Friday, April 27, 2018

FRIDAY MUSIC: Cuba's Musical Ecosystem, by JD

This week's musical offering is from Cuba which has a very rich and varied musical heritage-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Cuba

In last week's post, the Buena Vista Social Club musicians played alongside Ry Cooder in New York's Carnegie Hall but Cuban music arrived in the USA in the 1930s with the popularity of the song El Manisero (the Peanut Vendor) which I think everyone knows!

In the 1940s jazz musicians such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie adopted the rhythms into BeBop to create 'Cubop' and from then on such styles as mambo, cha cha, rumba etc became part of mainstream US 'showbiz'.

This could have been a very long post indeed so just a small selection of Cuba's best is offered here. (Mostly of the more recent music because the earlier recordings and fims suffer from poor sound quality plus it is difficult to find them.)









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