Chachachá

Working inside the charanga and the danzón de nuevo ritmo, the violinist Enrique Jorrín shaped a rhythm dancers could follow by ear — and the music spelled...

Working inside the charanga and the danzón de nuevo ritmo, the violinist Enrique Jorrín shaped a rhythm dancers could follow by ear — and the music spelled out the very step the feet were making, the cha-cha-cha. Emerging from the charanga world and the danzón de nuevo ritmo, it overtook mambo to become one of North America's most popular Latin dances by the mid-1950s. Tellingly, when Orquesta América cut Jorrín's "La engañadora" in 1953, the disc still labeled it mambo-rumba; the practice arrived before the name settled. Polished charangas like Orquesta Aragón then carried its bright, walkable swing around the world.

Era

Mambo & Cha-Cha-Cha

Traits

Slower ballroom genre derived from the danzón/mambo (created by Enrique Jorrín); overtook mambo as the most popular Latin dance in North America by the mid-1950s.