New York

In the 20th century New York was the second home of Cuban music. Here Afro-Cuban jazz and the mambo craze of the Palladium Ballroom were born, and later salsa.

Afro-Cuban jazz

  • Mario Bauzá came to New York in 1930 to pursue a career in jazz. By 1933 he was lead trumpeter and musical director of Chick Webb's orchestra. In 1938 he joined Cab Calloway.
  • Machito came to New York in 1937 and founded the Afro-Cubans in 1940. From 1941 Bauzá was its musical director for 34 years. The band was one of the first to combine Afro-Cuban rhythms with jazz improvisation.
  • Bauzá's Tanga (1943) is considered the first true Afro-Cuban jazz tune.
  • Chano Pozo came to New York in 1947. Bauzá introduced him to Dizzy Gillespie, and on 29 September 1947 he played with Gillespie's big band at Carnegie Hall. Together they wrote Manteca. On 2 December 1948 Chano Pozo was shot dead in Harlem.

The Palladium Ballroom

The Palladium Ballroom, on the corner of Broadway and 53rd Street, opened on 15 March 1946. The US mambo craze that started in 1948 began here.

  • The Big Three: Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez.
  • Dancers: there were weekly dance contests and free lessons on Wednesdays. Augie and Margo Rodríguez were the mambo champions. What counted was whether you could dance, not your class or colour.
  • The Palladium closed in 1966.

Salsa

In the 1970s Puerto Rican, Cuban and Dominican musicians in New York made the music that became known as salsa. It is based mainly on son montuno, including that of Arsenio Rodríguez, who went to New York in 1952. In the late 1960s Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci founded the Fania label. As Celia Cruz put it: "Salsa is Cuban music with another name."

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