The Fifth Case of the Uptown Latin Jam Session

Today I am sharing more tasty cuts of latin music influenced by US jazz:  lots of mambo, piano jazz, and descarga. These sounds were popular in Cuba, but mostly in the metropolitan center of Havana; one doesn't hear these styles coming out of Santiago or other regional areas of the country. And of course the integration of jazz idioms endeared this music to some well-heeled but free-thinking audiences in Europe and the US; the vast majority of music you hear today was distributed in our country in the 50s or 60s, and can still be picked up as bargains on EBAY from sellers in Miami cleaning out their parents' record collections.

We start the show today with a set to showcase once-common instruments in the Cuban popular music repertoire. Flute and violin were familiar instruments in turn-of-the-century Cuba, playing a leading role in the popular danzon genre. Today the danzon sounds like a crazy old-timey blend of waltz and ragtime; 100 years ago the danzon was an occasion for cane cutters in Eastern Cuba to don their fanciest clothes and execute elaborate dances to mock / mimic highbrow European culture. (The dance, with its socio-political implications, helps explain the lingering popularity of this genre in Cuba.) As the danzon ebbed in popularity at mid-century, the violin and flute adapted to up-and-coming musical genres pachanga and charanga, retaining a place for these instruments in Cuban combos well into the late 20th century.

The second set today focuses on piano jazz and descarga, a theme that we follow to the top of the second hour. I begin the second hour with a trademark set devoted to slow jams and exotica, before we send out the show with a showcase of high-powered mambo fire.