Spanish Tinge

The "Spanish tinge" is a retrospective idea, not a genre. The habanera and tresillo rhythms circulated between Havana and New Orleans on Gulf steamship...

The "Spanish tinge" is a retrospective idea, not a genre. The habanera and tresillo rhythms circulated between Havana and New Orleans on Gulf steamship traffic, and decades later Jelly Roll Morton — in his 1938 Library of Congress recordings — named that Latin lilt as something jazz "can't do without." It is a cross-current connecting Caribbean and North American music, not the parent of son, danzón, trova or guajira, each of which has its own Cuban history.

Era

Spanish Tinge & Foundations

Traits

Not a Cuban genre but a cross-current: the habanera/tresillo undercurrent Jelly Roll Morton named — retrospectively, in his 1938 Library of Congress sessions — as essential to jazz.