When the Piano Joined the Son

How piano joined the tres inside the conjunto — and became one of salsa's great rhythmic voices.

Piano did not enter son in one instant. Arsenio Rodríguez's decisive move was to make it a stable rhythmic and arranging voice inside the enlarged conjunto while keeping the tres at the centre. Lilí Martínez developed that interlocking language; New York big bands expanded Afro-Cuban cells into orchestral form; Eddie Palmieri and Papo Lucca made the keyboard increasingly percussive, harmonically adventurous and improvisational. Listen for repeated cells, displacement and conversation with bass and percussion — the grammar that turned piano into a salsa engine.

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