Latin pop storming U.S. music charts

Marc Anthony. Mana. Shakira. Elvis Crespo. Luis Miguel. Jaguares. Jaci Velasquez. Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.

Their names might not ring a bell right now, but if current trends continue, most of them will be familiar soon enough, as the stars of Latin pop cross over into the Anglo mainstream. Already this year, both Enrique Iglesias and former Menudo member Rick Martin have topped the Billboard singles chart, while Mana and the Buena Vista Social Club are gaining ground on the albums charts.

According to the industry buzz, Latin pop is music’s next big thing.

This isn’t the first time Latin music has invaded the American charts. In the 1930s, almost every dance band in America had at least a couple of rumbas and tangos in its repertoirce (even if the arrangements were so heavily Americanized that Latin listeners barely could recognize the rhythms). But the biggest boom came in the early ‘50s, when the mambo and cha-cha were introduced.

What constitutes Latin pop today?

Merely having a Hispanic surname does not make a singer a Latin pop star. Jennifer Lopez might have played Latin pop phenom Selena in the movies, but with her own album, “On the 6,” Lopez comes across as the New Yorkborn pop/soul singer she is in real life. Nor is there anything particularly Latin about the sound of Christina Aguilera’s self-titled debut (much of which was recorded in Sweden).

In fact, the notion that Latin pop is a specific musical style is misleading. Here in America, the Latin music market is divided into three segments: tropical, regional Mexican and plain old pop.

Musically, these styles resemble one another about as closely as hip-hop resembles country. The tropical style’s roots are in Cuba and the Caribbean,
best-known through the brassy, percussive sound of salsa; the regional Mexican style stresses guitar, violin and accordion, as heard in mariachi and “Tex-Mex” music. The pop end of the Latin market offers everything from big, string-soaked ballads to raucous, electric-guitar-powered rockers.

What makes it Latin is language. Whereas most of the releases on the mainstream charts are recorded in English, recordings aimed at the Latin market are made in Spanish. Crossover occurs when an artist who previously has appealed only to Spanish-speaking music fans ends up with an equally large audience of
English-speakers.

It’s not necessary to “habla Espanol” to understand the appeal of Latin music. But it does help to know the difference between merengue and mariachi. What follows is a brief guide to the major movements in Latin pop.

TROPICAL

Veteran rock star Carlos Santana likes to say, “People call what we do Latin, Spanish, whatever, but we’re all playing African music.” Nowhere is that more true than in the music of Cuba.

As with American popular music, the African influence on Cuban music has its roots in slavery. In the 1700s, the Catholic church in Cuba created “cabildos,” or mutual aid societies, which allowed the Africans to restore the tribal identities slavery sought to abolish. One of the results of the cabildos was the formation of several Afro-Cuban religious strains, complete with ritual music styles. Those Afro-Cuban beliefs survive today as Santeria, while echoes of the ritual music – particularly the drumming, which has sacred importance to Santeria – can be heard in almost every form of tropical Latin music, particularly salsa. People interested in hearing
Afro-Cuban ritual music in its pure form should look for either “Cuba: Les danses des dieux” (Ocora 559051), a Radio France recording of various rites, or “Sacret Rhythms of Cuban Santeria” (Smithsonian Folkways 40419).

REGIONAL MEXICAN

Given the number of Mexican immigrants who have come to America, it makes sense that pop based on Mexican traditional music is enormously popular in Texas and the Southwest. What may seem suprising is that some of this music is more American than it is Mexican.

POP

A popular misconception about Latin pop is that it is exotic, fiery, mysterious and strange.

Because Latin musicians are generally familiar with Anglo-American music trends, contemporary Latin pop runs the gamut from sweet, middle-of-the-road balladry to the edgiest hip-hop, hard rock and house music. One of the great ironies of Gloria Estefan’s career is that the music she made with the Miami Sound Machine when the group’s audience was mostly Spanish-speaking was less salsa-based than her big crossover hits, “Conga” and “Bad Boy.”

For years, the most popular Latin pop singer was Spanish balladeer Julio Iglesias, and his sons, Enrique and Julio Jr. (both of whom have English-language releases due this fall), seem likely to create something of a Latin pop dynasty. Nor are they atypical of the field, as singer such as Ricky Martin, Luis Miguel, Juan Gabriel, Cristian, Ana Gabriel and Carlos Ponce offer a similarly melodic, pop-savvy sound.

Others draw from traditional sources but update their music with electronic beats and rock or soul influences. Marc Anthony, for example, plays off salsa rhythms in his music, but he is by no means a strict traditionalist, and much the same can be said for stars such as Elvis Crespo and India.

