Timba Genres – Music
Timba is Cuban dance music that emerged in Havana in the late 1980s. It builds on son, with influences from salsa, funk, R&B and jazz, and above all from Afro-Cuban folklore such as rumba. Timba is fast, rhythmic and full of improvisation: rhythm and swing come before melody, and the band keeps switching gears.
Key points
- Origin: late 1980s in Havana; it took off in the Special Period of the 1990s
- Roots: son and rumba, with salsa, funk, R&B and jazz
- Structure: first the song (cuerpo), then a long montuno with coros, horn mambos and breakdowns
- Gears: in the montuno the band keeps switching grooves, sometimes every four basic steps, often on a hand signal from the singer or bandleader
- Sound: rhythm and swing come before melody; heavy percussion with drum kit and kick drum
- Dance: timba dancing, casino and rueda with free, Afro-Cuban moves that respond to the gears; on the bomba often despelote
- Key bands: NG La Banda, Los Van Van, Charanga Habanera, Havana D'Primera
The word timba was first a compliment from rumba: a timbero was a good musician. Around 1988 it became the name for a new music; among others José Luis "El Tosco" Cortés, leader of NG La Banda, claims to have been the first to use it that way.
The main precursors are Los Van Van and Irakere from the 1970s. In 1989 NG La Banda recorded En la calle, considered by many the first timba album, and was among the first bands to standardize gears and song-specific piano tumbaos.
In the Special Period of the early 1990s, the severe economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union, timba became the music of Havana's nightlife. Cuba opened up to tourism, which gave timba a wider audience.
- Drum kit: almost every timba band has a drummer; bands with a timbalero add a kick drum.
- Bass: no fixed pattern as in salsa, but a tumbao that belongs to the song. The bassist sometimes stops completely, as in the presión.
- Piano and keyboard: song-specific tumbaos; synthesizers are common.
- Horns: fast, sometimes bebop-influenced, reaching the extreme ranges.
- Improvisation: singers, horns and rhythm section improvise freely.
More about the building blocks under Timba elements.
A handful of bands shaped the sound of timba. Here they are by period.
Precursors
- Los Van Van (1969) – Juan Formell's band, which developed songo. The most popular band in Cuba since 1969, and itself one of the major timba bands.
- Irakere – Chucho Valdés's band, known outside Cuba mainly as a Latin jazz band. It mixed Afro-Cuban rhythms with son and jazz; José Luis "El Tosco" Cortés came from here.
The 1990s
- NG La Banda – usually considered the first timba band, with En la calle (1989). Five members came from Irakere, including El Tosco and the entire horn section, the metales del terror.
- Charanga Habanera – the debut album Me sube la fiebre (1992) started the "timba explosion". The band dominated the scene until the original line-up broke up in 1998.
- Manolín, El Médico de la Salsa – discovered by El Tosco at medical school. His popularity was compared to Beatlemania.
- Paulito FG y su Élite – with Issac Delgado and Manolín, Paulito was one of the three top singer-bandleaders of the 1990s. He called gear changes on the spot.
- Manolito y su Trabuco – Manolito Simonet's band, with strong singers. Singer Ricardo Amaray's R&B influences got a Cuban sound through Simonet's arrangements.
- Bamboleo – led by pianist Lázaro Valdés Jr., with R&B and jazz fusion. With hand signals the band builds bloques on the spot.
- Klimax (1995) – the band of drummer and songwriter Giraldo Piloto, who also wrote Me sube la fiebre for Charanga Habanera. The most harmonically original of them all.
After 2000
- Pupy y Los que Son Son (2001) – the band of pianist César "Pupy" Pedroso, after more than thirty years with Los Van Van. It seeks a balance between son and timba.
- Havana D'Primera (2007) – the band of trumpeter and singer Alexander Abreu, one of the most important bands of today's timba.
- Examples – songs to listen and dance to
- Timba elements – structure, gears, breaks and arranging
- Contratiempo – songs with the counter-rhythm
- Evolution of songs – how songs changed over the years
Timba vs salsa: what is the difference?
Timba and salsa both grew out of son and sound alike at first. The difference lies in the rhythm section and in how a song is built. According to Kevin Moore, the most important part of the answer is the gears.
- The same: the tempo range, the large bell, and often the standard conga marcha.
- Kick drum: salsa bands don't use one; in timba it is essential. Almost every timba band has a drummer, and bands with a timbalero have him play a kick drum standing up.
- Bass: in salsa the bombo-ponche tumbao is always the same and never stops. In timba the bass plays a tumbao on the clave that belongs to the song, and stops and starts again. That is one of the hallmarks of the gears.
- Congas and piano: some timba congueros write a marcha for each song, two or four times as long as the standard one. Piano tumbaos last two or four claves, with a different rhythm in each half.
- Gears and breakdowns: the band keeps switching between fixed grooves, and the breakdown gears such as the presión set timba apart from salsa.
- Roots: salsa comes from son and the Cuban conjuntos of the 1940s and 50s; timba also draws on rumba, batá drums, santería songs, funk and jazz.
- Arranging: complex horn lines (champolas), many orchestrated breaks (bloques) and frequent switches between major and minor.
- Dance: timba is danced as casino, but dancers respond to the gears with other moves, such as despelote. For Moore that is the strongest argument that timba is its own genre and not just "Cuban salsa".