Style and Structure in Música Antillana
Música antillana is defined by a number of basic elements and stylistic procedures emerging from its mixed African and European roots.13 Although there are also vestiges of indigenous musical influence in the presence of maracas and güiro (a notched, scraped gourd), the indigenous populations of Cuba and Puerto Rico (the Siboney and Taino Indians) were wiped out during the first century of colonial encounter. Cuban and Puerto Rican popular genres are characterized by simple European harmonic progressions and melodic lines, string and wind instruments, the use of the Spanish language, and certain harmonic and melodic patterns typical of Iberian music. Many of their musical elements, however, point to a strong sub-Saharan African influence. These include a variety of drums and other percussion instruments; interlocking polyrhythmic, timbral, melodic, and harmonic ostinati; a percussive approach to playing; call-and-response vocals, and a preference for dense or buzzy timbres. Harmonic progressions in musica antillana songs are very basic, for example, ||: I–V–V–I : || or ||: I–IV–V–I : || or ||: I–VI–II–V :||. These repeated harmonic patterns, voiced in the bass and piano or guitar, underscore the other interlocking rhythmic and timbral patterns.
In Colombia, the term “música antillana” also indexes the commercial sound of cosmopolitan urban culture through the use of instrumentation that came to predominate in urban ensembles in the Americas during the first half of the twentieth century. Perhaps one of the most prominent features of música antillana ensembles of the 1940s and 1950s is not only their use of Afro-Caribbean percussion (usually Cuban), but the increasing prominence of dance-orchestra instrumentation, modeled on North American popular dance bands. These groups usually featured full trumpet, trombone, and saxophone sections (with four or five musicians in each section), plus piano, bass, and drum set or other percussion. In Latin America, Cuban instruments such as the conga drum, bongo, and maracas were often used in place of the drum set typically employed in North American bands. These bands were sometimes referred to in Latin America as jazzband, even though they did not really perform jazz, but more often this format was simply known as an orquesta. Such groups typically performed for the middle and upper-middle classes in the elegant ballrooms of private social clubs, but they also played for the general urban populace in radio theaters, nightclubs, and hotel salons. In other words, not all Cuban and Puerto Rican genres or styles are recognized as música antillana—for example, rumba, guaguancó played in the traditional percussion-and-vocals format would not be called música antillana but Cuban music. (A commercial dance-band tune labeled a “guaguancó,” however, would be recognized as música antillana.) The orquesta or jazzband format became a significant marker of cosmopolitan identity during the first half of this century, and was widely adopted in cities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.14 Even the small Cuban conjunto (combo), which originally featured only string and light percussion instruments, expanded in the late 1930s, adding horns, piano and heavier percussion, partly as a result of this influence.
Figure 1.1 Clave pattern
Cuban genres—whether performed by Cuban or Puerto Rican artists—are characterized by a number of specific elements not necessarily present in Puerto Rican forms. The most important element is the clave pattern, a rhythmic time line around which all other rhythmic figures are organized. This pattern is a two-bar figure that can be played with a three-two or two-three emphasis depending on where one starts in the cycle (Figure 1.1). It is often played by two wooden sticks struck together, called claves, but even when not played, musicians are aware of the pattern. All the syllabic accents of the lyrics and also the melodic accents and breaks of horn lines and percussion parts must coordinate with the clave, whether it is felt as a two-three or a three-two pattern. The structure of a musical phrase and its main accents determine whether a melody is in three-two or two-three clave. The clave is derived from West African patterns (Mauleón 1993) and is present in different variations in other Afro-Cuban genres (e.g., rumba and sacred batá drumming) and is also embedded in the time line used in Puerto Rican bomba (Dufrasne-González 1994). The clave pattern is not used in the Puerto Rican plena.
Another distinctive trait of Cuban popular styles is the habanera bass line, a 3 + 3 + 2 pattern, which was also modified to become the bajo anticipado (anticipated bass line) essential to Cuban and Cuban-derived styles (Figure 1.2; see Manuel 1985 for discussion of its roots in Afro-Cuban drumming). This pattern is distinct from the basic pattern typical of Puerto Rican plena and Dominican merengue, where the bass line falls on strong downbeats and does not have the syncopation of the anticipated bass line in Cuban music.
Since the 1920s the most important genre of Cuban popular music has been the son, which developed from rural nineteenth-century forms in the eastern part of the island and was consolidated in Cuba’s major cities through the first two decades of the twentieth century. Son is divided into a two-part structure consisting of lyric verses sung by the lead vocalist, and then a call-and-response montuno section sung between the leader and coro (chorus). This two-part structure has continued into the salsa tradition, and most salsa tunes are written in verse-montuno form. Traditionally, the lead vocalist improvises the calls, or pregones, a convention that continued in salsa through the 1960s and 1970s. (Vocalists of the current commercial salsa romántica [romantic salsa ballad] style have lost this art and tend to sing precomposed lines.) The montuno section also serves as a basis for improvised instrumental soloing over the basic groove set by the rhythm section (the principal of improvisation over an established polyrhythmic base is another African musical trait). This two-part structure is also present in other Cuban forms, such as rumba guaguancó, and is also characteristic of Puerto Rican plenas.
Figure 1.2 Habanera and anticipated bass patterns
In the 1920s and 1930s son was performed by a small six- or seven-piece conjunto, also referred to simply as a sexteto or septeto. Instrumentation in these groups consisted of guitar, tres (a Cuban guitar tuned in three double courses), bongo (a pair of small single-headed drums), claves, maracas, and contrabass, with an optional trumpet. This is the typical ensemble that emerged in the eastern part of Cuba, Oriente, and that still prevails in Santiago de Cuba. (The 1999 film Buena Vista Social Club features this format.) During the 1930s a simplified version of son called “rhumba” was adapted for cosmopolitan dance bands (e.g., Xavier Cugat) and became a huge dance craze among North American and European audiences.15 In Havana, however, innovators such as Arsenio Rodríguez (referred to by fans and scholars as “Arsenio”) began experimenting with the son format during the late 1930s and early 1940s, expanding the ensemble with the addition of a conga (a cylindrical single-headed drum of Afro-Cuban tradition, usually referred to as tumbadora in Cuba), piano, and up to three more trumpets. The catchy piano vamp, adapted after the tres parts of earlier son and referred to as a guajeo or montuno, became another characteristic element of Cuban music, as did the basic conga pattern, known as tumbao (Figure 1.3).16 In addition to an enlarged conjunto format, the montuno section was expanded to include dynamic horn “shout” choruses between call-and-response sections. Arsenio adopted the slower tempo, denser polyrhythmic texture, and improvisational percussive approach of Afro-Cuban rumba, a contemporary percussion-and-vocals tradition of the black Cuban working classes in and around Havana. These slower sones were also referred to as son montuno,