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Latin American music

Latin American music, or the music of Latin America, is sometimes called Latin music. It includes the music of many countries and comes in many varieties, from the down-home conjunto music of Northern Mexico to the sophisticated habanera[?] of Cuba, from the symphonies of Heitor Villa-Lobos to the simple and moving Andean flute.

Music has played an important part in Latin America's turbulent recent history, for example the nueva cancion movement.

Latin music in the US

Latin music has long influenced American popular music, jazz, rhythm and blues and even country music. For an early example (1914), the bridge to "Saint Louis Blues"--"Saint Louie woman, with her diamond rings"--has a habanera beat, prompting Jelly Roll Morton to comment, "You've got to have that Spanish tinge." Many an American band has added a conga[?] player, maracas, or other Latin percussion for just that reason.

The Argentinan tango was a worldwide success in the 1930s. Tango dancers and records could be found from Los Angeles to Beijing. Singer Carlos Gardel is still a myth.

In more recent times, artists such as Carmen Miranda, Desi Arnaz, Xavier Cugat[?], and Pérez Prado[?] ("The Mambo King") were popular with audiences of all cultures. Judy Garland's first hit, as a member of the "Gumm Sisters", was "La Cucaracha[?]", right down to the line about marijuana.

It was common in dance halls in the 30s and 40s for a Latin orchestra, such as that of Vincent Lopez[?], to alternate with a big band because dancers insisted on it. Latin music was extremely popular with dancers, not only the samba, paso doble[?], rumba, and mambo, but even the conga[?]. In the 50s, Perez Prado made the Cha-cha-cha famous, and the Afro-Cuban jazz[?] of Dizzy Gillespie opened many ears to the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic possibilities of Latin music and is still influential in salsa.

The "Spanish tinge" was also a common feature of rhythm and blues in the 50s. The monster hit "Little Darling" was driven by the clave[?] beat and Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon" was a great success. Richie Valens, born Ricardo Valenzuela, blew the roof off the hit parade with "La Bamba", originally a Mexican wedding song[?].

Likewise, Tex-Mex and Tejano style featured the conjunto sound, resulting in such important music as "Tequila" by The Champs[?], "96 Tears" by Question Mark and the Mysterians, Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs[?], Thee Midniters[?], and the many combinations led by Doug Sahm[?], including the Sir Douglas Quintet[?] and the Texas Tornadoes[?]. The Texas Tornadoes featured Freddy Fender[?], who brought Latin soul to country music. And the Tornadoes' Flaco Jiménez[?] is a genuine conjunto hero, a third-generation accordionist whose grandfather learned the instrument from German settlers in Texas. Johnny Rodriguez[?] is another Latin country star.

In the modern rock and roll era, Carlos Santana featured a full-blown Latin approach. Joe King Carrasco y las Coronas[?] play punk rock Tex-Mex style. See also rock en español.

During the second part of the decade of the 1990s, Latin music exploded into the mainstream thanks to popular artists like Ricky Martin, Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lopez. While Latin music has been popular for many years, its current popularity in the mainstream may have come only after the untimely death of the popular Tex-Mex[?] singer Selena. Many attribute Jennifer Lopez's discovery as a talented actress and artist as a result of her title role as Selena in the biographical movie of the same name. Selena was murdered by her fan-club president.

Nowadays, Latin music encompasses a broad spectrum of sounds, artists, genres, and tastes--from Rock en espanol (with groups like Mana and artists like Shakira) to new Latin hip-hop artists like J Lo (otherwise known as Jennifer Lopez) and Big Pun, to banda music played in Los Angeles, to salsa and merengue crossover artists such as Marc Anthony[?]. Another important Latin American singer is Pilar Montenegro. Major record companies have branches specialized in the Spanish American market.

Not to be forgotten also is the fact that Latin America produced one of the greatest boy bands in history, Menudo, out of which Martin came from, and which spawned mass hysteria worldwide and a string of other groups (Such as Mexico's Magneto, Puerto Rico's Los Chicos and Venezuela's Los Chamos and Ufff!![?] that tried to imitate Menudo's success. Chayanne, now an international superstar, was a member of Los Chicos.

Menudo was preceded by another Edgardo Diaz creation, Spain's La Pandilla[?].

Although Spain isn't a part of Latin America, Spanish music and Latin American music strongly cross-fertilized each other, but Latin music also absorbed influences from English and American music, and. particularly, African music.

For an analysis of Latin music by country see:

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