Son cubano

Son took shape in eastern Cuba in the late nineteenth century, drawing together Spanish string-song and African rhythmic and call-and-response practice....

Son took shape in eastern Cuba in the late nineteenth century, drawing together Spanish string-song and African rhythmic and call-and-response practice. Listen for the bright, syncopated tres weaving its guajeo over the two-bar clave, a singer trading lines with a chorus once the montuno opens, and bodies that can't keep still. As son moved west into Havana's solares it absorbed the city's rumba and entered the recording business through the sextet and septet format of the 1920s. Much of this house orbits it: son fed son montuno, mambo and Afro-Cuban jazz, and was later folded into the umbrella we call salsa.

Era

Son & Trova

Traits

Foundational Afro-Cuban genre organised by the clave, call-and-response montuno and the tres; classic 1920s–30s septeto format.