Salsa Rising: New York Latin Music of the Sixties Generation
Juan Flores
Abstract
This book provides a history of Latin music in New York from the early twentieth century to more recent years, with a focus on the period between 1960 and 1975. Beginning with an introductory chapter on the earlier decades, 1930–1960, with an emphasis on the period of the mambo and the first stage of Latin jazz, the main story begins with the generational breakthrough of 1960. At that point, with the emergence of pachanga and the jam session style of the Alegre All-Stars, a new musical generation comprised of New York–raised Puerto Ricans finds its first native musical expression. The followin ... More
This book provides a history of Latin music in New York from the early twentieth century to more recent years, with a focus on the period between 1960 and 1975. Beginning with an introductory chapter on the earlier decades, 1930–1960, with an emphasis on the period of the mambo and the first stage of Latin jazz, the main story begins with the generational breakthrough of 1960. At that point, with the emergence of pachanga and the jam session style of the Alegre All-Stars, a new musical generation comprised of New York–raised Puerto Ricans finds its first native musical expression. The following five chapters then trace the development of new stylistic innovations during the 1960s and early 1970s culminating in naming the music “salsa” around 1973. A coda then suggests the new currents emerging by 1975 indicative of a new, “post-salsa” generation, and brings the story to the millennium. Throughout there is a combination of ethnographic, interpretive, and critical approaches, with special attention to the conflicting roles of the local New York setting and of the commercial music industry in conditioning the formation of stylistic tastes and creative innovations. The books offers a major contribution by tracking the emergence of “salsa” as a generational sensibility and at the same time as a marketing term resulting in the worldwide diffusion of New York–based Latin music around the world.
Keywords:
salsa,
Latin music,
Puerto Ricans,
popular culture,
Cuban music
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199764891 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199764891.001.0001 |
