Salsa's Cuban Roots



Like many of the other Latin dance forms that are popular among ballroom dancers across the United States, Salsa dancing has its roots in Cuba. According to Max Salazar writing for "Salsa Roots," a Cuban composer, Ignacia Pilerio, wrote a song to protest the lack of Cuban spices in the food he found in the United States. While a Hispanic community was burgeoning in Spanish Harlem, New York, dancers were called upon to spice up the moves of Afro-Cuban dance rhythms, to add "salsa" to their moves. The blending of African rhythm and Spanish guitar was very important to the development of many forms of Latin music.

In the early part of the twentieth century, radio recordings made their way from Cuba to the United States. Soon, American musicians began incorporating the rhythms into their music as well. Many of the same band leaders who led the Swing Dance movement also participated in the blending of Latin and jazz. Later, Elvis Presley used the same elements in some of his hits as did Bo Diddley, Johnny Otis, and Nat King Cole. Roots During the time that the slave trade flourished in West Africa, natives used specific rhythms to speak to their gods. The rhythms came to the New World in the holds of the slave ships, and, in some cases, the rhythms helped to keep the prisoners' hopes alive and kept them alive to the end of the journey. When the slaves were forced to adopt the Christian religion, they continued to call their own gods by using the drum rhythms. Most people who dance to Latin music today are not even aware that they are dancing to what started as religious music. In Cuba, many of these rhythms are still being used for religious purposes. The Spanish brought their guitars to the New World, and the mix of the two is history. A series of talented guitarists, many of them Cuban, led to the popularity of The Mambo and the Rumba. Xavier Cougat was a classical violinist who blended Afro-Cuban and Flamenco who later became famous for creating tropical music for movies. Desi Arnaz, of late-night "I Love Lucy" fame, brought the beat to television in the fifties. A blind Cuban drummer, Arsenio Rodriguez, began to evolve the Salsa sound from Mambo in the early 1960s.

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