Then there’s rock en Epsanol, the Latin rock movement, which has gained a growing market here in the United States. At the forefront of this movement is Mana, whose albums routinely go gold in America, but Shakira, Puya, Molotov, Los Amigos Invisibles and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs also have made significant inroads into the American scene.

Apart from language, these acts have little in common. Mana, for example, boasts a majestic, tuneful sound that could be described as a cross between Live and Bon Jovi (although there’s a strong Santana influence to their current album, “MTV Unplugged”). As a vocalist, Shakira could pass for Alanis Morissette’s kid sister, but her songs have more in common with Paula Cole’s soul-based sound.

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs do pop ska more skillfully and interestingly than No Doubt; Molotiv’s hip-hop/hard rock fusion is in the same league as Limp Bizkit’s; Puya plays the sort of thrash Godsmack fans live for; and Los Amigos Invisibles are devoted P-Funk acolytes.

Rumba was first Cuban style to leave mark elsewhere

Numerous pop forms grew out of Afro-Cuban ritual music, but perhaps the first to have major impact outside of Cuba was the rumba. This was a festive music that relied as much on objects at hand – spoons, pans, sticks, even furniture, as actual percussion instruments.

An Americanized version of the music – spelled “rhumba” – became quite popular in the 1930s, thanks to hit songs such as “The Peanut Vendor.” But the beat Americans danced to was far less complex than Africanized music popular in the Latin world. There, rumba was divided into three main types – “guaguanco,” rumba colombia and “yambu” – each with its own distinctive central beat, or “clave.”

Clave is an important concept in Afro-Cuban music. Unlike rock ’n’ roll, where the emphasis tends to fall simply on the after-beat – boom thwack! Boom-boom thwack! – Tropical Latin music tends to build on a specific rhythmic pattern. Although there are many variations, a clave beat tends to be three slow beats, followed by two fast ones: bom bom bom, bip-bip. (The closest thing in rock to a clave is the hambone, or “Bo Diddley beat.”)

Los Munequitos de Matanzas are considered the top rumba band in Cuba, and can be heard on “Conga Yambumba” (Qbadisc QB 9014). A good general survey of rumba can be found on “La Rumba de Cuba” (Milan Latino 36743).

The next dance craze to spread north from Cuba was mambo. Like much modern Latin pop, mambo resulted from the interaction of Caribbean and American culture
- specifically, the fusion of jazz and Cuban dance music. Bandleader Perez Prado had the first mambo hit in 1950, with “Mambo jambo (Que rico el mambo),” and later would have enormous commerical success with the single “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” in 1950. Perez also had a lot of success with the cha-cha, a Cuban dance derived from the French quadrille.

But the real “mambo kings” were Tito Puente, Machito and Tito Rodriguez, bandleaders with a strong grounding in jazz – Machito worked frequently with Dizzy Gillespie in the ‘40s – whose heyday was celebrated in the 1992 film “The Mambo Kings.”

These days, the dominant Cuban style is “son,” a fusion of Spanish and African elements that can be played by anything from small, guitar-based combos to brassy, percussive big bands. Perhaps the best-known son group in America is the Buena Vista Social Club. But for Cubans, the No. 1 son group is Los Van Van, along with the jazzy Irakere, the very modern NG La Banda and the more traditional Orquesta Ritmo Oriental. “Cuba Gold” (Qbadisc 9006) are good overviews of contemporary son.

Often associated with Cuba, salsa is actually U.S. music. As Charley Gerard and Marty Sheller write in “Salsa: The Rhythm of Latin Music,” it is best defined as “The New York sound, developed primarily by Puerto Rican New Yorkers, known as Nuyoricans.”

Although Puerto Rico has its own national musics, the “plena” and “bomba,” these play virtually no role in the sound of salsa, which relies heavily on the Afro-Cuban sound that arose in New York in the ‘40s and ‘50s. But salsa did absorb other beats from the Caribbean, in particular the brisk merengue of the Dominican Republic.

Like the rumba, salsa music is focused on a clave beat. Generally, a salsa band features a singr, several percussionists – including conga and timbales – piano, bass, guitar and a horn section stressing trombones over trumpets. Among the most famous and influential salsa stars are Beny More, Celia Cruz, Willie Colon, Ruben Blades – who started out with Colon – Juan Luis Guerra, Joe Arroyo and Albita Rodriguez, who now bills herself simply as Albita.

Celine Dion is at her titanic best in an hourlong concert special celebrating the restoration of New York’s Radio City Music Hall, singing such hits as ‘Love Can Move Mountains’ and ‘To Love You More.’ Fellow diva Gloria Estefan joins Dion for a special medley and the pop group ‘N Sync for a performance of ‘Music Of The Heart’ from the movie of the same name.

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