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Timbales
Timbales () or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms and usually tuned much higher, especially for their size.Orovio, Helio 1981. ''Diccionario de la música cubana: biográfico y técnico''. Entries for ''Paila criolla''; ''Timbal criollo''. They were developed as an alternative to classical timpani in Cuba in the early 20th century and later spread across Latin America and the United States. Timbales are struck with wooden sticks on the heads and shells, although bare hands are sometimes used. The player (called a ''timbalero'') uses a variety of stick strokes, rim shots, and rolls to produce a wide range of percussive expression during solos and at transitional sections of music, and usually plays the shells (or auxiliary percussion such as a cowbell or cymbal) to keep time in other parts of the song. The shells and the typical pattern played on them are referred to as ''cáscara''. Common stroke patterns in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bongo Drum
Bongos ( Spanish: ''bongó'') are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. The pair consists of the larger ''hembra'' () and the smaller ''macho'' (), which are joined by a wooden bridge. They are played with both hands and usually held between the legs, although in some cases, as in classical music, they may be played with sticks or mounted on stands. Bongos are mainly employed in the rhythm section of son cubano and salsa ensembles, often alongside other drums such as the larger congas and the stick-struck timbales. In these groups, the bongo player is known as ''bongosero'' and often plays a continuous eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' () as well as more rhythmically free parts, providing improvisatory flourishes and rhythmic counterpoint. Bongos originated in eastern Cuba at the end of the 19th century, possibly from a pair of larger drums such as the bokú. These older, larger bongos are known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danzón
Danzón is the official genre and dance of Cuba.Urfé, Odilio 1965. ''El danzón''. La Habana. It is also an active musical form in USA and Puerto Rico. Written in time, the danzón is a slow, formal partner dance, requiring set footwork around syncopated beats, and incorporating elegant pauses while the couples stand listening to virtuoso instrumental passages, as characteristically played by a charanga or típica ensemble. The danzón evolved from the Cuban contradanza, or habanera ( 'Havana-dance'). The contradanza, which had English and French roots in the country dance and contredanse, was probably introduced to Cuba by the Spanish, who ruled the island for almost four centuries (1511–1898), contributing many thousands of immigrants. It may also have been partially seeded during the short-lived British occupation of Havana in 1762. Haitian refugees fleeing the island's revolution of 1791–1804 brought the French-Haitian kontradans, contributing their own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ulpiano Díaz
Ulpiano Díaz (1900–1990) was a Cuban timbalero. He is considered an innovator of the timbales, being the first to add a small cowbell to the setup, and popularizing the abanico. He started his career playing güiro in Félix González's orquesta típica, and rose to prominence as the timbales player of three important charangas: Orquesta de Tata Alfonso, Arcaño y sus Maravillas and Fajardo y sus Estrellas. Career Díaz was born in Pinar del Río in the year 1900. He learned to play several percussion instruments by himself before joining the Septeto Cuba, based in Havana. He later became the güirist in Orquesta de Félix González. He then joined Tata Alfonso's charanga as the timbalero. He would become a master of the instrument, joining Fernando Collazo's La Maravilla del Siglo in 1936. Along with Antonio Arcaño and other members of this band, Díaz founded La Maravilla de Arcaño in 1937. La Maravilla de Arcaño, later renamed Arcaño y sus Maravillas, would become C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charanga (Cuba)
Charanga is a traditional ensemble that plays Cuban dance music. They made Cuban dance music popular in the 1940s and their music consisted of heavily son-influenced material, performed on European instruments such as violin and flute by a Charanga orchestra. (Chomsky 2004, p. 199). The style of music that is most associated with a Charanga is termed 'Danzón', and is an amalgam of both European classical music and African rhythms. Origins "Scholars agree that Spain and parts of West and Central Africa provided the most crucial influences in the development of Cuban popular and religious music. But in the case of charanga, the contributions of French and Haitian influences cannot be ignored. Charanga began its history in the early nineteenth century when Haitians, both African and French, escaped the island's revolution. They brought with them a love for the French contredanse, a multi-sectional dance form that evolved into the danzón, the quintessential charanga style. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Descarga
A descarga (literally ''discharge'' in Spanish) is an improvised jam session consisting of variations on Cuban music themes, primarily son montuno, but also guajira, bolero, guaracha and rumba. The genre is strongly influenced by jazz and it was developed in Havana during the 1950s. Important figures in the emergence of the genre were Cachao, Julio Gutiérrez, Bebo Valdés, Peruchín and Niño Rivera in Cuba, and Tito Puente, Machito and Mario Bauzá in New York. Originally, descargas were promoted by record companies such as Panart, Maype and Gema under the label Cuban jam sessions. From the 1960s, the descarga format was usually adapted by large salsa ensembles, most notably the Fania All-Stars. History Origins: son, filin and jazz During the 1940s, the term ''descarga'' was commonly used in the music scenes of Cuba to refer to performances of jazz-influenced boleros in an improvised manner. This was part of the so-called filin (''feeling'') movement spearheaded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timpani
