Creator of the danzón — Miguel Faílde composed Las Alturas de Simpson in 1879, the piece recognized as the first danzón, establishing Cuba's national dance form for the next half century.
Faílde was born on December 23, 1852, in Guamacaro, in Matanzas province. Matanzas is the port city on Cuba's northern coast that served as one of the most important centers of Afro-Cuban cultural life in the 19th century. Matanzas was a hub of sugar production, a city with a large enslaved and free Black population, and the birthplace of several of Cuba's most significant Afro-Cuban musical and religious traditions — including Rumba and the Lucumí (Yoruba) ceremonial music that would become Santería.
He trained as a musician in Matanzas and led his own orquesta típica — the large dance band format of the era, featuring brass, violins, piano, and percussion. These orchestras played at the dance salons, social clubs, and public events that were central to colonial Cuban society.
On January 1, 1879, Faílde premiered "Las Alturas de Simpson" at the Club Liceo in Matanzas. The composition was named after a neighborhood in Matanzas, and its premiere is considered the birth of the danzón as a formal genre.
The danzón evolved from the contradanza (Cuban contradance), itself a Cuban adaptation of the French contredanse, transformed by Afro-Cuban rhythmic sensibilities over the 18th and early 19th centuries. The danzón had a fixed form in which dancers knew exactly when to start and stop. Only later did more syncopation come in, which eventually led to the danzón-chá, the nuevo ritmo, the cha-cha-chá and the mambo.
The form of Las alturas de Simpson:
The danzón was first played by orquestas típicas: cornet, valve trombone, ophicleide, one or two clarinets, one or two violins and timpani.
The danzón's significance in 1879 was not merely musical — it was social. Cuban society of the late 19th century was racially stratified and politically volatile: the Ten Years' War (1868–1878) had just ended, slavery would not be fully abolished until 1886, and Cuban identity was being actively contested. The danzón embodied a Cuban (rather than purely Spanish or French-colonial) musical identity, blending European formal structures with Afro-Cuban rhythmic life.
The dance that accompanied it — partners in close embrace, moving in small, contained steps with subtle hip movement — was considered scandalous by conservative elements and defended fiercely by Cubans who saw it as an expression of national character.
Faílde's invention set the trajectory for Cuban popular dance music for the next century. The danzón itself evolved continuously:
Miguel Faílde died on December 26, 1921, having lived to see the music he created become the national dance of the country he loved. He is honored in Matanzas with a monument, and "Las Alturas de Simpson" remains the foundational text of Cuban dance music.