in both its music and its dance. Hence, authors prefer the Americanized spelling of the word (''rhumba'') to distinguish between them. Music Although the term ''rhumba'' began to be used by American record companies to label all kinds of Latin music between 1913 and 1915, the history of rhumba as a specific form of ballroom music can be traced back to May 1930, when Don Azpiazú and his Havana Casino Orchestra recorded their song " El manisero" (The Peanut Vendor) in New York City. This single, released four months later by Victor, became a hit, becoming the first Latin song to sell 1 million copies in the United States. The s ...
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Filin (music)
Filin ( es, filin) was a Cuban, but US–influenced, popular song fashion of the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The word is derived from ''feeling'', and is sometimes spelled ''filin'' or even ''el filin''. It describes a style of ''post-microphone jazz-influenced romantic song'' (~crooning). The Cuban roots of filin were in the bolero and the canción. It was related to the trova: in fact, filin was sometimes regarded as a renewal or reinvigoration, of the old trova. Some Cuban quartets, such as Cuarteto d'Aida and Los Zafiros, modelled themselves on U.S. close-harmony groups. Others were singers who had heard Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole. Filin singers included César Portillo de la Luz, José Antonio Méndez, who spent a decade in Mexico from 1949 to 1959, Frank Domínguez, the blind pianist Frank Emilio Flynn, and the great singers of boleros Elena Burke and the still-performing Omara Portuondo, who both came from the Cuarteto d'Aida. A house in H ...
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Canción
''Canción'' ("song") is a popular genre of Latin American music, particularly in Cuba, where many of the compositions originate.Orovio, Helio 2004. ''Cuban music from A to Z''. p42 Its roots lie in Spanish popular song forms, including tiranas, polos and boleros; also in Italian light operetta, French romanza, and the slow waltz. Initially, even when written by the creole population of Cuba, who opposed the ruling hierarchy, the music retained its European style of "intricate melodies, and dark, enigmatic and elaborate lyrics". Later, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the canción came under the influence of the trovador movement. This resulted in the lyrical expression of the feelings and aspirations of the population. The accompaniment of the guitar followed naturally, and the canción gradually fused with other forms of Cuban (and therefore Latin American) music such as the bolero.Leon, Argeliers 1964. ''Musica folklorica cubana''. Biblioteca Nacional Jose Marti, ...
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Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola ( Haiti/ Dominican Republic), and north of both Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. The official area of the Republic of Cuba is (without the territorial waters) but a total of 350,730 km² (135,418 sq mi) including the exclusive economic zone. Cuba is the second-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti, with over 11 million inhabitants. The territory that is now Cuba was inhabited by the Ciboney people from the 4th millennium BC with th ...
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Elena Burke
Elena Burke (born Romana Elena Burgues Gonzalez on February 28, 1928, in Havana, Cuba – June 9, 2002 in Havana, Cuba) was a revered and popular Cuban singer of boleros and romantic ballads. Biography She started her career by working in radio in the 1940s but also began to work with smaller groups and appearing in nightclubs accompanied at the piano by Dámaso Pérez Prado. In 1948 she accompanied the Cuban dancers known as "Las Mulatas the Fuego" (The Mulatas of Fire) to Mexico City, where she performed in the movie ''Salón México'', directed by Indio Fernández. In 1952, pianist and arranger Aida Diestro organized the vocal quartet called Cuarteto d'Aida. The original members were Elena Burke, Moraima Secada, Omara Portuondo and Haydée Portuondo. After she got some attention, she went solo. By the time of the Cuban Revolution she was a top solo artist performing in elegant cabarets in Havana. Her voice seemed to become stronger with age, as her subtle yet sophisti ...
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Trío Matamoros
The Trío Matamoros was one of the most popular Cuban trova groups. It was formed in 1925 by Miguel Matamoros (8 May 1894 in Santiago de Cuba – 15 April 1971; guitar), Rafael Cueto (14 March 1900 in Santiago de Cuba – 7 August 1991; guitar) and Siro Rodríguez (9 December 1899 in Santiago de Cuba – Regla, 29 March 1981; maracas and claves). All three were singers and composers. The group was originally called Trio Oriental, but changed their name to Trio Matamoros in 1928 upon the discovery that another group already claimed the Trio Oriental name. The Trío Matamoros played boleros and son. They toured all Latin America and Europe and recorded in New York. In 1940 Guillermo Portabales performed with the trio. Matamoros expanded the trio into a conjunto (Conjunto Matamoros) for a trip to Mexico and hired the young Beny Moré as singer from 1945 to 1947. They recorded many 78 rpm records and LPs; some of their output is available on CDs. The group were renowned ...
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