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. Thus timpani are an example of kettledrums, also known as vessel drums and semispherical drums, whose body is similar to a section of a sphere whose cut conforms the head. Most modern timpani are ''pedal timpani'' and can be tuned quickly and accurately to specific pitches by skilled players through the use of a movable foot-pedal. They are played by striking the head with a specialized Beater (percussion), beater called a ''timpani stick'' or ''timpani mallet''. Timpani evolved from military drums to become a staple of the European classical music, classical orchestra by the last third of the 18th century. Today, they are used in many types of Musical ensemble, ensembles, incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silvano "Chori" Shueg
Silvano Shueg Hechevarría (January 6, 1900 – April 1974), better known as Chori or Choricera, was a famous Cuban percussionist. He rose to prominence in the 1930s due to his extravagant shows at many nightclubs in Havana where he played timbales, drums, Cowbell (instrument), cowbells and objects such as bottles and metal pans. He composed the popular son cubano, sones "La choricera" and "Ayaca de maíz", and appeared in several films in the 1950s. Life and career Early years Silvano Shueg Hechevarría was born on January 6, 1900, in Santiago de Cuba, the capital of Oriente Province, Oriente, Cuba's easternmost region. In 1919 Shueg became the timbalero in a son cubano, son ''estudiantina'' (student ensemble) from Santiago called Los Champions del Son. In 1927, the band toured Havana and Shueg decided to stay in the city, where he joined the Marte y Belona dance academy. He then began performing at the numerous nightclubs and cabarets along the beach in Marianao, such as Los Tres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guillermo Barreto
Guillermo Barreto (August 11, 1929 – December 14, 1991) was a Cuban drummer and '' timbalero''. He was a major figure in the Cuban music scene for more than fifty years and one of the first drummers in Cuba to play Afro-Cuban jazz. Nicknames Like many Cuban musicians, Guillermo Barreto had several nicknames. He was usually credited as "Barretico" during the 1950s and 1960s. He was also known as "El Loro" (''The Parrot'') and "Pata de loro" (''Parrot leg'') "due to his constant chatter and parrotlike walk", a nickname given to him by Rita Montaner according to Paquito D'Rivera. Biography Early life and career Barreto was born in Havana on August 11, 1929. His father was Primo Barreto, a clarinetist who taught music to all of his children: Lita, Josefina, Estela, Alejandro "Coco", Roberto "Bobby", and Guillermo. As a young man, Guillermo became a skilled interpreter of Cuban pailas. In the 1940s, he was part of several big bands: the Cabaret Tropicana resident orchestra (d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timpani
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. Thus timpani are an example of kettledrums, also known as vessel drums and semispherical drums, whose body is similar to a section of a sphere whose cut conforms the head. Most modern timpani are ''pedal timpani'' and can be tuned quickly and accurately to specific pitches by skilled players through the use of a movable foot-pedal. They are played by striking the head with a specialized Beater (percussion), beater called a ''timpani stick'' or ''timpani mallet''. Timpani evolved from military drums to become a staple of the European classical music, classical orchestra by the last third of the 18th century. Today, they are used in many types of Musical ensemble, ensembles, incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amadito Valdés
Amadito Valdés (born February 14, 1946) is a Cuban timbalero, best known for his work with Cuarteto Las d'Aida and Buena Vista Social Club. Career Valdés was born in Havana in 1946. Early on, he studied music with his father, Amadito Valdés Sr., who was a well-known Cuban jazz saxophonist, and in 1961 he took up drumming under the supervision of Walfredo de los Reyes. When Reyes left Cuba, Valdés joined Havana's "Alejandro García Caturla" Conservatory and it was there that he began to develop his improvisational style on the timbales, mixing Afro rhythms in time with the Cuban son syncopated rhythms in 2/4 time. In the 1960s, Valdés became the timbalero for the popular Cuban vocal quartet Las d'Aida. In 1996, Valdés joined American guitarist Ry Cooder for the Buena Vista Social Club collaboration, playing timbales on both records and performances for the group and featuring in the 1999 movie also titled ''Buena Vista Social Club''. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mambo (music)
Mambo is a genre of Cuban dance music pioneered by the Charanga (Cuba), charanga Arcaño y sus Maravillas in the late 1930s and later popularized in the big band style by Pérez Prado. It originated as a syncopated form of the danzón, known as danzón-mambo, with a final, improvised section, which incorporated the ''guajeos'' typical of son cubano (also known as ''montunos''). These ''guajeos'' became the essence of the genre when it was played by big bands, which did not perform the traditional sections of the danzón and instead leaned towards swing music, swing and jazz. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, mambo had become a "dance craze" in Mexico and the United States as its mambo (dance), associated dance took over the East Coast thanks to Pérez Prado, Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez and others. In the mid-1950s, a slower ballroom style, also derived from the danzón, cha-cha-cha (music), cha-cha-cha, replaced mambo as the most popular dance genre in North America. Nonetheless, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
