Salsa Music - Salsa As A Musical Term

Salsa As A Musical Term

Salsa means 'sauce' in the Spanish language, and carries connotations of the spiciness common in Latin and Caribbean cuisine. In the 20th century, salsa acquired a musical meaning in both English and Spanish. In this sense salsa has been described as a word with "vivid associations." Cuban and Dominican immigrants and Puerto Rican in New York have used the term analogously to swing or soul music. In this usage salsa connotes a frenzied, "hot" and wild musical experience that draws upon or reflects elements of Latin culture, regardless of the style.

Various music writers and historians have traced the use of salsa to different periods of the 20th century. Max Salazar traces the word back to the early 1930s, when Ignacio Piñeiro composed "Échale salsita", a Cuban son protesting tasteless food. While Salazar describes this song as the origin of salsa meaning "danceable Latin music", Ed Morales describes the usage in the same song as a cry from Piñeiro to his band, telling them to increase the tempo to "put the dancers into high gear". Morales claims that later in the 1930s, vocalist Beny Moré would shout salsa during a performance "to acknowledge a musical moment's heat, to express a kind of cultural nationalist sloganeering 'hotness' or 'spiciness' of Latin American cultures". World music author Sue Steward claims salsa was originally used in music as a "cry of appreciation for a particularly piquant or flashy solo". She cites the first use in this manner to a Venezuelan radio DJ named Phidias Danilo Escalona; Arsenio Rodriguez is often recognized to be an important salsa composer; he wrotes in the 40s Mami me gusto, Fuego en el 23 and El divorcio. In 1955 Cheo Marquetti created a new band called Conjunto Los Salseros and recorded some new songs ( Sonero and Que no muera el son ). The contemporary meaning of salsa as a musical genre can be traced back to New York City Latin music promoter Izzy Sanabria:

"In 1973, I hosted the television show Salsa which was the first reference to this particular music as salsa. I was using salsa, but the music wasn't defined by that. The music was still defined as Latin music. And that was a very, very broad category, because it even includes mariachi music. It includes everything. So salsa defined this particular type of music... It's a name that everyone could pronounce."

Sanabria's Latin New York magazine was an English language publication. Consequently, his promoted events were covered in The New York Times, as well as Time and Newsweek magazines. They reported on this "new" phenomenon taking New York by storm—salsa.

But promotion certainly wasn't the only factor in the music's success, as Sanabria makes clear: "Musicians were busy creating the music but played no role in promoting the name salsa." Johnny Pacheco, the creative director, and producer for Fania Records, molded New York salsa into a tight, polished and commercially successful sound. The unprecedented appeal of New York salsa, particularly the Fania "sound," led to its adoption across Latin America and elsewhere.

Globally, the term salsa has eclipsed the original names of the various Cuban musical genres it encompasses. Ironically, Cuban-based music was promoted more effectively worldwide in the 1970s and 1980s by the salsa industry, than by Cuba. For a brief time in the early 1990s a fair number of Cuban musicians embraced the term, calling their own music salsa Cubana. The practice did not catch on however.